a weekend in glasgow

A friend from my study abroad days wrote on my facebook wall the other day: Did you see 36 Hours in Glasgow in the NY Times this weekend? The slide show is pretty spot on.

And it is! I never thought I'd feel so homesick for a place where I never quite felt at home. It hits on all the right places.

The Botanic Gardens:


Oran Mor, that crazy church-turned-whisky-bar:

About Oran Mor the Times says Oran Mor is more than a bar; it’s a complex of multiple watering holes and restaurants, a beer garden, a nightclub and a performance space that features “A Play, a Pie and a Pint," a popular lunch series. I say, don't wander alone down the back stairs looking for the bathroom because you'll never find your way back to your friends and you'll spend two hours drinking Arran Malt with some cellist, who later proposes.

King Tut's Wah Wah Hut!


The Ubiquitous Chip, where I turned 21:


And Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, next to my house. I walked by this every day, and ran in the parks around it:


Inside:


Mentioned, also, are the Willow Tea Rooms, ceilidhs, Ashton lane! The picture for Ashton lane doesn't do it justice, I am not sure why the decision was made to photograph it during the day when it looks so beautiful at night.

This is the best picture I can find of it at night, but it's pretty disappointing. I miss you Ashton Lane, £1 cocktails, Belle & Sebastian DJs, that bartender who would set grasshoppers on fire.

The only things that are really missing from this list are the GFT, Glasgow Film Theatre, where the movie screen is covered by a curtain until the lights dim, and cobblestoned Otago Lane. The latter was, by far, my favorite part of the city. It is the home of the best little tea bar (Tchai-Ovna), a pretty decent record store (Mixed Up Records), and probably my two favorite second hand book shops ever. Voltaire & Rousseau was dimly lit and filled with piles of books, literally piles, with no real system of organization (philosophy in one corner, history in another, novels in a third). In a few places there were shelves placed directly in front of other shelves. I spent many hours on the floor there, sifting through books with a black and white spotted cat on my lap. The owner of the bookstore wore fingerless gloves, muttered to himself constantly, and kept his change in a little purse. There may have been a cash register but I never saw it, as it was (no exaggeration) impossible to reach the counter, there were so many books in front of it. I assume the cat belonged to him but, as he largely ignored both myself and my feline companion, perhaps its real owner had fallen victim to an encyclopedia avalanche and was rotting somewhere in a pile of textbooks.

I can't find any record of the other bookstore on Otago Lane and I've forgotten its name (if I ever knew it). It was the opposite of Voltaire & Rousseau, bright and clean, meticulously organized. The little old man who worked there and I became great friends. He wasn't the owner, he always told me, he was just a friend who was filling in for a few days. Still, he was there every time I visited. I helped him rearrange the poetry section once and he gave me a few books that no longer fit on the shelves, including a rare compilation of T.S. Eliot poems he had priced at £60.

And Tchai-Ovna! The most wonderful little tea shop in the world, with mismatched furnture, tiny nooks just my size, and a front porch where we'd wrap ourselves in layers of blankets and hot water bottles, braving even the coldest, wettest days for hookahs and Turkish Apple tea.





I wish I had better pictures from my time in Glasgow. I had a crappy camera and iPhoto resized everything into tiny, sad images. I guess I'll have to go back!