July 7- Glasgow, Scotland

Today I decided to visit Scotland's largest city, Glasgow. I have several field reports due for every one of my classes, and I thought I would be productive and try to get a couple of them finished early on in the voyage. I have to visit three religious sites for Foundational Religions (all places of different faith: ie. Christian, Jewish, Muslim and/or Pagan), a religious museum for Foundational Religions, and see some cool buildings for Architectural History.

I thought I was going to have to go to the city by myself because all of my friends had other plans, but thankfully I ran into Ryan yesterday who said he would join me on my scholarly quest into Glasgow. We grabbed an early breakfast and took a train into the city.

As I learned in my Architectural class, Glasgow has undergone some serious renovations in the past couple decades. Similar to Bilbao, it used to be an industrial town in the early 1900’s. Also like Bilbao, its economy took a dip after WWII. Through some awesome urban planning, it is now a popular, clean city where you can find lots of fun things to see and do.

I found the T.A.R.D.I.S in Glasgow!

First things first, we went to check out the Glasgow Cathedral. I thought it would be a good building to include in my architectural field report. The Cathedral was consecrated in 1197 by Glasgow’s patron saint, St. Mungo. It’s one of the very few gothic, medieval churches left in all of Scotland. It was very unique and beautiful. I also believe it’s one of the oldest buildings I've visited on this trip. To think that this building was built before the Europeans even discovered America was pretty mind-blowing.

The Glasgow Cathedral

They even had a chapel dedicated to nurses =)

Behind the cathedral stood the Necropolis of Glasgow. Necropolis can literally be translated as “city of the dead.” Basically, it’s this gigantic cemetery built on and around a large hill in the middle of the city. When we were done looking at the cathedral, we went through and explored some of the Necropolis. The old graves were pretty creepy, and the overcast weather gave the whole area an eerie feeling.

View of the Cathedral from the Necropolis

City of the Dead

Unfortunately, the religious museum I wanted to see that was close to the Cathedral was closed on Mondays (go figure), so we then headed across town to the Garnethill Synagogue. The synagogue was going to be my religious site for the day, but unfortunately (again) that was closed as well. I wasn't too disappointed though because I figure I can just use the Glasgow Cathedral instead. We then stopped at a little sandwich shop for lunch solely because its name was “Zeus’s Café.” I got half of a tuna sandwich, a bowl of lentil soup, and a white coffee (coffee with milk). It really hit the spot. I think soup and sandwiches are becoming my new favorite lunchtime meal.

Soup and Sandwich = Perfection

We then headed on a long walk towards the Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Supposedly it is Glasgow’s most impressive museum. I didn't think it was anything special, but then again I did just visit the British Museum and National Gallery in London so I guess maybe I got a little spoiled.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. On our way to the museum, we walked through the main shopping center of Glasgow. There were a lot of clothing stores that we weren't interested in at all. We did, however, stop at the Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Willow Tearooms. Mackintosh was a super famous Scottish architect known today for his modern and unique sense of design. The Willow Tearooms were super beautiful. Very posh and classy.

The Willow Tearooms

Tearooms became popular in Scotland back in the early 1900s because they were an alternative place for wealthy people to hang out and socialize other than the local pubs. Tearooms strictly did not serve alcohol. Unfortunately, we just had lunch and didn't have time to drink any tea. On our way to the Kelvingrove Museum, Ryan and I just happened to meet our two friends Konrad and Steven on the street. They had just left the museum, but they were willing to go back and hang out with us. Like I said, the museum wasn't super impressive, but it gave us a nice walk through the city to get there.

The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

After the museum, we parted ways from Konrad and Stephen and headed back towards the city center. We happened to come across the St. Vincent Church which was one of the buildings I learned about in my Architectural History class. It’s this really old church built by Alexander “Greek” Thomson in 1859. He was a famous Scottish architect who did a lot of work in reconstructing Glasgow during the population boom in the mid-1800s. His style was called “Greek-revival” or “neo-classical” because of the obviously Greek characteristics of his buildings. In the St. Vincent Church, he not only tried to incorporate the Parthenon in his design, but he attempted to fit attributes of the entire Athenian Acropolis into one building. The result is this big, beautiful, classic, temple-like church that is actually home to the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

St. Vincent Church

Greek-revival Style Architecture

Anyways, when we finally made it back to central Glasgow, we looked for a place to have dinner. We came across a small restaurant that looked decent. I had a heartbreakingly awful dilemma of trying to decide to get seafood pasta or a veggie burger. Ryan pointed out that we have pasta every single night on the ship, and I made my decision. Veggie burger it was (with chips of course). I haven’t had a good veggie burger for a long, long time, so dinner was delicious. We walked around some more and then decided to head back to the train station. We bought some candy bars and a bag of black licorice before getting on our train to Greenock.

Veggie Burger and Chips!

After getting off the train, we made our way to the ship. Right before we entered the terminal though, I realized I couldn't take my black licorice on board! We can only bring sealed food items on the ship, and I had opened the bag to have a few pieces of candy on the train. I was very disappointed because I was saving the rest of the bag for later. We couldn't just throw the bag away though. So instead, Ryan and I took a walk along the water and shoved our faces full of black licorice. The sugar rush was sickening, but I’m not going to say it was horrible. Being forced to eat an entire bag of delicious candy isn't always a bad thing.

Once we conquered the black licorice, we were able to get on the ship. Ryan and I parted ways for the evening.