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wetmini-blog · 7 years

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Glasgow

The plan was to sleep on the plane, which departed at 11:45 Halifax time (delayed because they would have gotten to Glasgow too quickly, like how often does that happen) and landed in Glasgow at 8:00am. So it was supposed to be a perfect go to sleep at night, wake up in Glasgow in the morning, and VOILA no jet lag. Well. The extremely tall tailwinds made the flight only 4 hours 13 minutes. (!!! normally this would be amazing.) Syna had filled me with spaghetti, delicious beer, two cones, and a gummy. Plus I had one of my trusty sleeping pills, I was determined to end my amazing talent of never being able to sleep on a plane. You'd think I'd be knocked the fuck out. But no. No, I was not.

A very delirious and dizzy Karyn stepped off the plane in Glasgow. All I had to do was walk out front, turn left and get on a bus. What I did was walk right, circle around a car park, twice, walk up a random street not meant for pedestrians, almost got hit by a bus, and chased said bus to where the goddamn buses were, right out goddamn front of the goddamn airport. Lugging my shit and getting drenched, of course. Wet, hot, dank, fogged up glasses Karyn gets on the bus, pays her 7 pounds 50 pence fare, and ok sweet, good to go. All I had to get me to the hotel was a lousy screenshot, and I say lousy because the adjacent streets weren't labelled, only the ones I needed. So, I get off the bus at the wrong stop, of course, armed with my useless screenshot, and proceed in the wrong direction. I wander around George's Square for a while, my leather laptop case gift from Kasia is entirely soaked, but I'm cool. And man, all this walking is making me thirsty. I know Scots give absolutely useless directions from experience, so I don't bother asking for a while. OK, Finally, fuck my life, I need to ask someone. I do, she directs me.... I walk in a circle and and right back to her. I make her give me the directions again, and I set off.

I get to the hotel. But it's not my hotel. I text Stmoo and ask him if I'm getting punked. He says, there's more than one hotel of that name in Glasgow. GOOD TO KNOW. I'm not angry though, I'm not rushing. I'm just thirsty and dank. The hotel guy gives me a map and shows me where to go: actually at the very top left of the map and I'm at the bottom right. Sweet. I ask him for a drink. He says bar doesn't open till Noon. I say, aren't I in Scotland? Like WTF. I set out. Go to another bar. No, no booze. So I ask some poor hapless local where the F in bloody well Scotland can I get a drink at this hour. She directs me to the Iron Horse, and bless her, the directions make absolutely perfect sense and get me there, in spite of her accent. I got this. I walk in looking like the Dank Baglady from Hell, drop my loads of shit, pony up to the bar, and ask a girl for a shot and a ha'pint. (Belhaven's Best is most similar to John Smith's and thus will be my beer of choice for the forseeable future.) She says, she can serve me a drink, but only if I eat some food. I show her I have pepperoni in my bag. She's not impressed. No, I must spend 3 pounds for a bacon roll. Cool, I order that. It was exactly a bacon roll. Some fried back bacon shoved into a breadroll. No fuss, no muss. Now I'm feeling a bit pepped up and ready to make the trek. Glasgow is like a tiny San Francisco, lots of hills. I strap on all my bullshit and head out, feeling still delirious but much less thirsty. Hours later and ten more sets of directions, I arrived at the hotel, stripped, laid on the bed, and fell asleep for 3 hours. When I woke up I was super confused as to why the fuck I woke up. Stmoo's train would arrive in an hour and I had to be a little less greasy and dank when that happened, as we'd be going out in public. Man, I did not want to wake up. That was super tough. I washed my face, put on my eyebrows, went to Rizza's shop (she wasn't there) and then back to the hotel to wait. As Stmoo walked up I stuck my head out the window and gave him a warm friendly "ELLO!" I gave him a minute to wash up and we set off to our first bar. I had chosen Sedongo or whatever it was called because Google told me it was cheap food and beer. The Scotch was a 12 year old Glenfiddy and it was only 3 pounds for a very healthy pour. I also ate some thai noodles and tempura tofu. You know, because when in Glasgow, eat fucking thai food? Yes. We swallowed our last mouthful and set off again.

Stmoo makes me fucking laugh. He says the weirdest shit. For example, the further we got from the hotel, the more I worried about his health and wouldn't he need his jacket? And to make fun of me and my coat and umbrella, he says "You're talkin' shite, you're under a brolley." And naturally I'm spending the day both getting used to his accent and imitating it. By 7:30 we had a bet going that I couldn't go an hour without mockingbirding him.

After the second - third? - bar, we somehow agreed that we had to find the shittiest, nastiest pub in all of Glasgow. We were meandering down towards the "wee fun place" (mini fair - he insists he did not in fact call it that) when some kid tried to abscond us to sell us something. Instead, we asked him where the absolute crappiest bar could be found. He gave a phenomenal set of directions - down until the subway tunnel and go right, then where there's another tunnel, go through it, turn right again, continue ahead, until we find a statue of a man in a gas mask. The bar's across the street. We followed these directions, but got thirsty, so slammed another pint in some shitty hipster basement bar, but to be fair it did look like they made delicious pizzas. We asked the bartender where the crappiest bar in all the land was, and he gave us the same name. When we got to the place we were very sad to see that it was not in fact shitty. Bottles of wine for 6 pounds. Bottles of beer for 98 pence. Come on, this is the best bar of all time, you fucktards. We set off again. We're learning that hipsters think shitty actually means awesome, so we need to stop asking fucking hipsters. I decide I need some food so we go into this totally packed hipster bar, I know, I know, I keep doing it to myself. But, they had poutine bolognese, and it was fucking delicious. They also had a gin I hadn't tried and that was good too. I had to make them correct their menu spelling of "reposado" because it offended me. So we ask the ginger kid where the absolute shittiest bar is, but this time, we get real specific. I say it has to smell like piss, and Stmoo says we have to be at actual risk of being shanked for cheering for the wrong football team. Kid's eyes go very wide and we can tell he doesn't want to tell us where to go, but he knows. HE KNOWS. So he gives us three places, totally glazing over the first one, which means, that's gonna be our winner. And we head off again. We walk into what is supposed to be a totally scary place, but it's totally not. The football game is in fact on, people are in fact angry (green team is down 2-0, apparently evil red team is winning) and no one tries to get out of the way at the bar for us to order a drink. Cool, snobby local crowd, but no one is super gangster or pissing on things. We can tell though, in about 2 hours, the place will be really unfriendly. Stmoo asks a dude at the bar if he can move over so we can order a drink, and gets a tongue lashing for wearing a red shirt. At the same time though, the guy kind of sidles over, so we get our drinks.We sat down at a table we invented, improvised stool of sorts, and were apparently surrounded by friendly people. People give you a dirty look, you're pretty sure they want to shank you, but then you say "I like your shirt!" and suddenly you're their best friend. We had a lady take a picture of us and everything. A server was picking up empties, and we asked her, ok SERIOUSLY, FOR REALLY REALS, where is the LITERALLY SHITTIEST bar in Glasgow? She said, that's easy, that's right next door! So off we went. And YES! In the doorway was a disabled gentleman with a cane, staggering inside. Good sign! We walk in, and our nostrils are filled with the glorious stank of piss and disinfectant. We've done it! These cunts are watching the football game, too. And red is still evil. Stmoo makes me promise not to tell anyone in here that he's from Sutherland. Sunderland? I don't know, I can't understand him. Again, Stmoo has to ask someone at the bar to scootch out of the way so he can order something. But he says "can I order something," and the guy says "you can order anything you want," without moving. So it took a really long time but we did end up with a whole round for 4 pounds. We make ourselves an even sketchier table out of a display shelf thing and two pilfered chairs. The place is a goddamn tomb, it is glorious. Like it was once a tomb that people pissed in and then set up a bar. It is horrid. It is exactly what we've been searching for.

Cue random drunk Scot that you can't understand! This pleasant fellow came up and chatted to us. Chatted to Stmoo, I had no idea what the fuck they were saying. Buddy was pretty sure Stmoo and I were getting married this week, so that's funny. I was doing one of those smile-and-nod smiles, and Token Drunk Scot says "aagghgh lookit the smile onthelassie." I go to the bathroom. And the bathroom is the WORST! The absolute worst lilac colour adorns the stalls, like the owner said, I run the absolute shittiest bar in all of Glasgow and I want the absolute shittiest lilac colour for the absolute worst toilets, can you sell me that please?

Back at our "table" which is completely in the way, this little arched passage that separated the two tombs, this kid staggers into Stmoo's drink and smashes it. He then leaves the building. I said I'm pretty sure that kid owes you a beer. So Stmoo chases him out. We get out of the bar and this kid's already halfway down the street, talking to two other kids. Stmoo goes over to tell the kid, pretty sure you owe me a pint mate, and the kid looks terrified and runs away, after doing a bunch of panicked "please don't hurt me" gestures.The kids that he was talking to tell us, he's really sorry, do you guys want to come to a gay bar? Stmoo and I look at each other, our shittiest bar mission was accomplished, so yes, let's gay karaoke. Fucking LET'S. The nice kids introduce themselves, with their gaelic names, Caitlin and Caeden. I say "My name's Karyn! We're the KKK!" They shush me, looking around to ensure no one heard, and then correct me that their names are spelled with Cs. I really like these kids, so much that I got Caeden's digits. They take us to a bar that's pretty gay and fancy and swirly, nice decor, red walls, round booths, and yet still a fucking hipster bartender. A gay hipster though, so that's slightly less awful.

Stmoo's fading now, I know he wants to go to sleep, but I really wanted to karaoke. I decided to be the nice guy and get him back to the hotel, telling the Cs that I will come back to Glasgow and I will call them and we WILL do karaoke. So suddenly I'm the fucking Master of Glasgow. Completely making up for my total directional failures earlier in the day, like Chris learning Spanish by drinking too much and losing a shoe, drinking in Glasgow has given me this perfect awareness of where we are and where we need to go. Stmoo keeps bitching about a taxi and I keep assuring him we're almost there. And from a totally different neighborhood, I navigated us safely home. But first, he had to get a bottle of wine from offsales. He tried to get me a bottle of whiskey, bless him, but couldn't. You can't get offsales after 10pm in Glasgow. I KNOW! It's supposed to be fucking Scotland! Traitors.

On the way back to the hotel, he stops in a supermarket for a corkscrew. I watch the entire hilarious shamble through the window, him wandering the aisles while the security guard watches him like a hawk.

The hotel was funny because Stmoo wanted to drink wine when he clearly didn't need any, and I was pretty pumped about sleeping. I did fall asleep, then I was having a dream about someone saying to me "how can you sleep through all this noise?" and woke up with his face snoring right into my face. It was 3am. After an hour I went to the reception and asked for another room, but they were booked. Fuck. So I had earplugs and headphones and bianural beats playing and I could still hear the fucker snoring. He also stole my blanket. I am pretty sure I never fell back asleep.

At 6ish for some reason, he gets up and tries to pour wine in my cup. I tell him to go fuck himself. He says "wha, you don't like someone babbling to you at half six?"

So I mean I hate him, it's not fair he gets to sleep, in his attractive outfit of only tighty whities, and I'm the one with the jetlag. But man, this sentence makes me fucking laugh. And then he's complaining that he can hear people checking out of the hotel now, "how can anyone sleep with all that racket?" How, indeed.

We got our lives together and headed off to the King Street station. Bought a ticket to Edinburg for 12 pounds. Got on the train car closest to the snack trolley. Once it came to me I asked for a coffee and an egg sandwich. Stmoo asked for a cider, and I said "you have booze? I don't want a fucking coffee!" Everyone on the car looked at me. I guess it was pretty loud. Then I looked at my egg sandwich and said "14 dollars! I don't want this sandwich." The kind Scot operating the snack trolley informed me, that's the time, it's only 2 pounds 70. Well of course that's the time to serve it by, this is after all, the motherland, where there are almost no preservatives in everything. Stmoo was quite amused by all this.

I added a tiny bottle of Jack to my order and poured it into my coffee, and said to it, "Get in me."

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