Scotland 2023

Nice little getaway to Scotland. I had never been before, so we decided to spend a few days in Glasgow, then a few in Edinburgh. Overall I really enjoyed it. I think central Edinburgh isn't for me in the same way that central London isn't, but I liked Glasgow and Leith a lot.

I keep a little bullet-point list going in iA Writer, so I've cleaned it up and just posted it as it's easier to read than some prosaic nonsense.

Monday

• Took the train from Brighton to Victoria at around 7am, Victoria to Euston, Euston to Glasgow
• I always have good ideas for things at impractical times
• There's always someone on the train making some noise that irritates me, and it's usually the genre of person who is into speedcubes and thinks everyone in the carriage will be super interested in their very loud conversation. These ones were arguing about who was the most "OG" in their town by who remembered play equipment in their local park. I don't think they know what the G stands for.
• Walk to the hotel was uphill and seemed to go on forever. Very heavy suitcase
• Hotel room was delightful. Hard mattress. Good size. Has a safe.
• Immediately went out to get some food. Bread Meats Bread had been on our itinerary for a while. Wants to be 7bone. Nowhere near as good as 7bone. Bit disappointed
• Cheered ourselves up with a sundae from Hotel Chocolat
• Walked by the river. Rivers smell
• Someone needs to look into Glasgow's traffic light timings. It takes so long to cross the road here and you're always crossing the road

Tuesday

• Gym is decent. Get sweaty for an hour
• Shower head is attached to the wall. I don't like that
• I find a useful barometer for a place is the selection of trainers available in places like size?. The more pairs I'd wear, the more I'll like a place. Theory holds for Glasgow
• Enjoyed the Banksy exhibition. The stars are the exhibit labels; I like how Banksy writes and pretty much every single one of them made me laugh. Especially the one for his Simpsons couch gag
• Paint markers by the exit so you can write on the walls. Whole wall covered, except the fire alarm. Safety first
• University buildings are beautiful
• Loop and Scoop. Churros and gelato. Loved this place, and thought the churros were better than we had in Valencia
• Botanic Gardens were incredible. Beauty everywhere. Strongly recommend going to them
• Shouldn't have gone to the gym - absolutely exhausted
• Kelvingrove museum was good but I was not in the mood. Got to see a Dali though, which was worth going for
• Rishi's Indian Aroma was delicious but I didn't like their onion bhajis. They do them weird, like a deep-fried lateral slice of an entire onion (think onion ring, but not a ring).
• Billy Bob Thornton was standing outside the window. His band was playing in Glasgow that evening. "That guy looks like Billy Bob Thornton" is almost never him
• Secret Genius of Modern Life is good. We don't watch a lot of TV as it airs so miss out on things like this
• Fell asleep immediately. Probably don't need to go to the gym if we're going to be doing all this walking

Wednesday

• Gym again. Intervals on spin bike. Hope we're not doing lots of walking today
• Swirly breads from Sainsbury's for breakfast
• More people making noise on the train. Why must people play noise through their phone speakers in public spaces? It's so annoying.
• Train cancelled whilst we're on it. I should not have to deal with delay repay on holiday
• Buses are slow and expensive
• Dumbarton's local famous person was a novelist, playwright, critic, and surgeon. And he died at 50.
• Not really anywhere lunchy to eat in Balloch so we had McDonald's. Their milkshake machine was working 🎉
• Loch Lomond cruise was lovely. 2 hours of breathing the freshest air I've breathed in ages. And owing to my general unimpressedness with the general public, Tabitha and I bogarted the front of the boat for the entire two hours. Did I mention I did intervals on a spin bike today? I shouldn't have done that.
• I quite like Irn Bru
• Got a suction cup mount for my GoPro
• Had dry roasted peanuts and Irn Bru for dinner. Everyone went to sleep. I watched YouTube

Thursday

• No gym
• Our hotel room curtains are fully blackout. I'm not used to that
• Delay Repay websites are an amazing example of trying to discourage people's access to something by using abhorrent UI
• I counted out my tablets for the week before we left, and still didn't bring enough. I cannot count to seven
• Caught up on work emails in bed. Wrote a stupidly long email on my phone because I couldn't be bothered to move and get my laptop
• Bus to the Necropolis. Best necropolis I've ever visited. Weather is a bit trash though
• Necropolis is better than the cathedral, but I have been to a lot of cathedrals so my standards are high
• Proper Egyptian falafel for lunch. Carbs ❤️
• Riverside museum and general mooching around by the river. Think we found an area where I, in retrospect, should not have been walking around with my camera out taking pictures
• Graeme Obree's bikes
• Chaiiwalla cheese toastie for dinner
• Oppenheimer at IMAX (Tabitha didn't go - she and Charlotte went to some Queen thing at the planetarium, which I'm still not fully sure I get)
• Lonnnnnggg walk from Science Centre to the hotel
• People don't whistle any more, and it makes whistling seem even more suspicious
• I didn't eat my movie snack at the cinema so I ate it in bed instead. I like Minstrels

Friday

• Slow start. Checking out of DoubleTree today. Bit sad - I like this room and would rather stay. We saw an Ibis Budget on our walk yesterday and I'm not looking forward to staying in one for the next couple of nights
• BRGR if you try to say it sounds like a Glaswegian saying "burger", but they pronounce it "bee-arr-gee-arr" which seems like a missed opportunity to me
• Really enjoyed my burger
• Lots of trains, lots of walking. Starting to wish I'd brought the car
• I liked Edinburgh Zoo a lot
• First time ever seeing a panda in real life. Both of them had positioned themselves with their backs to glass, making it impossible to photograph them. Classic panda behaviour
• Saw a sloth awake and moving for the first time. Helpful zookeeper told me the sloth's route so I could position myself to take a half-decent picture
• Ben and Jerry's Cookie Vermonster
• Our hotel is so expensive for what it is
• I get why people hate buses (I don't specifically remember why I wrote this)
• Started to stream the F1 qualifying but fell asleep

Saturday

• Tram to Edinburgh
• Edinburgh central is pretty much identical to most other British city centres, and I'm over it. Beautiful architecture, and weirdly vertical which I'm sure is lovely when it's not raining
• Tram to Leith. Leith is more my speed for now. It's right on the cusp of being cool enough to make it a candidate for gentrification
• Pizza Geeks for lunch. We chose this place because they had an item on the menu called Philip J Fries, but they were out of fries. I know it's going to seem paranoid, but this literally always happens to me
• Nice walk by the river in Leith
• Long walk back to Edinburgh to spy on the shops
• Saw Greyfriar's Bobby
• Rained so we ducked into the museum to look at Dolly the sheep. Looks just like other sheep 😏
• This new walking silent disco thing. Whoever invented that; I want to stamp on their foot
• Tram very busy because an international rugby match just finished. Of course it did
• Some nerd watching wrestling on his phone with (you guessed it!) the volume up
• Rugby fans smirking at the wrestling nerd
• Tabitha is obsessed with highway cop shows. I have no idea why but it's so funny how much she loves them
• Max Verstappen is so fast, it's ridiculous
• New episode of Futurama

Sunday

• Slept terribly. Super grumpy
• Got an early train. We might be home 3 hours earlier than we thought which would be very nice
• Lucky we got the earlier train because everything delayed by one hour (yay more delay repay!)
• Berwick-upon-Tweed looks beautiful
• Dunbar looks beautiful
• East coast tour next time?
• Cherry Colin the Caterpillars
• Wheels on the suitcase are too smooth and it tries to run away whenever the train ac/decelerates so I have to hug it from Blackfriars to Brighton
• Glad to be home

If you'd rather look at all the photos I took than just the few I curated, be my guest. It's your life.

I was going to do food as a separate post but now I think it'll be quite nice to have it here.