On Saturday, we (Bhuvanesh and I) went to the Loch Lomond highland games at Balloch. These guys wear shorts under their kilts.
Many a cabre was toss'd. It's kind of impressive.
And boys wrestling girls inevitably leads to tears (at least it did in this case, which was a bit unfortunate). No permanent injuries though.
However, there's only so much of the sorts of things that go on at highland games that one can tolerate, so we went off for a walk along the opposite shore of Loch Lomond, which turned into a bit of a trek...
... but that was probably good preparation for yesterday's walk up goatfell on the Isle of Arran, which involves a dash to the train station, a fast train to the coast, a leisurely ferry trip and then a reality check about how unfit I am at the moment.
We ran into Alasdair from uni - he was visiting his parents on Arran.
The views on the way up are great
There's a deer in there...
The views from the top are pretty spectacular, as all the guidebooks tell you, so it's worth the pain I'm feeling today.
And when we got down we had time for some sheep-watching
and a look at some old pagan standing stones - can't find these mentioned on any websites, but they were probably erected about 4000 years ago like the others on the island.
Then, a ferry and train trip later I arrived back pretty tired.
After a shower, I discovered that some joker tried to set off the fire alarm, because when I walked past the kitchen I smelled something burning - someone had put bread (charcoal when I found it) in the stove and left it on. I think it was my bread too. Anyway, I was prepared for another awakening in the night, but it didn't happen.
Today is Glasgow Fair Monday - it's a public holiday dating from the 12th century or something, so I slept in, recovering from the last couple of days of activity. I might wander over to the fair later - the sun is out. I feel exhausted, but a walk to the fair is probably a good recovery idea to stop me from seizing up.
Recovery day
I had a productive weekend... in sightseeing terms.
Saturday the sights were obtained in Stirling. The first thing I noticed was that, in stark contrast with Glasgow, the streets were actually clean. It seemed to me to have more old nice buildings than Edinburgh, and the castle was more "castley" too. I went with Bhuvanesh again, but I ran into Josep who is a Croatian guy also visiting U. Glasgow who was in Cairncross House for a few days when I first arrived, so we all grouped up for the day.
There was some sort of falconry demonstration going on - why there was an owl there I don't know.
After the castle we walked to the Wallace monument
This dragon
lay at one end of the Bridge of Allan, along the way.
That was Saturday. Then, today I walked around town - went to the Gallery of modern art, which has what I assume is one of the few native parrots in Scotland
and then I went over to Glasgow cathedral,
St. Mungo's museum, the necropolis and wandered back through U. Strathclyde campus in anticipation of a visit there to talk about my BEC physics.
I took about 290 photos this weekend, which is a lot more than I have been taking.
Wolf crying championship training
I haven't heard the excuse yet, but last night's fire evacuation was at 4:30am, which seems to be during the non-REM part of my sleep cycle. By the time I leave here, I expect to have a complete sleep cycle map based on random sampling at various times of night. Off to Stirling to see the castle and Wallace monument tomorrow. I'm finally making some progress with my physics too, which is a relief.
A break in the rain
The rain left us alone on Friday, so a few of us decided to have a BBQ after work rather than go to a pub. This photo is taken at 9:45pm, so it's still light very late, and annoyingly very early too. I've never used a disposable BBQ before - I assume you can get them in Oz, although I've never noticed. Anyway it worked well enough. We thought we probably weren't supposed to use it in the park, but the police and council vehicles cruised by, took a look at us, and ignored us. Left-to-right: Barry, Alasdair and Daryl.
Saturday promised poor weather ... and delivered. So I went to see the Burrell collection, which was a nice day out - it's small, high quality and free (a museum/gallery by the way) that can be seen in an afternoon.
And on Sunday I became a couch potato and watched the very wet British F1 GP and the slightly wet Wimbledon men's final, whilst avoiding getting wet myself by cleverly not going outside.
Cry wolf part 2
This is what the local fire trucks (2 of them) look like outside the place I'm staying.
No, I didn't take this photo on the night of the last post -. I took it 10 minutes ago. At least the idiot smoking in their room had the decency to do so at a reasonable hour this time.
Bleary eyed
Some joker in the student residence where I'm staying burned something in one of the kitchens last night at 3am, setting off the fire alarm and causing a building evacuation and the fire brigade to attend. Even then it took a while to turn it off and stop it retriggering.
Saturday I went to the Hunterian gallery and the Hunterian museum, which is part of the university, and had a chance to actually walk around the campus. It is a cool place with yet more cool gargoyles (I think they're gargoyles - I need to take a look when it's raining) and generally impressive architecture. I still have to find out whether the interiors of towers etc. are accessible.
Newton's death mask actually looks a bit like one expects from other statues I've seen. I guess there are other copies of this around elsewhere?
They've got one of these long stripey men (Mighty Boosh reference):
Sunday was meant to involve some hill walking, but transport fell through, so I took the opportunity to hunt down some new boots. Sexy new GoreTex boots, ready for New Zealand.
After the boot search I also visited The Barras, which is I think meant to be Glasgow's version of a flea market - it was interesting, with lots of rubbish being sold. The Euro cup final was last night too, so now I don't feel any incentive to watch any more TV.
