Glasgow Mega Snake

When I told people in London that I was going to Glasgow for a few days for work, the response was pretty much unanimous: "GLASGOW?? Why do you have to go there? It's shit." It was also compared to Detroit fairly universally (even by Brits who I imagine have never been to Detroit; to be fair, neither have I) - industrial, dangerous, gritty, depressing. So I left for City Airport to catch my British Airways flight (which had some of the worst food I've had on a plane in awhile, though I suppose it's nicely retro that they still serve dinner at all) prepared for the absolute worse.

And to be fair, as my driver took my through Glasgow, it wasn't much to take in visually compared to London. A lot of decrepit residential areas sparsely separated by occasional factory smoke stacks. Fortunately, I'm staying at the Grosvener Hilton on Byres Road, the closest thing to a London High Street that I've seen here in Glasgow (a High Street in Britain = Main Street in the States). There are a lot of restaurants and bars here. So after quickly getting settled in my room, I went outside to explore a bit. There is a huge joint across the street from my hotel that used to be a church (!!!) and has been transformed into some sort of bar/club which I imagine I will have a peek into before leaving, though it reminded me of Excalibur in Chicago for its cheesy lighting, stone architecture, and comical size.

The first thing I noticed walking around was that, yes, this is an industrial town. Maybe it's because I'm near Glasgow University, but during the entire course of the night, the only person I saw wearing a sport coat, or really not wearing jeans, was me. In London, this is unthinkable - almost everyone on a week night is in a suit or similar clothing. It was kind of refreshing! After walking down Byers Road for a bit, I decided I was going to eat in one of two alleys off the road, right across the street from each other near the Tube stop: Ashton Lane and Ruthven Lane. I settled on a restaurant called Stravaigin, a restaurant that focuses on fusing South Asian and Southeast Asian flavors (surprise, surprise) with Scottish flavors. It said it was a Michelin recommended restaurant, which seemed like high enough praise for me. And sure enough, it was fantastic - probably one of the best restaurants I've been to here in the UK. I started off extremely Scottish - haggis (my first haggis, which if you don't think about what it's made from - sheep hearts, livers, and lungs - is pretty tasty. It's sort of like eating a hotdog in that way) and Bunnahabhain scotch. I then had a slightly Indian-tinted pork loin and finished with another Scottish dish, a dessert called Cranachan, which is raspberries soaked in whiskey (again, extremely Scottish) with cream and oatmeal and is served shortbread biscuits. That too was incredible. When I was paying my bill, I asked which pub in the area I should go to for a nightcap and he told me to head over to Ashton Lane and go to the Ubiquitous Chip. So I did, and it was great. The Ubiquitous Chip, as I would find, is bizarrely laid out. There is the "Wee Pub", another normal-sized pub, a dining room, and a dance hall on the first floor, two more dining rooms and a third pub on the second floor, and a rooftop lounge on the third floor, all of which is connected by unmarked doors and stairs, so it is a bit confusing, but interesting to explore.

In the dancehall, a band was playing Scottish folk music and about 20 people were dancing a folk dance, and a lot of the guys were in kilts. This seemed a bit strange since I can't imagine people here actually wear kilts regularly. I then went up to the second floor bar to have a half pint of Chip71, a strong ale they brew specifically for the pub, and a half pint of this german lager that is apparently unpasteurized. So I probably got salmonella poisoning. Oh well. While sitting at the bar, a young scottish guy, Michael, came up to talk to me. He was extremely nice and explained to me that the reason the dancing and music was going on was because the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, who is a Scottish national figure and a sort of "Scottish Shakespeare" who wrote extensive poetry and music of national pride, was just celebrated on Sunday. So the dancing was the dregs left off of those parties. We got on to talking about the music scene here in Glasgow, which was honestly the only thing I knew about it since bands like Mogwai (for whom this post is named), Franz Ferdinand, and Belle and Sebastian hail from here. It turns out that pretty much everyone in the music scene knows each other - he knows members of each of those bands or knows people who are flat mates, wives, or friends with them. And one of the three friends he was at the pub with, a lovely girl named Carey, is the keyboardist for Camera Obscura, another Glaswegian band that is pretty famous and has a sound somewhere between Belle and Sebastian and a 1960s folk pop band. This was pretty amazing - I had only been in Glasgow for four hours and had already met a member of a band I respect. In that respect, this city reminds me of what I imagine Montreal, Portland, and most appropriately Detroit must be like - vibrant music scenes with many players, some of whom are quite famous, and where everyone knows each other and runs into each other. What a strange day - I literally started off this morning reading a review of the new Franz Ferdinand album (which is being released today), forgetting they were Glaswegian, started listening to their music, remembered they were from Glasgow, and by the end of the day, I was having a pint of beer with some of their friends.

To be fair, Michael also compared Glasgow to Baltimore for how dangerous and unhealthy it is. There is a fair bit of violence and drug abuse here. In fact, in the East End (just like London, the East End is the uglier part of town), he said the life expectancy is actually lower than the Gaza Strip!! This is due to many, many drug-related deaths among young people, violence, and the fact that people who survive into their mid-to-late-20s just move away to escape it. And that going farther West of the West End (where I'm staying) is apparently scary as well.

So it isn't all indie rock, friendly faces, and haggis here. But still - in this small part of town that I have been in, the food has been good, the beer and scotch even better, and the people seemingly so much nicer and even-keeled than the people in London. And the music scene is incredible. I'm going to go back to London and telling everyone they can shove it - Edinburgh might be nice for an eye-popping weekend trip of history, but Glasgow is as real and interesting as anywhere, if you're willing to scratch just beneath the surface.