Hello again, and greetings from Glasgow! As I’m heading to London on an overnight Megabus tonight (not super excited about this other than not having to pay for accommodation tonight), I figured it was time to update all your beautiful faces about the rest of my time in Scotland.
Remember when I was in Edinburgh and said I was super excited to do some Scottish dancing? It’s called “Ceilidh” (pronounced kay-lee) and turned out to be just as wonderful as I hoped. A bunch of us in the hostel headed over to a pub, and there was a live band onstage with a decently sized dance area. The musicians were actually the ones who “taught” us the dance (very poorly, by just telling us the steps one time and not correcting us when we were wrong) and it didn’t take long for an enormous group of us to crowd the entire dance floor so that there was barely anywhere to move. I spent most of the time dancing with a new American friend of mine, and because I’m crazy I danced literally every single dance. So. Fun.
When the dancing was finally over, a group of us continued to hang out at the pub while a funk band went on. I spent the rest of the evening talking to a Belgium guy that I met there, and finally got myself home, completely exhausted, by around 3am.
Which WASN’T A SMART IDEA, because I had to get up at about 6:30 for a tour of the highlands the next day. And if there’s one Important Truth about Genevieve, it’s that she desperately needs her sleep. I somehow pulled myself out of bed and made it onto my bus for the ten hour tour, about half of which I was definitely asleep and hopefully not snoring. I literally just couldn’t stay awake. It was terrible. Especially because this wasn’t like a giant tour bus. There were like maybe 12 of us. Sort of embarrassing.
However, the tour itself was pretty great. It was one of the shortest options available (there are tons of three and five day tours) but I didn’t really want to spend the time or money on something longer – I just wanted a taste of what was out there and to see a castle or two. Which is exactly what I did, so I was happy with it.
I got back to my hostel at about 6:30, which gave me an hour to get ready for the pub crawl I had decided I was doing. I mean, it was through my hostel and free, so what else was I supposed to do – NOT go? (SIDE NOTE: My hostel – Castle Rock Hostel – was super awesome. In the center of the Old Town, literally next to Edinburgh Castle, and there were great events every night. It was big but cozy and had great and comfy common areas, and the rooms all had themes like “underwear” and “Harry Potter.”)
The pub crawl was…a pub crawl. Exactly what you would expect. I got a bunch of free shots and drink discounts and drank way too much and we went to like…five pubs and a club, and the club turned out to be the place we had done our Scottish dancing the night before. Weird coincidence: I definitely met some people that were in my hostel in Iceland at the same time I was, and they recognized me. Apparently mainly because of my voice. Ugh.
I had spent a big portion of the night with a group of Americans that were staying at a different hostel than I was. The main problem with this was that when things started to get very drunk and interesting with one of them, there was nowhere productive that we could go because the security at both of our hostels was pretty solid. Solution? Hotel!
It’s a good thing that you don’t want to know every detail of what happened, because I honestly couldn’t tell you all of it. Alcohol.
But the best part (well, not the BEST part) was that as we were leaving the next morning it turned out the hotel had free breakfast. FREE. BREAKFAST. And not just that lame continental shit that most hotels have. Like. Legit breakfast. Yogurt and croissants and eggs that you have to cook yourself and so many options. I ate as much as I could and swiped even more to stuff into my purse for later, because traveling on a budget is a very real thing.
Exhausted and hungover, I spent the morning and then some on a couch in the common area, napping and binge-watching Stranger Things on my phone. Part of me wanted to feel guilty for doing absolutely nothing; I had to keep squashing that part of me and reminding myself that I’m an adult and I can do what I want and also that sometimes you just need time to relax.
I caught a bus to Glasgow with my Australian friend that I had met the other day; we spent the entire bus ride talking. We just clicked: we are the same age, in similar places in our life, and traveling for similar reasons. We are both trying to just figure shit out. When we arrived in Glasgow, we grabbed dinner, split a bottle of wine, and went off to our hostels (we weren’t staying in the same place.)
MY HOSTEL SUCKED. SO BAD. I HATED IT. It’s tile and uninviting and huge, and has absolutely no culture or vibe to it. It’s not very clean, and there’s nowhere cool to hang out and meet people, no events through the hostel, nothing. I’m not normally picky about beds, but I could literally feel all the springs in my mattress; I would have been more comfortable on the floor. I was on the ninth and top floor of this place – I’ve never stayed anywhere more than a few stories high.
At 2am, the fire alarm though it would be fun to go off. I was in a 12-person female dorm, and I swear, half of these girls were brain damaged.
SCENE: Fire alarm is going off in hostel room. It is dark. Genevieve is the furthest bed from the door – and the light switch.
DUMB GIRL #1: What…what is happening?
GENEVIEVE: Um. Proooobably a fire alarm.
DUMB GIRL #1: But like…what do we do?
GENEVIEVE: You leave.
(Genevieve is looking for her pants)
GENEVIEVE: Heyyyy, can someone please turn the lights on?
DUMB GIRL #2: Ooooh. (She turns the lights on.)
DUMB GIRL #1: But what am I supposed to wear?
GENEVIEVE: PUT ON PANTS AND A JACKET AND SHOES.
DUMB GIRL #1: What do we do? What should I take with me?
GENEVIEVE: …(leaves.)
Of course, after going down nine flights of stairs, it turned out to be a false alarm, probably someone smoking inside or something. Then I had to go up nine flights of stairs. It was super fun.
The next day I hung out all day with my Australian friend. We got breakfast, went to an art gallery, got a drink, went to a museum, got dinner, and then saw a show which was the most intriguing thing we could find. It was called “Enterteasement: a night of comedy, burlesque and magic.” We obviously couldn’t pass up an opportunity to see whatever the hell this was, and we were not disappointed. I mean it was absolutely terrible: there was a “comedic” magician who was not funny and not good at magic; there were a couple of awful burlesque dancers (who each danced twice? Like I’ve already seen your nipple tassels); and a couple of not great standup comedians. We split a bottle of champagne and enjoyed ourselves way too much. The highlight of the evening was definitely the burlesque dance where she was dressed up like a bloody monster and had a thing covering her face and looked like she was all wrapped up in an Ace bandage. It was probably the least sexy and most uncomfortable thing I’ve seen in my life, and I’m so glad I experienced it.
I was planning on getting a bus or a train to London today, but the best deal by far was for me to just do an overnight bus tonight. I’m not too excited to spend the rest of the day in Glasgow, to be honest; there just isn’t a lot to do here. Which is why I’m perfectly content to be sitting at this pub and writing for awhile. Also, I just wanted to get the hell out of my shit hostel: they made me pay a pound to use the luggage room (like what?) and when I asked them about where I could get an inexpensive breakfast, they like glared at me and didn’t help me at all and just were like, yeah, it’ll be this type of food probably and it’s all around the same price. So unwelcoming and so unhelpful. So don’t stay at Euro Hostel Glasgow. Actually, you probably don’t need to go to Glasgow at all.
Several weeks ago, I was much more positive about everything, and told myself that I wasn’t going to let external things that I can’t control bother me. I was happy almost all the time, and nice to everyone. But now that I’m settling into this whole traveling thing, I’m noticing that my patience with people is dwindling. I’m less desperate to make friends and to be nice to everyone, because I know I’ll find my people at some point. I’m learning how I expect things to be, what my standards are, and I get annoyed when they don’t happen. I’m glad that I’m being honest with myself about my emotions and actually expressing them instead of telling myself that everything is wonderful all the time; however, I also have to keep checking in with myself to remind myself that what I’m doing is still pretty cool, and to enjoy the little moments, and to be proud of myself.