Glasgow

I have heard many rumours that the city of Glasgow is not much to see and I would have to say that I definitely would not consider it one of the best. Its not really as bad as people say though. I arrived in Glasgow and started off by just mooching around wandering in and out of shops. You would never believe what I found ... Nelson Mandela Place, he really seems to be mentioned all over the place. I then decided to attempt finding tourist information to see if there were things I could do. It wasn't all that much help and I just resorted to doing the hop on hop off bus tour.



Most places I have been to so far have quite a few different companies running these tours - I guess the fact that Glasgow only has one company also implies that there is not much to see. I managed to get a student discount of £2 because when I asked for the price the guy asked if I was a student and instead of saying no I just asked if I was allowed to be. He smiled and organised me a student ticket. Its nice to know that I can still pass for a student. The tour starts in George Square outside the City Chambers. At the top of the City Chambers is a mini statue of liberty - the guide said the building is older than America's statue so Glasgow had the first statue of liberty.



I then went to St Mungo Museum - it is a religious museum and was a little dull to be honest. They were having an African exhibition though which was a little interesting. They had some artifacts from SA - pulling at my heart strings I suppose. While I was there I also took pics of the glasgow Cathedral, with the Glasgow light posts in front.



I have also recently been introduced to "Dr Who" a British Sci-fi series, about a "Doctor" who is a time traveller fighting all the evils in the universe. He travels in a blue police box because apparently there was a time that these police boxes were very common - good disguise. They are not common anymore though so when I saw this police box I figured that the "Doctor" must have been wandering around in Glasgow. I didn't see him though.



My next stop was Peoples Place and the winter garden. Its also not really all that amazing but I wanted to get off and take pictures of the fountain outside. The fountain has Queen Elizabeth at the top, in the middle it has a soldier that represents each part of UK - England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and then at the bottom they have statues representing the people of the common wealth countries - Canada, Australia, India and South Africa. It is quite cute how they tried to portray the people in the statues. Got a pic of me in front of the SA statue. Unfortunately the sun was behind the fountain so not very clear but hope you can kinda see it.



The winter garden is basically a green house with a garden and a little coffee shop. It is just a little garden but I loved the idea to have a garden like that with a nice place to have tea and coffee. Also had benches inside so there were people just sitting on the benches reading. I had taken my pics so I just grabbed some Ice Cream and went outside to wait for the next bus.



We then headed to the Science Centre and the Armadillo - you would never guess why it is called the Armadillo. ;) I just took a snap shot in motion and got off at the next stop to look around the SV Glenlee also known as The Tall Ship.

The main river in Glasgow is the River Clyde and there is a saying used by the Glaswegians that Glasgow made the River Clyde but the River Clyde made Glasgow. The reason for this is that the River Clyde was made deeper and wider than it was naturally (Glasgow made the River), but the growth of Glasgow was due to the ability to produce sailing ship and it was the river that made that possible (the River made Glasgow).

Anyways I had a look around the Glenlee - it was a cargo ship but in an attempt to scare off pirates they painted black squares along the sides to make it appear as if they ship was armed.

Finally the University of Glasgow - beautiful building. I just think of RAU/UJ and wonder how cool it must be to go into such a beautiful old building for lectures everyday instead of a dull grey monstrosity. Again you can see one of Glasgows street lights in the foreground.