A Glasgow Kiss

For those of you who might not be familiar with Glasgow, a "Glasgow Kiss," isn't a peck on the cheek but is actually a headbutt to the nose...

Contrary to popular opinion, we found Glaswegians to be beyond nice. Our taxi driver was super chatty, a random punter on the street gave me his subway ticket with free fare on it and everyone we talked to was generally extremely friendly and helpful. The reputation of Glaswegians as a bit rough and tumble probably has more to do with the fact that it's home to the world's most contentious football rivalry (Celtic vs. Rangers) than the nature of the population at large. In fact, Glasgow is full of incredible architecture (both Arts and Crafts and Victorian), a ton of free museums, lots of indie cafes and ethnic grocery stores and an enormous park that's both beautiful and seemingly well used. It's also home to a lot of people whose accent is completely indecipherable. I did a lot of smiling and nodding and whispering under my breath, "What the f*ck is he saying?!" The wedding ceremony might as well have been in latin. ;) Fortunately, most of the other wedding guests who were from Belfast (only a short distance away and with it's own mental accent) also had no idea what any of the Glaswegians were saying so I didn't feel so bad about my cluelessness...

We managed to stay out at the wedding until the wee hours of Saturday and still get up and get a bit of sightseeing in on Sunday. Amazingly there was a bit of sun in Scotland on our last day there. After my last trip there a few years ago, I was expecting an arctic chill. Climate change must be in effect when Glasgow is sunny and warm and Dublin is drowning in it's own precipitation.