WHW Day 0: Glasgow to Milngavie

This is the first of 12 posts about my 2018 UK Trip (Glasgow + West Highland Way + Oxford)
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a blast from the past: we'd briefly retained
some Strathclyde faculty as litigation experts.
(They were big on "vicious cycles" iirc.) 

I arrived bright and early in the airport* and caught a bus into town.  I'd never been to Glasgow before, so I was curious to walk around and see the sights.  But first I went spent some time with the Vodaphone folks trying to buy their cheapest phone.  Spoiler alert: Despite their best efforts, after an hour or two, I ended up having to buy their second-cheapest phone.

Glasgow Cathedral and the city of the dead

Choir Ceiling

In the basement, as suggested, I went to check out the Lego exhibit "Brick Wonders" by Warren Elsmore and his team.  It wasn't as artistically minded or high-concept as Nathan Sawaya's work, but pretty cool WYSIWYG recreations of famous places around the world.

pagoda & chinese dragon dance

The Trojan Horse, for Tom's benefit

scarab & sphinx

Great Barrier Reef - 200,000 bricks, 55 days

glimpse of giant sea-turtle through
the opening in the plastic

Niagara Falls - 5,000 bricks, 72 hours

Safari!!!

gargoyle

ooh! the Blackadder Aisle!

a glimpse of the verschlossen Blackadder Aisle

It was amusing to see signs for the Blackadder Aisle; I'd heard of the TV show many moons ago from Yilmaz and Lori, but only recently got around to watching it, at Tom's suggestion.

The Necropolis

I'd already had my coffee for the day, so I didn't stop at this pop-up TARDIS cafe.  But it was pretty darned cool.

the first of several cool murals; this one made me think of St Francis of Assisi

tiger mural along the river

this one reminded me of Harry Potter

KFC & Waterstone's; I think there was a Pizza Hut catty-corner

After I'd looked around a bit, I took the train to Milngavie (pronounced Mull-guy, despite the assurances of a Vodaphone sales rep that my phonetic pronunciation was correct).

When I arrived in Milngavie, it started to rain and I wasn't confident in my map-reading (it looked like it might require walking down a major road), so I booked a taxi to take me and my luggage on the 5-minute drive to the very walkable hotel.

a raptor kite or windsock in Milgnavie

The receptionist worked her magic to have the luggage transfer people pick up my bag from the hotel, to spare me the bother of schlepping it out to the train station in the morning.  Two other good things about an afternoon/evening in town - I picked up a third map (this one laminated) "just in case" and had a chance to case the possible breakfast joints.  Pro tip: Don't start your WHW trip on a Sunday, if you'd like an early breakfast in Milngavie town centre before you hit the trail!



FN* The airport actually had a cool feature, which did not come out well in photo or video - there was a section of corridor that was all blown-up nature photos, with birdsong playing.  Be still, my heart!!!

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