Glasgow Rocks Pro-basketball

While I didn't have to travel far to see any pro-basketball in Glasgow, it was a special event, nonetheless. A few of my officemates and I decided to pick up tickets to the last Glasgow Rocks game of the championship season at the Kelvinhall International Sports Arena. I knew, going into this, that it was not going to be anything like going to an NBA game in the States. The BBL (British Basketball League) has about 13 teams that seem to range in size, popularity, and skill level. The Rocks were placed 5th in the BBL going into this game, playing against the Durham Wildcats (ranked last...) so at least we could rest assured that we weren't going to see an upset.

Even though the arena was small (only eight rows of seats along one side of the court and behind both hoops), it was nearly packed, though I should mention was packed with lots of younger kids, most of whom were pre-teen boys excited to watch the Rockettes, Glasgow's 5-person team of bleach-blond, spray-tanned cheerleaders. Admittedly, they were fun to watch. You could tell they were having fun doing what they were doing, but I'll have to say they were a bit less committed to their booty-shaking choreography than, say, their busty and bootylicious NBA counterparts.

I've watched a lot of basketball growing up, though I have to be honest and say that I've....well, I've kind of forgotten a lot about the game. Mostly the penalties and fouls...don't really remember how those all work. But I wansn't out of place as most of the Glaswegians didn't know, either. The small arena was loud during a good play or a score, but during the rest of gameplay, you could have heard a pin drop! The Rocks played well, though definitely a bit more sloppy than the NBA skill-level. Interestingly, though, three or four players for The Rocks were American, and I'm willing to bet that they may be signed on to a NBA team in some fashion, but are playing overseas to gain experience and to maintain their abilities. With 7-minute quarters, the game went by quickly, but it was a good time. The Rocks are now qualified for the Playoffs, and, based on what I saw last night, will likely give a good showing.

I would definitely suggest going to a game if you've got an hour or two and you're looking for something different to do around Glasgow!

Glasgow Daytrip: Culzean Castle

Trip Date: 21 April 2012


Not having a car in Glasgow is really liberating. I don't have to find parking spaces, don't have to worry about theft or vandalism, and don't need to worry about insurance or anything like that. What is frustrating is that on the weekends, if I want to take a trip somewhere, I'm somewhat limited by wherever the train goes (granted, the trains go to a million different places, but not to every site to see in the country). I could always rent one; it wouldn't be too difficult. But I hate to say that just haven't put in the effort to doing that. I should. It will help me learn to drive on the left side of the road both here and while doing fieldwork in Australia, but I just haven't.

What I did take the effort to do yesterday, though, was to get out of the city and do a little sightseeing. I really wanted to go out and visit some of the Islands or the Highlands, but being train- and time-limited (I woke up at half ten...) I decided for something closer. An officemate of mine mentioned before I left that a neat place to visit is Culzean Castle (pronounced kil-ane), about 50 miles south of Glasgow.

Getting there was a little bit of a trip in and of itself. The train left from Glasgow's Central Station in the city center, so I took the subway downtown and then walked over to the station from there (sidenote: Glasgow really should consider running a spur subway track from either Buchanan Street or St. Enoch stations to Glasgow Central...). I bought a ticket to the coastal town of Ayr, about an hour's ride away.

I was surprised by how many people were going to Ayr yesterday. I've taken the train before and it's never been as packed as it was. And not just packed with regular people, but packed with loads of highly make-uped women in fancy dresses and silly wide-brimmed hats and men in sharp suits with snazzy, shiny pointed-shoes. I asked the man sitting next to me if there was a holiday or something going on that weekend and he mentioned that the Grand National horse race (a two-day, multi-event, festivity considered to be the best of its type) was being held at the race course in Ayr. Mystery solved. Looking at my phone, I found out that tickets to the race were only £19, but I decided to go with my original plan since I was definitely not dressed for such a fancy event!

Once in Ayr, I walked a few blocks from the train station to the bus station (note: the personnel at the train station do not know where the bus station is), which is not altogether easy to find from the train station. But I got there and about ten minutes later, I boarded the bus, and was off for Culzean Castle.

I was worried that the weather was not going to be nice for the trip, hence my late morning-rise and hesitation about going on the trip in the first place, but the skies cleared up for most of the day so that I was warm wearing my sweater and button-up shirt. From the bus stop at Culzean, you walk about 20 minutes to get to the Visitor Center which is housed in a ring of former farm storage sheds (I use the term sheds lightly here). Like all Visitor Centers, this was no different with the obligatory cafe, gift shop, toy shop, and toilets, but they also have a 20-minute video presentation that I never did see...oops.

From the VC it's a ten-minute walk to the castle, which was designed by Robert Adam for David Kennedy, the 10th Earl of Cassillis, who provided Adam with the funds to turn what was just an old medieval tower house into an architectural masterpiece, considered to be Adams's best. While the house and lands remained in the Kennedy family since it was built in 1793, they were donated to the National Trust for Scotland in 1945 so that the Kennedy family could avoid Scotland's (UK's?) inheritance tax, which is imposed on any property or possessions handed down to an heir after the owner's death. Often, with large estates such as Culzean, the tax can diminish the heir's inheritance significantly and if the heir doesn't have their own business or other means to pay the tax, they may not be able to afford their inheritance and thus the estate may be sold to the National Trust to be accessible to the public. Such was the case with Culzean, although, the family did stipulate that the third floor of the house be available to President Eisenhower in recognition of his efforts during World War II. The President did use the apartment numerous times during and after his presidency, but now the apartment is available to be rented out to anyone wanting to spend a night in the Castle!

Walking up to the castle, you enter through a ruined archway and over a viaduct designed by Robert Adams to give the feeling to any visitors that the castle was seemingly floating over the landscape. The views of the castle from the ruined archway and the viaduct are fantastic and you get views of the palatial gardens behind the house. The castle is positioned right on top of a cliff and the cliff edge is lined by a balustrade and observation deck looking out to the Isle of Arran across the Firth of Clyde. Off the driveway, opposite of the castle, is a stables building with a beautiful clock tower (which I didn't go in, and now I'm not sure why). You have to pay to get into the Castle separately from what you pay to get in to the grounds, and I just didn't want to put down those few extra £££s, but I will do that next time because the inside is supposed to be fantastic. I just didn't really have the time to explore the grounds and the castle since I arrived at 1:30 and the last bus back to Ayr left the main road at 5:00.

But I walked around the perfectly manicured gardens, across spacious lawns and eventually went down to the beaches below the cliffs where there is an older boathouse and another small manor which I'm not sure what it was used for initially, but now houses an environmental education center. Most of the grounds at Culzean are covered in woodlands with many paths and walks to explore, so I followed the coastal path up above the rocky shoreline for a ways until it popped me back out at the western end of the estate at the Swan Pond which has been a feature of the estate since it's beginnings. Overlooking the pond from a hill is a Pagoda which used to be common on estate grounds of the day and the Kennedy family used their to house exotic animals such as monkeys and likely also housed large birds like swans. You can still see all the cages of the Pagoda, which was restored back in the '60s, but not much else up there.

The Swan Pond itself is much more interesting. There is a little ice cream parlor in what used to be the living room of another little summer cottage on the estate, which also was where the family kept their chickens and other poultry. Lining the edge of the pond near the ice cream parlor is a little walkway and balustrade where you can sit, people-watch, and enjoy the antics of dozens of ducks, swans, a few gannets and herons, and other birds.

And today was no exception. I noticed a lot of the mallards acting strangely as they'd quickly dive under the water and kind of burst back out, splashing water everywhere, kind of rearing up and stretching out their wings. They were all doing it, but I couldn't figure out why until I saw a female duck enter the water only to be propositioned by four mallards, competing to win the affections of the female duck. Welcome to ducky mating season! The ducks kind of have a nice life at the Swan Pond and on a wee island about 10 feet from the edge of the pond, the ducks even have an architecturally elegant, octagonal, 24-coop duck house. But antics like these are not without their dangers. A man and his wife were there with their dog and was letting the dog off the leash. It was cute at first when the dog charged into the water sending all the ducks flying in different directions, but it soon became apparent that the owners had no control over their dog. Millie (the dog) was chasing ducks in all different directions and unfortunately chased a mother duck who had about ten ducklings in toe. Of course the ducklings couldn't yet fly and they tried desperately to scatter away from the dog. Waiting nearby, on the edges of the pond, were some seagulls. I'm not talking little squakers from the beach, but big, brutes. Well, one of the seagulls, apparently fed up with eating garbage and bread crumbs from children, took advantage of the disarray, swooped in, and picked up one of the disoriented ducklings and carried him off. Remember, there are children around the pond watching all of this and other people are remarking on how the seagull just snatched up a baby duck. By this point, the owner of the dog is shouting for her to come back, "Millie! Millie! Get back here!!" and his wife is trying to get the dog back as well, but less aggressively, "Come here, Millie," in a singsongy voice. The dog just kind of looks a them and continues his chase. Now, however, parents of the children, annoyed at the spectacle and lack of control the man had over his dog, are now suggesting out loud that the man go into the pond to get his dog. Another parent admonishes the owner for allowing his dog to disrupt a pleasant afternoon and getting a baby duck killed. And so on. Eventually Millie returns to her owners, and they put her on the leash and call her a bad girl, walking away from the pond to leers and jeers from on-lookers. Even then, once the dog was gone, people were still watching the seagull, who now was occupying some space near a log, thrashing the dead duckling by its neck. I looked around for the other nine ducklings but only saw one swimming around. I'm hoping that the others found safety in the coops on the island, but I'm not convinced.

So with that, I decided to leave the Swan Pond and made my way back to the main Castle and set out to find the walled gardens. These gardens are quite extensive, though there is a lot of space between rows of flowers and trees. It would be a nice place to relax and walk around, but by this time, the weather started to turn nasty and rain was coming down. I waited a while in the vinery before sloughing back through the rain to take a few photos at the Deer Park and then back to the Visitor Center where I got a plastic bag to wrap my camera in and then headed back out to the main road to wait for the bus back to Ayr (which almost didn't happen as the bus just sped passed the bus stop even though there were five of us in there, making us run out to catch the bus, which did stop but was pulled off the side of the road well away from the stop).

It was a nice day, overall, and it was nice to use the train and bus systems once more to get out of Glasgow. I'd definitely go back as there are a few things I missed out on such as the tour of the Castle, fortified caves below the castle (off-limits to visitors except on rare ranger-led guides), and a series of gates in a random, wooded corner of the estate. But I think my next excursion out of town will have to be to the islands or the highlands as I have yet to experience them.

Arthur's Seat in Holyrood Park, Edinburgh

31 March 2012

A week ago, as the last days of nice weather were coming to a close in Scotland, I was getting really anxious and just needed to get out of town and be outside doing something. I looked into taking a 5 hour train ride out to the town of Mallaig, an industrial fishing town that also serves as the gateway to the Inner Hebrides. Even though the train ride is rated as one of the most beautiful train rides in the world, and even though the ride brings you over the famous viaduct used in the second Harry Potter film, I decided I would leave that for another weekend when I had people to go with. That, and poor planning on my part just made it near impossible.

Instead, I decided on Saturday morning to head over to Edinburgh and hike Arthur's Seat, the top of a mini-mountain right in the center of town. The mountain, situated in Holyrood Park, is not terribly tall (see the photos for scale), but it is the eroded and weathered center of an old volcano. Originally used as the hunting grounds for the Royal Family while they stayed at their official residence in Edinburgh, Holyrood House, the park is now open to the public and on nice days is teeming with people taking walks below the craigs, along the lochs, and all over the grassy fields.

My train left around noon, but I got to the Glasgow City Center with some time to pick up a guide book or two on Scotland, and then a bit later, I got into Edinburgh's Waverly Station around half-one. Armed with my camera and sandwiches in my hiking backpack, I made my way down Edinburgh's High Street, past Holyrood House, and the new (and fairly unremarkable) parliament building, to the entrance to the park.

The weather couldn't have been nicer. The sky was blue with only a few clouds and a warm breeze in the air. And everyone was out. I'm not entirely sure how packed Holyrood Park usually is on a nice day, but it was almost impossible to not constantly be passing people. There are plenty of walks in the Park that are fairly easy to do, but most of the established trails have some pretty steep sections over rough ground. The up-side to that, though, is that it didn't take long before I was up above the city skyline with beautiful views of the city and the Firth of Forth (the ocean inlet alongside which Edinburgh is built).

The Park was beautiful, too. bright yellow flowers were in bloom and birds of all sorts were chirping or singing or cooing while rabbits hopped in and out of the bushes. While there are designated trails in the Park, people just kind of have free reign over where they want to walk, and it was really fun watching the singular person walking along the top of cliffs, or the guy playing catch with his dog in the grassy top of another hill, or the kids running around the little lochs in the park.

Since I had all day, I took my time and walked everywhere I wanted to go, but eventually, I made my way up to the top of Arthur's Seat where I found a nice little seat of my own in the rocks and had my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Throughout the hike, every now and then, and while I was eating lunch, I'd catch a tune being played on some bagpipes somewhere, carried on the wind. It was very faint and I couldn't tell where it was coming from, but it only added to my surroundings: I was definitely in Scotland! With this as my view from Arthur's Seat, I didn't think it could get any better:

Edinburgh from Arthur's Seat in Holyrood Park. Edinburgh Castle is seen to the left of the photo with the old town lining High Street down to Holyhead House and Holyhead Abbey at the bottom right of the photo. Even in the distance, you can see the world-famous Fourth Bridge over the Firth of Forth, a bridge that once held the record for the the longest single-cantilevered bridge in the world. Holyrood Park is in the foreground of the photo while Regents Park is seen just right of center.

It was probably around 4:30pm when I started heading down from Arthur's Seat and walked through the rest of the park. I noticed a blister forming on my foot, and so I wanted to get off my feet pretty quickly. I made my way back up High Street all the way up to the gates of the Castle (a place I still have yet to visit), but I wanted to see some familiar sights from when I was last in Edinburgh, with my high school choir's tour of the British Isles in 2002. On that trip, we stayed in dorms at the University of Edinburgh (which I saw from Holyrood Park) and performed a concert in St. Giles Cathedral, right on High Street. It was really neat to see those places again and even though it was ten years ago since I was on that trip, it seemed like yesterday that we were getting our nighttime ghost tour of Edinburgh and tour down to the depths of Mary Kings Close, where victims of the plague were locked up in a dark and dingy dungeon-like room, well beneath the streets above.

My foot was kind of bothering me, and I didn't want to do too much more walking, so I started to head back to the train station. I was hungry, though, and while I was walking down a narrow set of stairs, I noticed a very small little pub in the alley (the Halfway House, which was Edinburgh's Pub of the Year in 2009) and since only two or three people were inside, I decided to stay a bit longer and enjoy sitting over a pint or two. But it was eventually time to go, and I got back on the train with plenty of time to spare in the day, and actually arrived back at my flat in Glasgow no later than 8:30. So it wasn't really that long of a day, but I was successful in getting my outdoor walk, my day-trip out of Glasgow, and a little more sightseeing and city-exploring!

Glasgow's Spring Thaw

Rain is falling once more in Glasgow as I write this short post and cringe at the impending 10cm of snow we might get tomorrow. This past week, and two weekends, though, we've seen what I've been told is abnormally warm weather for a Glasgow spring. We had nine days straight of sunny days. It was amazing. Flowers and trees were in bloom, and everyone in Glasgow was out in any patch of green space they could find to lay out and get their yearly dose of Vitamin D. People were out running, biking, walking their dogs, and eating and drinking out at little cafes everywhere around town. I even got to wear shorts!

Last week, there were a few days were the British Isles were nearly completely cloud-free! (very rare!)

Because I am in both my brother's and my sister's summer weddings, I had to get measured for a tuxedo somewhere in town. Last Saturday, I took the subway to the City Center and got measured at a huge men's clothing store where there were probably about 30 men helping others get measured and fitted properly. In the corner were I was getting measured, there were a bunch of kilts on the walls and a few guys being measured for those. I'm not going to lie, I want one. I don't care if I only wear it for sporting events and formal occasions, but I want one! And it's time to dispel the portrayal of men in kilts as men in skirts or dresses. NEVER IN YOUR LIFE walk up to a Scottish man in a kilt and say something about his skirt. You will not live to see another day (especially if it's at a rugby match)!

I spent the rest of that Saturday walking around the City Center, meandering up and down streets I hadn't been to before and scouted out lots of neat stores, cafes, restaurants, clubs, pubs, and markets I plan on exploring more in the future. Instead of taking the subway back home, I took advantage of the weather and took the footpath along the River Clyde all the way back to Partick.

Throughout the rest of the week, I couldn't not be outside. I ran 8km last Monday to burn off some steam from an unproductive Sunday through the Botanic Gardens, along the River Kelvin, and through the Kelvingrove Park where I'm sure I passed at least 2,000 people out enjoying the sun. On the run, I also passed a pub called, The Big Blue, that was perched up on a bank over the River Kelvin, next to a beautiful bridge, and had a few picnic tables and chairs along the footpath. Definitely was going to check that out later in the week.

Tuesday afternoon, one of the postdocs invited people over to her flat where she had a grill and large patio and a number of us enjoyed a fantastic barbeque with burgers, beer, wine, crisps, chips, salad, and the best desert ever: chocolate-stuffed, grilled bananas (see photo below). They were delicious and it was suggested that I try these out on a beach in a fire-pit. A must-do for this summer in Muskegon!

The next afternoon, though not the warmest of the week, was so nice, I wore my shorts and flip-flops. I couldn't stand being stuck inside, so I left work around 4 and headed to The Big Blue, got a beer and a table and did a bit of reading work out along the river. On the way home, I was also determined to check out another beer garden in this church-turned-restaurant/pub/theater. It was fantastic.

And then on Friday, after work, a few of my friends and I went to the pub next to our building to enjoy what might be the last bit of sun for a while. Pints in hand, they helped me decide to go outside and do something nice on Saturday, which I did, in Edinburgh. And I'll write about that tomorrow :)