Friday, 6 March 2015

A Day on the Subway

Hello World!

We sort of sucked at the blog writing in February, but maybe we can do better in March. Considering that it is already the 6th I kind of doubt that we will do too much better. But we will try nonetheless.

This last Wednesday, Jacob and I had a lovely adventure on the Subway (Underground as it is called here). The Underground here in Glasgow is the only Underground in Scotland and the third oldest Subway system in the world. But the coolest thing about this Underground system for Jacob and I is the fact that they sell all day tickets for pretty dirt cheap.

Neither of us have classes on Wednesday and since we had both just spent the last couple of weeks writing essays like madmen, we decided to reward ourselves with a little day out. We paid four pounds each (only one pound more than a round-trip ticket) and made a goal to see what awaited us at each of the 15 stops.

8 pounds total for a whole day of fun!
We did not end up making it to all the stops. Some of them we were already pretty familiar with. For example we didn't spend too much time at our very own Hillhead station or the Cowcaddens station which we pass through every week for Jacob's Bagpipe lessons. We missed a few at the end as well because we were getting tired and hungry and decided it was time to go home. But by the end of the day we had been through 10 of the 15 stations. That's not too shabby if you ask me.

The subway system here in Glasgow is perhaps the least confusing system I have ever encountered. It is a big circle around the city and only has two lines that all hit the same stops. You really can't go wrong. The worst that can happen is you get on the train going the wrong way and just have to wait a little longer than normal to get to your stop. 


Our adventures started at the Kelvinbridge station. As the station name might suggest, the train let us off right near the bridge over the River Kelvin. There are bridges that better show the beauty of the river, but Jacob likes the sound of rushing water so we spent a little time admiring the river before moving on. The street on which we found ourselves was lined with many shops, cafes, and pubs. Much to our surprise we found two pubs that we had been looking for a few weeks earlier. It was a little early for a pub visit, so we just made a mental note and kept walking. We went in and out of a few shops, window shopping and people watching mostly. 

Kelvin Bridge
After walking for a while we found ourselves at the St. Georges Cross station. This station was right by the motorway. There wasn't much to see so we hopped on the train again which took us to Buchanan Street. Sandwiched between the Buchanan Street and St. Enoch stations we found a very large walking mall. We spent a little bit of time in some of the touristy shops looking for souvenirs and post cards. At this point, we were both getting hungry for lunch and were happy to find a Five Guys on this walking mall. It was like a little piece of home. The burgers here tend to be different than what I am used to, but at the Five Guys it was like were were back in America surrounded by a lot of Scottish tourists =). 

St. Enoch Station


Next we spent some time on Bridge Street, West Street, and Shields Road. It was clear that we had entered the shadier part of town so we put our camera away and tried to look like we fit in and weren't worth mugging. We witnessed a car crash about thirty seconds from the station. One car rear ended another and the front of the car was pretty squished. Luckily for the drivers it happened right in front of a car repair shop. 

There was a Street School museum near Shields Road that I was interested in visiting. It was an old school taught anywhere from Infants to high schoolers in the early 1900s. It was built by the famous Scottish architect Rennie Mackintosh, although there was some tension over changes that the board wanted to see made to the plans that Mackintosh did not implement. The school had some exhibits that explained how the school was built and run and what a typical day would look like in different decades. They also had some classrooms set up as they would have been in different decades. I thought it was really cool, but I find that I can be a bit of a nerd about these educational things. 

Hopscotch tiles in the hallway

A Classroom as it wold have looked during WWII. The spelling words on the board are all war related (evacuation, siren, ration, etc.)

The door for the infants. There was also separate girls and boys entrances. The school did teach children as young as 2.

We got to the Kinning Park and Cessnock stations before we got too tired. Kinning Park was indeed just a park. Jacob and I played around for a bit on a see-saw and talked to guy about his dog, who was a boy dog, but had a pink harness because that's all the store had and how he was going to get dyes and make it a nice camouflage. =) Cessnock was another shopping street. There was a library as well but it had just closed by the time we got there, which was bummer. 

After that it was home to our own Hillhead Station and up the hill to our flat. It was pretty amazing how for just 8 pounds for the both of us we saw almost the whole city. We are planning to get another day pass to see the rest of the stops sometime in the future. This weekend though we are going on a group tour to St. Andrews and Dundee City. We will also be attending our first bagpiping concert tonight. More information about that later. 

God save the Queen,

Jessie and Jacob

1 comment:

  1. That sounds like a great day to me! You will have to take us on the underground in June! Love ya

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