Glaswegia! ...and that other city

OKAY, back to catching up on traveloguery. As threatened, here are more words-and-photos on Glasgow and Edinburgh - knocking both out in one post before we move on to Norway! Whiskey, pals, theatre, and adventure, alllllllll after the jump!

This is a thing you see in a lot of European capital cities and I am a FAN. More miniature sculptures of the city in which I am, PLEASE. (This one is Glasgow, you can tell because of all the... major city landmarks of which I am definitely aware)

Scotland was always going to be on the agenda since my good friend Sarah had set up shop here. She came over on a Fulbright a couple of years back to work with companies on devised theatre and, as is her way, barnstormed her way into everybody's hearts, minds, and organizations. She's back now on an artist visa, working with a few organizations but principally with the Scotish Youth Theatre. Thanks to her and her excellent gentleman friend Mark, I got a great behind-the-curtain look at Glasgow, and jeez you guys it's hard to imagine a city whose vibe more resonates with me.

SARAH, off on adventures from her TARDIS, or as she called it, "the box where all the policemen are HIDING."

Glasgow, as I was glad to find Sarah felt too, feels a lot like Chicago culturally. It's got a bit of the second-city thing going, with Edinburgh only an hour away, but it's an affordable place where artists dig in to do their thing because they love it, not because You Have To Be In Glasgow To Succeed. At the same time, it's home to the National Theatre (and the SYT) and so it's a magnet for talent and passion. Ultimately, it's a place with very little ego or pretension - it's a blue collar city where self-deprication and playfulness are very much the driving forces.

The Wellington Cone (or Cones, as depicted here) is a great thumbnail sketch of this place's sense of humor. Basically, people (drunken yahoos? FUN FOLK, let's say) climb this statue and plunk that traffic cone on the head, and the city gets a cherry-picker to get it off. This repeats endlessly. There was talk of raising the entire statue to make it impossible to climb, and there was civic uproar. This is the mark of an educated and sophisticated populace!

Running around the city with Sarah was superb. She's got awesome people there. We also spent a day in the country, where we got to play with horses, aka possibly the best day of my life.

We are best friends now and forever

I also had a great solo day - described earlier on this blog - in which I got to explore Auchentoshan distillery and meet some friendly Canadians and generally take in the city by my lonesome. It was: mega-swell! It should also be noted that I climbed The Lighthouse, one of the major works of Charles Mackintosh, and the latest example of Pat Climbing Things BEFORE Remembering That He Hates Heights. IT WAS FUN AND VERY BRAVE, OK.

The Way Up. DID YOU KNOW: when you climb the lighthouse, these stairs all start to spin and swim and suddenly with a puff of smoke they're gone and you're falling... falling.... f o r e v e r?

OFF TO EDINBURGH! There, I stayed with my friend Anne, her husband Conor, and their outrageously adorable baby. Sarah and Mark had made the trip too, and we met up with New-to-me friends Brian and Emily, who were wonderful and delightful and all the other adjectives you can throw at 'em. We saw Manual Cinema's show at the Fringe, which was spectacular, as well as a few other things. Other than that, it was a lot of walking and chatting, fantastic meals with Anne (once my Chicago fine-dining partner in crime) and the aforementioned climb of Arthur's Seat, and it was all wonderful. I also got a chance to catch up with my director friend Robin, who is one of the smartest and best people I know. Ugh, it was good good good good good.

Photos below - Edinburgh is a place I'd love to revisit outside of festival season, not because it was chaotic (we actually caught it before it got totally crazy, and the crowds were fun rather than annoying - I guess theatre festival crowds are pretty self-selecting!) but because the whole character of the city quite clearly changes in and out of festival season. All told, it felt far too brief a visit - but you know, tickets are tickets and Norway called...

The backs of some DELIGHTFUL heads, amidst the preview-weekend Festival crowds.

A Very Chicago Kind Of Thing To Do: despite the festival's very strict timetable and insistent turnover of spaces, Manual Cinema invited the audience up to check out their rigs, their puppets, and chat with the performers. Because we are all human and why wouldn't we want to share these moments of connection awww maaaaaan

I didn't even climb THIS thing, I climed the taller thing that looks down at it! Whatever, stunning geographical feature, I got taller than you!

I don't recall this happening but now that I look at this photo it seems certain that this ferris wheel tipped over as soon as I turned away. Ferris wheels are TERRIFYING, ne c'est pas?!? This is the main reason I ran away to Oslo, was all of Edinburgh's constantly-toppling ferris wheels.