On Saturday I was up early to grab my full Scottish breakfast on the way to the first tour bus of the morning. The 'full Scottish' is quite similar to the 'full Irish,' except you don't get a white or black pudding (darn) and you do get a heaping portion of beans (double darn). Yes, beans for breakfast. I don't really mind beans but it just throws me off. Bacon, egg, toast, sausage, scone, cereal, juice, and . . . beans. Anyway, it was definitely a fill-you-up breakfast, plus it's all you can eat. The more I think about it the more I wonder why people stay in hotels at all. Resorts I can understand, but if you're touring a place where you want to get out and see the sights, why bother with a hotel? You'd pay in around €85 to stay in a hotel, while the B&B was €49, plus none of this 'continental breakfast' foolishness. You get a real meal.

I got myself downtown and hopped on the city tour bus. Although it was pretty cold and overcast, I sat up top so as to get better pictures, like this one of Glasgow University's ventilated spire.
I have to repeat that the tour was one of a few really great deals in Glasgow - I paid £6.25 for a student ticket, which gave you a guided tour of the city with great unobstructed views in about an hour and a half, plus the hop-on hop-off anywhere you like in the city feature - for the next 48 hours! Not to mention the free headphones for listening to the tour, which you get to keep.

After a full loop on the bus I hopped off at The People's Palace, a museum on far eastern side of town. It's dedicated to the people of Glasgow and the history of the city. And here I found out about another Glasgow deal: all its museums are free. One of the cool features here was that they use a lot of recordings of actual residents telling their memories. Also, the temporary exhibit was a showing of photographs from the Glasgow Camera Club's survey of the city in 1955. I especially liked the picture of some tenement kids playing make believe with three empty boxes. In the middle of the exhibit, there was a place to leave comments if you could remember 1955, and one man had written, and I paraphrase, "we shared whatever we had to play with throughout the building. Looking back I suppose we never really had much, but the truth is we wanted for nothing."

After the Palace, I walked through the massive Glasgow Green, stopping to check out the Clydesdales grazing at outside the police station. At the other end of the Green I grazed through the Barras, which is Glasgow's enormous weekend flea market. Like most flea markets there was a lot more stuff on the cheap DVDs end of the spectrum than on the unusual antique end, but I suppose that's part of the fun. My guide book says there are thousands of booths, but I'm going to say it was more like 200 or so.

I hopped back on the bus to get to downtown and the shopping district, which is mind-blowingly large. The tour says it is second only London for its shopping. What I liked was down some of the side streets you could find some of the more quaint and unusual shops, like an old fashioned magic shop, a store that sold just models, stuff like that. After hiking around there and not buying much I took the bus over to the beginning of my self-directed pub crawl. On the bus, I sat behind a couple that caught my attention. She was so very in love with her hubby it could almost give you a headache. He would turn to point something out to her, she would cuddle up to him. He had trouble working out his headphones, she giggled. He put on his fleece cap, she gives him a dopey-eyed look and giggles more because he just looks oh-so-cute. Thing is, they were in their 50s. I couldn't decide if that made it sweet or mildly insane.

I started at the Scotia Bar, which is allegedly the oldest pub in Glasgow. It was very cool inside - dimly lit, low ceilings with exposed beams and very dark wood everywhere.
There was a big football match for one of the Scotland teams that day, and an 8 x 11 piece of paper on the door announced: NO FOOTBALL COLOURS. It was there I overheard this conversation between a guy at the bar and another man who looked old enough to be his grandfather (including tweed jacket and cigar).

Young guy: "Yu want anootha Beck's?"

Granddad: "No, aem ulrighte."

Young guy: "A Guinness, then?"

Granddad: "Ooo kee, a Beck's."

Next up was Babbity Bowster's. The interior here was the opposite of the Scotia. Bright and clean white walls, with very high ceilings. Here, about 12 people gathered in one corner and played folk music. There were guitars, violins, flutes and other traditional instruments. It had the feel of an open-mic gathering, as there was no stage, players filtered in and out, and they all had a drink in front of them.

At Blackfriar's I learned that Lisa Loeb has a clone. She cheerfully works the bar there and entertains the regulars, who seem to love the slot machine more than her. Dummies. I had planned to eat there, but the kitchen was closed. Oh well.

I made it over to Rab Ha's just before they closed their kitchen and got a great meal of Haddock and Chips (and peas).

A couple pints at the Western Bar closed it out and I was off to bed tired but happy.