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Friday, 19 January 2007 - One-nighters!
The way you sleep during a one night stand can (apparently) say a lot about your feelings towards the situation. Keep this in mind for the weekend ;)

Saturday, 20 January 2007 - Polmont!

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned I'm planning on seeing all the little towns and whatnot on the train line between Edinburgh and Glasgow (since I get free travel between the two with work). Today it was Polmont, a village on the outskirts of Falkirk. With a population of only 5,000 I wasn't expecting much, and it's a good thing I wasn't hehe.
Polmont and its surrounds are basically all residential. Nice little place though.		Like I did in Linlithgow, I found the cycle path from Edinburgh through to Glasgow, except here it was more like a bog. So I'll be making sure it has been a dry sunny week before I take it on (100kms all up).
About the most exciting things I found in Polmont were the young offenders' institute...
And the Prison hehe.		Even the locals appear to get bored. So that was Polmont. Yipee.

Sunday, 20 January 2007 - Anyone need a coaster?

I went to a good party last night, and for whatever reason (can't remember, I was drunk) there were stacks of these Tennents beer coasters wrapped up and just sitting in the hallway. In my intoxicated state I thought I might be able to do something with them, so I brought a stack home hahaha! But then in the morning I sat looking at them for a while and couldn't think of a bloody thing I can do with them, except maybe frisbee them out my window, or take them down to the Cumberland Bar round the corner and see if I can exchange them for a pint.

Thursday, 25 January 2007 - Glasgow has a (slightly) nicer side!

Ok.		Nice sunny day in Wegie-land today so I went for a big wander west along the river (since it's not a good idea to cross it apparently). This is looking back east. Almost doesn't look like Glasgow!		Ahh there we go, yes it does ;)

As I headed west I noticed things actually look a lot nicer up this end of town. Nice apartments on both banks of the river, several other modern looking buildings in the distance, hot women jogging past, lovely!
Speaking of buildings I found Scotland's answer to Australia's Sydney Opera House (this is actually the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre).		And this big, thing, is an IMAX cinema.
I eventually headed back into town and quickly realised I was still in Glasgow hehe. I guess it has character at least.

Friday & Saturday, 26 & 27 January 2007 - Did I mention the perks?

Every so often my work has a big company meeting and party for everyone to catch up with everyone else and find out what's happening with the company etc. The powers that be decided to have one yesterday in Nottingham, right in the middle of England. It looks like Coronation Street down there hehe.
Coming into Nottingham it was hard to miss these steam stacks pumping it out.		Some sort of grease or shit all over the wing. We were flying BMI, and cleaning their planes clearly isn't much of a priority.
Accommodation for the night: The East Midlands Airfield Hilton. Not bad, not bad.		And look, they put my name on the telly (just in case I forgot it). Apparently when I turned it on at about 5pm it was my scheduled wake up time.
And speaking of wake up time I very nearly missed mine hahaha! There were copious amounts of free booze during and after dinner, and even a wine tasting contest, which I failed at. I got to bed about 2am (pretty trollied), and either slept through my 6am alarm or turned it off and went back to sleep. I was eventually woken up by my mate ringing me wondering where I was. Our flight back was 7:30am, and there were some pretty groggy faces at that hour hehe.		On the flight out yesterday we flew over Glasgow (I'm not sure why as it's in completely the wrong direction but anyway), and I happened to recognise the river near where I'm working. Pointed out is the exhibition centre (the thing that looks like the Sydney Opera House), and circled is Glasgow Green. I work somewhere in between the two.

For their Christmas party in 2005, my work took the whole company to Tunisia. This year is their 15th year in existence, and I think the 10th year since it first set up shop in the UK (it's a French company). So to celebrate, we're all being shouted a long weekend at Club Med somewhere in Italy (south of Naples I think) in mid-May. Booyah!

Saturday, 27 January 2007 - Falkirk

After getting just three hours of sleep last night after the company meeting piss up I was pretty buggered by the time I got back to Edinburgh this morning. My initial plan was to spend half the day in bed catching up on sleep, but it was too sunny for that so I headed out to Falkirk for the day which is the next stop on the Edinburgh to Glasgow train line I haven't explored yet (although I have been to the Falkirk Wheel on a weekend road trip a while back). This is looking over the town from near the station.
Falkirk covers a large area so I only intended on wandering around the city centre which is quite a nice spot. The local youth all seem to like congregating in several small groups and making large amounts of noise hehe.				Most of them also wear hoodies.

Free bikes anyone?		Speaking of bikes, there was a bike shop in town with this good-looking machine in the front window. £1,100 - not too far above what I'll be willing to spend very soon.
After some more wandering I found this. Would this be a scary path at night or what?! Middle of nowhere, creepy looking trees either side, big mansion ahead.		This is Callendar House in Callendar Park. The house dates back to about the 11th century and (from what I can gather from Wikipedia) has had a rather interesting history of owners who all seemed to enjoy fighting the kings of the time and were either booted out or executed. Today it serves as a museum and heritage centre.
Callendar Park is massive and includes a small golf course, a children's adventure playground (with the largest slide in Scotland apparently), a boating lake (loch), a bird sanctuary, and lots of other shit (it would be bloody nice in summer!). The actual Callendar Estate extends 500 acres with several walking tracks through the surrounding woodland.		I got back to Edinburgh at 5pm and was stunned that there was still light in the sky (I'm used to getting home from work in pitch black!). This is looking up towards Edinburgh Castle from the train station. The days are getting noticeably longer now (phew), and daylight saving comes into effect in two months - can't wait! I just need the weather to warm up now, though February's average high temperature is only around the 3-degree mark.

Sunday, 28 January 2007 - Ghosts & Ghouls!

Edinburgh has several ghost tours and the like, and tonight a couple of mates and I went on a 90-minute Ghosts & Ghouls tour.		The first thing our guide told us about was the 'punishment' of criminals that went on in Parliament Square on the Royal Mile during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Tthey were made to stand facing this thing behind St. Giles Cathedral, their shirt was pulled down, and they received several lashings of a metallic-ended whip (ouch!). Then, to rub salt in the wound, they literally rubbed salt in their wounds hehe (OUCH!). Come to think of it, I guess that's where that expression comes from, hmmm.
After a good whipping, some of the crims then had one of their ears nailed to the wall. They were then ripped away from the wall, leaving their ear behind. Their other ear was then cut off. Yummy. My guess is that if this practise still went on today, the crime rate would plummet. Food for thought ;)
Later on we went through the South Bridge Vaults (aka the Edinburgh Vaults). Apparently a lot of spooky shit goes on down here, and numerous tour participants over the years have later reported witnessing or experience various ghostly 'events'. Whether or not that's entirely true is debatable, but our guide did successfully freak the shit out of the two girls I was with - they were both very uncomfortable hehe. Anyway, for just £7.50 it was good fun, and I'd recommend it :)

Monday, 29 January 2007 - Coasters!

I mentioned a couple weekends ago I randomly brought home several hundred beer coasters from a party in my drunken state. After suggestions of building a pyramid or a pub out of them, a couple of people suggested sticking them round my walls (which I kind of had in mind anyway), and this is the result. Hooray for Blu-Tack! :)

Thursday, 1 February 2007 - Disenchantment!

Their buses are about as clean as their city in Glasgow!		I had another big wander during lunch today. The first thing I found was a rather low-key protest.
I'm not really sure what this was all about, but they didn't hang around long before heading to the nearest pub. Hard day.
Despite being warned not to, I finally ventured south of the river today to see what was so bad about the other side.		It didn't take me long to figure it out.
Lovely housing estates everywhere.		What do you reckon - things being thrown in, or things (or people) being thrown out? This is about 15 storeys up, so someone would need a good arm to hurl something in (and good accuracy).
I did come across one nice little area that was all but fenced off from everything around it hehe.		The sign might as well have said, "Aaron, come on in", which I did.
Nothing but a very rundown cemetery. Rest in peace (and pieces) everyone!
Jesus, anyone want to buy a car? I've done a lot of wandering around Glasgow lately (only some of it ends up on here), but I am really getting increasingly disenchanted with the place. Simply put, it's a fucking hole. The people here all look like they've done it pretty hard (and have smoked or snorted something pretty hard), no one smiles, and it's just depressing! If anyone is contemplating visiting Scotland don't bother with Glasgow (unless it's for the night-life which I hear is great but am yet to see for myself). Like I've said before, the only thing Glasgow has done for me is to make me really appreciate Edinburgh - it's beautiful here and I can't wait to see more of it (from a bike :)

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