This time for a change, I spent holidays with my friend Joanna. I have to admit that I was wondering if our first mutual trip would not end with a tremendous catastrophe. I usually travel solo and have developed some preferences, which make me enjoy travelling. Meeting halfway has disappeared from the fan of my desired behaviours quite some time ago.
Luckily, holidays went by without any painful drama and despite little discrepancies in our approaches to travel (me – let’s be spontaneous, Joanna – let’s just book those hostels NOW), the trip was really good. After a landing in Glasgow, we had our first funny experience, which I now think, set the tone for the whole journey.
At the city information centre, a very nice Scott in the prime of his life (60? 70?) enthusiastically instructed us how to get to our hotel. At one point, he was so engrossed in the topic, that he didn’t notice when his swivel chair moved back by about 20-30 cm. When he finished showing us the map, where he marked all the most important points of Glasgow, he gracefully sat back…on the chair which wasn’t where he expected. Instead, he landed on the floor. However, he behaved as if nothing happened at all, kept talking to us all the time and showed no sings of embarrassment or confusion. He quickly got up and carried on talking to us. When we were at the airport a week later, we hoped to meet that man again, but his colleague, a middle-aged woman had her shift instead.
The first morning in Scotland was equally surprising and unexpected. We had barely finished eating breakfast, when a loud fire alarm broke out. At first, we were trying to ignore it, but as soon as we heard loud footsteps of people running in the corridor and some distant shouts, we quickly finished packing our stuff and left the building. There were dozens of hotel guests standing in front of the hotel, but no one knew what was going on. Our Megabus to Edinburgh was supposed to leave in an hour, so instead of waiting until the fire alarm is called off, we decided to go to the bust station on the Buchanan Street.
If only we had time to complain about monotony! Minutes after we started walking, a dense drizzle covered the streets and I felt I can’t really swallow my own saliva. I felt pain in my throat a day before, but now, I was scared I was actually developing tonsillitis.
On the main street of Glasgow, the Sauchiehall Street, full of various shops, I spectacularly fell on my knees. The pavement was pretty wet and my shoes didn’t cope with that. Just like the friendly Scott from the past evening, I landed on the floor. Unlike him, though, burdened with a pretty large backpack, I missed his grace. Instead of keeping the conversation going, I tried to catch my breath in short breaks between bursts of laughter
A wonderful start of our travel. :-D What came next, was even “more interesting”…
