Well, I'm back among the warmth and the readily-available tea that marks home. After loads of success in my hitch-hiking up to Glasgow, my journey back down wasn't quite as fortuitous. I'm planning to tell some more stories that I collected over the next few days, but today I'll tell the story of the rest of my trip.
After I'd gotten to Glasgow, and fed the pigeons wantonly, and walked to the hostel, I decided to go and grab some food from the 24-hour petrol station down the road. This was at about midnight on Sunday, and there was nothing else open and hardly anyone around at that point. I went along, got some snacks, and returned to the hostel where I got into a conversation with the chap who was manning the reception throughout the night. We chatted about this and that, he told me more about the hostel and I shared some stories with him.
When I went upstairs to bed, the room was dark and most people were already asleep. Which, in the case of one of my fellow travellers, meant snoring like a chainsaw with a cold. I pulled my earphones on, my scarf over my face and tried to sleep. I finally managed it around 3am.
The next day I woke up and lazed for half an hour before departing the hostel. I headed to a park that I had often sat in with a friend of mine when I lived in Glasgow, eating junk food and talking nonsense. I got to Glasgow Green to find it deserted; not surprising given the wind and the weather. I had a few hours to kill before I was meeting with my friend, so I sat with some breakfast. A lot of it went to the magpies that wandered up, and when the wind rose to a fever-pitch I decided to find somewhere indoors to wait.
So I wandered up and along Argyle Street, the road that makes up the bottom line of the Z that Glasgow's main streets are laid out in, and got to Maggie May's about 45 minutes before I was meant to meet my friend there. I spent the time drawing and reading, and when my friend arrived we spent a wonderful few hours catching up, sharing gossip and blethering like women in a steamie.
Then it was on to the 13th Note, another bar, to meet another of our friends, and drink even more alcohol until I had to leave and meet my Couchsurfer host. I walked up to the Bus Station to meet him, and spent a very pleasant evening in his company and the company of his other Couchsurfer, a Swiss girl who had biked all the way from her home in Northern Switzerland. Tomorrow's story will be more about my time there.
I left there the next morning, and decided to get a bus back into Glasgow where I'd meet another friend, walk through Glasgow with him, and then take up my hitch-hiking on the road out to Ayr, where I was hoping to meet with my mother to get a lift back down the rest of the way.
But I'd overestimated how much people stop for you in the city. A combination of no pulling-over spaces, bus lanes in the way, and a sheer lack of interest from drivers meant that I had to give up and catch another bus down to Kilmarnock, 20 minutes north of Ayr. I thought I might get more luck there but that wasn't the case, and after an hour of standing by a service station with a cardboard sign saying 'Ayr', I had to call on the kindness of my mother to drive that extra 20 minutes and pick me up.
All in all, this 'trial' hitch-hike has been incredibly useful, both in being a break from the schedule of writing and working, and also because it's shown me that the kindness of strangers is sometimes dependent on where those strangers are. From a friendly hostel receptionist to an outgoing bartender with awesome hair, from a breakdancing Couchsurfing host to a service station attendant who helped me find some cardboard for a sign. Stories exist everywhere, sometimes we have to search for them.
After I'd gotten to Glasgow, and fed the pigeons wantonly, and walked to the hostel, I decided to go and grab some food from the 24-hour petrol station down the road. This was at about midnight on Sunday, and there was nothing else open and hardly anyone around at that point. I went along, got some snacks, and returned to the hostel where I got into a conversation with the chap who was manning the reception throughout the night. We chatted about this and that, he told me more about the hostel and I shared some stories with him.
When I went upstairs to bed, the room was dark and most people were already asleep. Which, in the case of one of my fellow travellers, meant snoring like a chainsaw with a cold. I pulled my earphones on, my scarf over my face and tried to sleep. I finally managed it around 3am.
The next day I woke up and lazed for half an hour before departing the hostel. I headed to a park that I had often sat in with a friend of mine when I lived in Glasgow, eating junk food and talking nonsense. I got to Glasgow Green to find it deserted; not surprising given the wind and the weather. I had a few hours to kill before I was meeting with my friend, so I sat with some breakfast. A lot of it went to the magpies that wandered up, and when the wind rose to a fever-pitch I decided to find somewhere indoors to wait.
So I wandered up and along Argyle Street, the road that makes up the bottom line of the Z that Glasgow's main streets are laid out in, and got to Maggie May's about 45 minutes before I was meant to meet my friend there. I spent the time drawing and reading, and when my friend arrived we spent a wonderful few hours catching up, sharing gossip and blethering like women in a steamie.
Then it was on to the 13th Note, another bar, to meet another of our friends, and drink even more alcohol until I had to leave and meet my Couchsurfer host. I walked up to the Bus Station to meet him, and spent a very pleasant evening in his company and the company of his other Couchsurfer, a Swiss girl who had biked all the way from her home in Northern Switzerland. Tomorrow's story will be more about my time there.
I left there the next morning, and decided to get a bus back into Glasgow where I'd meet another friend, walk through Glasgow with him, and then take up my hitch-hiking on the road out to Ayr, where I was hoping to meet with my mother to get a lift back down the rest of the way.
But I'd overestimated how much people stop for you in the city. A combination of no pulling-over spaces, bus lanes in the way, and a sheer lack of interest from drivers meant that I had to give up and catch another bus down to Kilmarnock, 20 minutes north of Ayr. I thought I might get more luck there but that wasn't the case, and after an hour of standing by a service station with a cardboard sign saying 'Ayr', I had to call on the kindness of my mother to drive that extra 20 minutes and pick me up.
All in all, this 'trial' hitch-hike has been incredibly useful, both in being a break from the schedule of writing and working, and also because it's shown me that the kindness of strangers is sometimes dependent on where those strangers are. From a friendly hostel receptionist to an outgoing bartender with awesome hair, from a breakdancing Couchsurfing host to a service station attendant who helped me find some cardboard for a sign. Stories exist everywhere, sometimes we have to search for them.