Goodbye Britain.

THE BRIEF


Glasgow
So last time we left off Pip and I were in Glasgow, hanging out with all the Glaswegians (or 'Weeds' as the Edinburghians like to affectionately cou*patronisingly*gh call them). Whilst struggling somewhat more then we thought we would with the Glaswegian way of speaking, we did manage to see some of the sites in the short three days we had. In short: various museums and galleries (Kelvingrove, Mackintosh, Hunterian, Mitchell Library, GOMA etc), Charles Rennie Mackintosh sites, Willow Tea Room and Glasgow School of Art inclusive... all of which doesn't necessarily mean a lot if you haven't been there.

What does mean something is that we got free whisky! At a whisky tasting!!! Which I embarrassingly had to hold in my mouth instead of swallowing, whilst stupidly nodding, as the taste-testing man asked me what I thought and explained the various tonations of flavour and levels of blah blah blah... get this stuff out of my mouth because I HATE whisky! Still, what's free is well, free.

But a trip to Glasgow wouldn't be a trip to Glasgow without one inadvertent trip into 'drug country' as our taxi driver lovingly described the destination he was dropping us off at or that incident where you just chose the dodgiest pub in town to have a few drinks at.... Thankfully we were saved by a few kind souls asking if 'we ACTUALLY knew where we were?' and advising that 'we should probably leave before it gets dark'.... hmmm...

Edinburgh

Nevertheless, Glasgow behind us and only Edinburgh (pronounced Edin-borough not Edin-burg as I so rudely found out) in front.... And if anyone hasn't seen Edinburgh before (don't jest, I honestly hadn't before I saw this view out of my bus window)...

Ok. So I slightly lie, because this is the Edinburgh castle, but you catch my drift. The whole of the Old Town is a World Heritage UNESCO site!

Nevertheless, here I was beckoned into the arms of a newly exam free Hannah Anglesey, to stay with her in her flat (thanks also to Cecilie, Kirsty and Claire her most generous housemates).

Here's the thing about Edinburgh. We liked it so much that we stayed longer then we intended. So we had a fabulous tour guide in young Hannah who had been, herself, on pretty much every tour Edinburgh offered. Point to a historical looking monument/sign/building and she would have some story of its origin (her knowledge, some say, knows no bounds).

Nevertheless we did a fair bit of sight seeing, walking up Arthur's Seat, the castle, the Royal Mile, gawking at people in quilts, eating haggis, galleries and the ghost tour that was disappointingly not scary in the slightest. 

Never mind all that, because we actually ended up making some great friends, which I can not to describe all in detail, but to say that we ate out French style, got down Underdog, had some REAL Italian and was a 'tourist in the kitchen', with healthy sprinklings of Italian, Norwegian, Scottish, Spanish and mostly definitely Swisse and had a great time (yes, you guessed it, we befriended foreigners in a foreign land, typical).

London

After bidding farewell in a hasty almost-miss-the-bus-you-typical-Haywood-you're-late-for-everything kind of style we had to leave Edinburgh, rest up on a 9 hour bus trip all the way back down South, to London town. Here we've been lapping it up in Patto's room that she has kindly lent us and hanging out with some fellow Australians... Other then that we've had wins in getting 45 pound tickets to the National Theatre for 10, catching up with Phoebe, a day-trip to Oxford where we saw some movie sets from Harry Potter as well as meeting up with some lovely couch surfers, going to the Saatchi's new exhibition and planning because I leave for TURKEY ON MONDAY! woot.

POINTS OF INTEREST

The Accent (The Scottish one that is)

I'll say it once and I'll say it again, no one can say it like the very best Mr. Robin Williams.

Seriously though, at some points I was not quite sure if what they were speaking was actual English!

The Weather (It's like we're on an awkward first date already)

Whilst we were undertaking these activities in Scotland, we found that the weather forecast often looked something like this:

And whilst we had imagined for ourselves a fabulous holiday of strolling around Scotland's streets with ease, jovially commenting on this historic landmark here, that public art work there...'oh would you like a spot of tea at that nice cafe????'' 'Oh yes I jolly well would'... fabulous fabulous... we actually found that everytime we ventured out of doors we were met with almost gail force winds that left us looking a little something like this:

Scottish Museum Staff 

Now you may think that I'm joking, but I swear on my cyber-space heart that this is actually the uniform that all the Museum staff in Scotland wear! Nuff said.

ART-WANK


A.K.A. things I would look up on the internet if I had a reliable access to it:

• Jeff Koons at Scottish Gallery of Modern Art
• Mike Figgis at the Tate Liverpool. Probably one of the most innovative and interesting attempts I've seen to seriously get a truly public audience involved in art. Figgis took some of the most iconic sculptures from the Tate Liverpool Collection and then put them in public places (ie. takes a Dan Flavin to a Primary School and puts Duchamp's Urinal in a public bathroom) and then asks the public to say what they think about it, films their response and shows it next to the original work in the gallery. Hilarious, but telling, responses ensue, such as 'I don't like it' and 'It's not art, art's supposed to be pretty'.
• FruitMarket Gallery, Edinburgh-Narcissus Reflected. A fantastic space in Edinburgh that for this exhibition looked at the changing interpretation of the story of Narcissus in art.
• Tino Sehgel-Transmission Gallery, Glasgow. Just astounded to see a Tino Sehgel being performed in Glasgow, the first of his works ever to make it's way to Scotland.
• Saatchi Gallery- especially the one permanent work by Richard Wilson, which is such a totally mind warp that I was left gobsmacked... but I don't want to spoil it for anyone. But I can't believe that this gallery is totally free!
• John Soane Museum
• THE TATE MODERN!!! The grand daddy did not disappoint. What a fabulous exhibition I had to go back twice to fit in all two floors of their permanent collection. Such a fantastic presentation of the particular strengths of their collection and the relationship between artists internationally. Favourites include: Vito Acconci documentation of performances, Taryn Simon exhibition, Cy Twombly and Do Ho Suh's staircase (pictured).

I can safely now saw that whilst I wasn't totally taken by Britain when I first arrived (possibly because it's just so similar to Australia), upon leaving I've realised that I have a little bit fallen in love with it (especially London). Britain, you will be sorely missed, except for your weather which is awful.