I’m writing this in the courtyard of Caroline’s apartment building with a glass of orange juice, feeling my head burning in the sun. It’s ‘only’ eighteen degrees (Celcius), and it’s about eight back home apparently, but the difference in the weather couldn’t be more stark. It’s like the summer here: not a cloud in the sky.
The place where she lives is pretty unusual in the respect that all of the neighbours hang out and spend time together; a bit like the old communal attitude of the Glasgow closes of old, or student halls where you leave your doors open across the corridor from each other. I wish our courtyard back in the City was more like it is here, but the design isn’t exactly conducive to such a mentality. The architects really missed a trick on that one.
Anyway, we ended up heading out straight after Caroline’s work to a place called Hayley’s Bar. Apparently they make the best bloody marys around. Last time I tried one (in the States coincidentally), I wasn’t exactly impressed, but I went with the flow and it was awesome. More of a drink than a soup like the last one was.
We also discovered a practice that I think more Glaswegian bars should take up…
Frying chicken wings in a big bucket outside the front door for people to eat for free:
Amazing.
After that we headed to O’Dalys ‘Irish’ bar, which had this logo:
Now is that just me, or does that lion in the middle look suspiciously like a Scottish Lion Rampant?
Nice cross cultural appropriation there.
Another thing that they were good at was contraversial drink names. For example, I give you the car bomb:
A shot of Baileys with Jameson whiskey, dropped into a half pint of Guinness.
and the trash-can… which resembled some sort of super strong Woo Woo cocktail.
Caroline commandeered the camera for a while, so there are more pictures of me than normal.
and it’s also why there are pictures of random people that we don’t know…
This is Melissa. She is a legend, and looks can be deceiving. She’s as mad as a bag of cats, to borrow an expression from someone else, and she’s lovely. Unpredictable people are the best.
and Chris, who is another protagonist in our Alabama story. He’s one of those guys who is instantly likable, and I’ve found myself communicating with him a few times without even saying a word. That may well be because we’re both predictable, but I’m sure it’s not, haha.
This is Caroline doing a wonderful impression of a character from Chicken Run without realising it.
I’ll be honest, I never used to believe that jet lag existed, but the past few days have totally changed that. At around 11pm I felt totally wiped out, as if it was six in the morning or something, which I guess my body thought it was.
I really need to man up before Hogmanay. I feel like I’m letting the side down.
We headed to some bar to eat chips fried in duck-fat (amazing), and play with parmesan. How come everything in America looks like it could be straight out of a movie set?
Roll on Hogmanay.
Happy New Year and all that!
