June 16 - Arrival in Glasgow

One of our more interesting coincidences of this trip involved a biking friend of ours, who just happened to be touring Scotland with her church's choir. It turned out that she was in Paisley (just down the road from Glasgow) on the same day that many of us arrived, so we headed over to Paisley Abbey to hear her choir group sing. That was pretty cool... the acoustics were marvelous in the old church. The pastor was good-natured, but perhaps a little dull.

Paisley Abbey

After returning to Glasgow, a couple of us headed over to the Barras, an outdoor market that is essentially a large flea market. It seemed kinda seedy, though we did find some excellent homemade lentil soup for lunch. I found a pretty nice T-shirt modeled after the Scottish National rugby team's jersey.

Buchanan Street, Glasgow

Back at the guest house, we met Ian and Bill, who were from Bespoke and were setting up our trip. Very nice guys. They gave us our trip packets, which included maps and info about all of our guesthouses and hotels. Then they bid us goodbye, as they had to drive the bikes up to Tulloch Station to meet us the next morning.

Later we went out to eat, and ended up at a pretty ritzy restaurant. My meal came to about £30, which translates to around $42. It was good, and at that price, it had better be! I have to admit that I got a bit testy on the walk over there, since several of the group 1) didn't think we were going in the right direction; 2) didn't want to eat at that kind of restaurant; 3) were bitching about the weather. So I basically said, if you don't like it, go somewhere else. I wasn't the trip leader. That became something of a joke, since I repeated it several times. I wasn't there to shepherd a bunch of friends, all of whom are strong-willed, around the hills of Scotland. I was there to ride, and if they wanted to come along, fine. Well, it became clear to me that I had to change *my* attitude, and so I decided I wasn't going to take any complaining as a personal attack. And I think everyone enjoyed the trip more because of it.

Tomorrow: We Ride! The weather forecast, as is probably expected for Scotland, is iffy.