How do you explore a new city?

We have had the opportunity to travel far and wide during our careers in higher education – and only later in life have been able to stay a few extra days in some of the places we travel. For many years – while raising Tim and Andrew – we would fly into a city for a conference – go immediately to the conference – present our paper or go to sessions – and then as soon as we were done we would run to the airport and head home.

Now that one of us is partially retired we try and give ourselves a bit more time to explore places we visit.

How do we get ready to visit a new city?

Over the years we have done walking tours, watched YouTube Videos, read travel guides and scoured the internet for tips on what to see and do in a new city. One of our favorite first things to do is book tickets with a “Hop On – Hop Off” Site Seeing bus tour.

The way these tours work is that you meet the bus at one of their “stops” on their tour route. Often they have pre-recorded tours in multiple languages – but sometimes they have live tour guides giving commentary on what you are seeing. More importantly – these live tour guides also provide local advice on what to see and do.

Noel went on-line and secured our tickets to the Glasgow Hop On – Hop Off tours. We walked about 0.5 miles to the first stop – and were treated to about a 2-hour city tour.

Midway through the tour we took a break and switched buses and had the benefit of a live tour guide from Glasgow.

She was excellent and had a fun and snarky sense of humor.

In preparation for our trip to Scotland we got hooked on watching the murder mystery show “Shetland” on Amazon Prime. We turn on the close captioning to be sure we can understand what the characters were saying – but after watching 7 seasons our ears were somewhat accustomed to the accents we have heard thus far in Glasgow!

Who ever said that watching TV was not educational was just wrong!

After making a complete circuit around the city with the Hop On – Hop Off bus we made our way back to the Marriott Hotel and set out to grab some lunch at a local spot within walking distance.

I happen to like fish and chips so we went to a pub close to the hotel for some pub grub and beer and cider for lunch. Interestingly – you could order a beer at any time – but lunch was not available until after 11:30 a.m.

Obviously I was in a minority on worrying about food before beer. So as the saying goes … when in Rome …

You might ask – “Kirk – you go all the way to Scotland and this is what you pick as your first meal?”

The short answer is a resounding YES.

I had my first Tennent Lager beer in a 0.25 L size (perfect for an American at lunchtime) – and will tour the brewery in the future.

Every-time I order a 0.25 L beer anywhere in Europe I have the distinct feeling at the bar they whisper to themselves that an American is here. No self respecting Scotsman would order a beer less than 0.5 L.

After lunch we headed to the Riverside Museum which focused on transportation in Glasgow over the last 100 or so years. My favorite part of the museum was a mock-up street that showed what Glasgow would have looked like 100 years ago. You could go into each of the mock-up businesses and watch short videos on what it was like doing business a century ago.

It was a cool experience and the price was perfect – it was free.

After a short nap at the hotel – we headed out to a IEEE reception and dinner with some of Noel’s IEEE colleagues at an Italian restaurant. The food was excellent and the company was fun to be around. I am getting used to being the “retired spouse” at IEEE board functions – and am happy to let her deal with the multitude of issues that the IEEE Board deals with.

We booked an Uber driver to take us on our short 10 minute drive back to the hotel. Our driver was British born and living in Scotland – and had very strong political opinions (entirely negative) on the role of the British Empire on society. At least we did not have to work to keep the conversation going!

Until next time ….