I've decided to give you a bit of a break from my writing and instead a glimpse at the beautiful countryside of Scotland. This portion of the tour took us to both Edinburgh and Glasgow, and I forcably took Talk Normal hostage for a 50-mile detour to St. Andrews — the birth place of golf, which is also a quaint town along the North Sea. The trip proved to be well worth it for everyone as we got to travel through the wandering hills of Eastern Scotland, leaving everyone in great spirits. Speaking of spirits, we all spent about $100 on Scotch. There's a few other notes I need to share, but I'll add those below the corresponding photos.
These driving pictures don't do the landscape justice. It's a place where the sheep far outnumbered the people we saw.
This is Tebay, the world's best rest-stop. It's located on a farm, and everything sold in the store and restaurant is locally sourced.
Edinburgh had the most beautiful and archaic architecture of the Scotland stops we made, including the venue, which seemed to be situated in an old church. As with most of our stops, the load-in was an adventure, this time down an old brick alleyway.
Wire soundchecking in Edinburgh. Side note, all of the urinals in the UK are troughs.
Two of our favorite people along our trip. This gentleman came rocking a WFMU shirt, and was very aware of everything they do, including the recently passed record fair, and the stylings of DJ Brian Turner. Mary [below] was the female bathroom attendant, and due to the fact it was a Wire show, she was obviously having a slow night. She's a gospel singer and quickly made friends with Talk Normal.
Watching Wire from the balcony.
This is our Travelodge in Edinburgh. Built sometime in the 1800's, we're pretty sure the place was haunted. Again, these pics don't do the creepiness justice, but we blew a fuse and had to change rooms. I almost got locked in the bathroom and had to jimmy myself out with a hair-pin, and I'm pretty sure someone was watching us through this big window all night.
This was our view from the front of our hotel. Castles included.
The beautiful North Sea coastline of St. Andrews.
And now the real reason I kidnapped Talk Normal for the day, so I could bear witness to one of the greatest places on earth. Just google St. Andrews foot bridge and see for yourself.
The British Museum of Golf (in Scotland?) showed us things like how the Brits did golf and made balls.
Pulling into Glasgow.
Talk Normal soundchecking at The Arches. Keeping in line with our tour of weird venue spaces, The Arches is a series of old train tunnels that now serves as six venue spaces and an upstairs cafe.
Below The Arches was where the dressing rooms were, and as you can imagine, the basement below the basement is a creepy place to be. We were told there was in fact another level below where we were, and possibly even access to “old Glasgow”, but Sarah and I were creeped out enough on this level.
Before heading back to England, we made sure to buy some Scotch. While most brands we might be able to buy in the States, we are 100% certain we cannot buy this cask Scotch anywhere else. The sun was shining as we left, Scotland was definitely a high-point of our trip so far.
