Day 2: Red Buses and Recovery
It was nice enough we could ride on top of the double-decker bus in the sunshine, which we were fortunate enough to have for the whole trip. While it did seem pretty cheesy, the tour was a good way to get to know the layout of the city. Our first stop was the Necropolis and the Glasgow Cathedral. It was so beautiful! We spent a good couple of hours just wandering around looking at all the old tombstones. It was so interesting to see all the different markers, engravings, and statues. I’ve never seen anything like it. We didn’t have a guide or a booklet, but we had fun just walking around and enjoying the views.
Later on I did find a booklet with some noteworthy tombstones and wondered if there was record of all the tombstones in the Necropolis. Near the entrance there was a map noting different zones of the cemetery and I imagine people use those as guides so they could find their relatives’ final resting place. From a librarian stand point keeping records for this place would be a massive undertaking (no pun intended) not only are there many, many stones, but lots of them are falling over or in various stages of disrepair. The amount of preservation and annotation for each stone in such a ledger would be staggering.
Interesting fact: One tombstone stated the deceased “studied the happiness of others”
Botanical Gardens
Next we went to the Botanical Gardens (with so many vintage shops we wanted to stop in). Outside the gardens some little girls were having a “flat sale” so of course I had to buy something:
There were so many people inside the Gardens and most of them were sitting on the grass. We just wandered around and Kelli sat down next to a fellow American from Florida! I had a few moments of culture shock today:
- People we sitting directly on the grass, which in mid-west you don’t do unless you want britches full of chiggers.
- There was a handy-man fixing something in the ladies room without evacuating the ladies first.
- I also had Indian food for the first time, who knew I would be so worldly?