London to Scotland - Glasgow, Tennent Brewing Company

Graffiti at Tennent's Brewery (photo by TravellingFool.com)

At 4:50am I found myself standing in an empty and surprisingly clean bar waiting for our Uber to the airport. We were talking about the election and coffee with the hostel receptionist who was super nice. We made our way to Heathrow and onto the plane where they served us a meal on our 1.5hr flight - I didn't even think that was a thing! We got off and caught the bus into the city center. If London is the city of stairs then Glasgow is the city of massive hills. It reminded me of trying to get back to my dorm after classes in Binghamton. We made it to the hotel, quite an upgrade from our hostel life until now. The manager thankfully was able to give us a room ahead of check-in and we took the lift (another upgrade after climbing several flights of stairs everyday) and collapsed in the room.

The front desk suggested we do the bus tour, which if you've read about any of my other trips you'd know I'm a huge fan, so we looked for tickets and they appeared to be unavailable. A lot of things and stores appeared to be closed. Finally EJ found a brewery about a mile and a half away that was open and doing tours.

Where the magic is made (photo by TravellingFool.com)

We made our way through the city to the brewery, walking through a massive university campus on the way and past another pizza hut. Finally we got to the brewery and were permitted to join the tour which had already begun (we didn't miss much, just the movie).

The tour was really cool and incorporated a lot of stairs. The plant wasn't actually running today because we found out that Scotland gives their people two days off for new year's instead of one. At the end of the tour we got a full pint and a few tasters. We ended up making friends with the locals at our table and followed them to a microbrewery down the block.

We got to learn more about the Scots and through bits and pieces between their thick accent learned about their trips to the states, how to pronounce Islay, and all about the different beers and their families. The meal was delicious and at the end Robert and his wife insisted on picking up the tab for our meal. EJ and I tried our best to refuse but they only allowed us to pay 20£ instead of the 35 we owed.

We ended up making our way back to the hotel, resting for a bit and then heading to the supermarket to grab dinner. EJ thought he finally found a sandwich that had no mayo but failed to see the subtext where they mention the butter on it. I picked up an IRN BRU which is the national soda of Scotland. Now we are just watching strange television shows and getting ready for our trip to Islay (pronounced Eye-lah) tomorrow.