Four Hours in Glasgow - Part 3

It was 12:15pm when I arrived. I was shivering in Glasgow Central Station. I sat down and extracted my jacket from my backpack.

I stepped onto Union Street and into shock. I can’t say exactly what I expected but I can say what I wanted. I wanted a vacation from London. A small, friendly place--somewhere to eat and sleep and wander. What I got, on first glance, was still London. But it was Glasgow as well--much colder and sadder and cockier than London. And it was drizzling.

Buchanan Street in the rain. Again, not my photo.

I stepped into a crowd and tried to direct myself to the tourist’s office by memory. I ended up in the shopping district. Crowds of activists and socialists and shopping bags. Something in me panicked. I felt like everyone could see that I didn’t belong there; that I was some snotty rude American kid and who the hell did I think I was trying to visit their city. Almost automatically I headed back to the station. The next train back to London wasn’t until four.

So I stepped back out. It was spooky. In the drizzle I kept looking into faces for pieces of myself. Logically, I knew there was little chance, but this place, at least in my head, was full of my ancestors.