One of the other differences between Glasgow and Dundee is the hills. Of course, Dundee certainly had its fair share of steepness, but Glasgow is on another level. Edinburgh as well, come to think of it. As we walked around the city our first day, we were all rather nervous as we walked straight down a sidewalk that was inclined at about, I kid you not, a 60 degree angle. I asked our staff contact, John, if people ever slipped down these streets and he laughed and said "oh yes." Given my experience with icy Chicago winters, this thought was terrifying.
Anyway, Glasgow itself is pretty interesting. Our first impression of the city centre was that it looks awfully familiar. Not familiar because we've been in Scotland for a couple weeks now, familiar because we've lived in the States our whole lives. The city center is lined with stores like H&M, Forever 21, and even the Hard Rock Cafe. Honestly, it looks a lot like Boulder, Colorado, where the entire "street" is made up of cobblestone or brick walkway and shops lining the sides. Of course, the city is still distinctly Scottish in many respects given the presence of our friends the seagulls, statues of historically important figures sprinkled throughout and of course, double decker buses.
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| The streets of Glasgow |
Our first full day in Glasgow began with a lecture called "Inspiring Innovation" by Dr Steven Graham, the executive director of the Technology and Innovation Centre (TIC) at University of Strathclyde. This building is particularly important to the University of Strathclyde. The Queen actually officially opened it only a few weeks ago! The building represents the university's drive to continue innovating and bringing innovation to the public. The building is accessible to the public and has meeting rooms, seating, computer access etc. The TIC's goal is to give the public a place to enter the "Valley of Death." Wait, what? Yes, the "Valley of Death," which apparently is a stage in the Technology Readiness Level (the process of idea to reality) where the idea itself was formed. TIC also strives to bring the worlds of academics and business together, which Dr Graham noted can be a very difficult task, but a crucial one for success and true innovation. Ultimately, the TIC wishes to have a multidisciplinary approach to innovation involving technology, the public and even the government, bringing all the people necessary for innovation into one space to make the process massively efficient.
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| Squad with Dr Steven Graham at the Technology and Innovation Centre |
After our lecture, we got a tour of the facilities. The building itself is only about 5 months old meaning everything was pretty brand spanking new. My favorite part might have been what's pictured below. There were several of these booths around the common area that essentially block out all sound so that one can work peacefully in a common area with a lot of people.
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| The sound-proof booths at the TIC |
After our lecture with Dr Graham, we headed to the National Piping Centre to learn about the bagpipes! The National Piping Centre has a one-room museum full of ancient to contemporary bagpipes (including ones played at the battle of Waterloo!) along with old sheet music and different variations of pipes. Our tour guide was lovely and very knowledgeable, being a bagpiper herself for 15 years. The most interesting information included that the bagpipes didn't even originate in Scotland. The first pipes known are from 12th century Egypt and they spread throughout all of Europe not showing up in Scotland until the 13th century! Also, their original use in Scotland was by the "Town Piper" who would play in the wee hours of the morning to wake everyone up. If you've ever heard the pipes being played, you'll know that they have absolutely no volume other than loud and they would be a very effective alarm.
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| Everyone outside of the National Piping Centre |
After learning a bit about the pipes, we actually got a chance to try them out. YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE HOW MUCH AIR IT TAKES TO GET THE BAGPIPES TO MAKE SOUND. I cannot emphasize that enough. You have to fill the bag with air, and then blow a ton more to get sound out. When you take a breath in, you can squeeze the bag (keeping the pressure exactly the same) to continue making sound but then you better pump some more breath in soon or the sound will stop. To demonstrate exactly how difficult it was, here's a video of my own attempt:
After we all made our pitiful attempts to play, our tour guide played for us and made us all feel really good about ourselves. Not. She was really incredible.
Next we went to the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow. It was...modern art. I have a lot of respect for people who appreciate and understand modern art, and really, I always try to give it a chance, but I'm not a huge fan. Even so, I enjoyed our time there immensely. The first exhibit was a film in which they had bean bag chairs to lay on and lawn chairs as well. The film was super odd and I do not understand it, but I enjoyed watching.
After walking through all the exhibits, we headed back to the flats for a couple hours to relax and get ready for our Civic Reception at the Glasgow City Chambers.
This reception was one of the nicest we've attended so far. It was small, so we all got a chance to talk to everyone in attendance. The Baillie (a civic officer) of Glasgow was in attendance along with other important members of the Glasgow City Council. We also got a chance to talk with a Fulbright Scholar currently studying in Glasgow from the States, which was an awesome and very informative experience. We got a chance to discuss our lecture topics with a few of our lecturers at the University of Strathclyde as well. Our favorite part was being allowed to see the City Council Debate Chambers themselves. It was a beautiful debate room with cushioned seats featuring a gold crest, a gorgeous ceiling and overall extensive decor. The cherry on top was the chair at the head of the room donated by Queen Victoria herself, affectionately known as the "Victoria Chair."
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| Me sitting in the "Victoria Chair" |
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| Most of the group at the Glasgow City Chambers |
We all had a lovely time at the reception, and enjoyed our night out in Glasgow afterward.
Friday we had two lectures: the first was a walking health history tour along the streets of Glasgow, the second a round table discussion with the National Theatre of Scotland.
So, the health tour mainly focused on a strange phenomenon special to Glasgow called "The Glasgow Effect." Basically it's this health conundrum that the life expectancy of Glaswegians (at least those with lower income) is inexplicably lower (10 years lower) than anywhere else in Europe. Our lecturer, Dr Patricia Barton, noted the paradox of Glasgow in that it's known for its innovativeness, but also has this reputation as the "sick man of Europe." So while the city is constantly creating new solutions to problems, it seems to be unable to solve the one, arguably most important, problem it has: health.
Dr Barton also told us a bit of the history of the city itself. The most surprising tidbit was that Glasgow was built on the trade of three items: slavery, tobacco, and opium. Yikes. Maybe that explains the health problem (joking, of course). Anyhow, Glasgow provides better access routes to the Americas than London, so it was heavily used for these profitable trades.
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| Us with Dr Barton on our health tour |
Another interesting tidbit from our health tour concerns Cholera, which became a health and political issue. So, cholera was most likely brought to Glasgow by washer women, one of the only groups of people that wasn't quarantined because the wealthier citizens of Glasgow had priorities in the field of not doing their own laundry. So cholera hit and the remedy used was a "hot totty," whiskey, tea, lemon and honey. To this day, my own father insists that hot tottys are a great cold remedy. Unfortunately, alcohol dehydrates your body, and didn't really help the victims of cholera out much. Anywho, eventually people thought the government invented cholera in order to obtain bodies for anatomists of Glasgow and research. I guess that tells us a lot about political efficacy and confidence in the Glaswegian government in the 19th century.
After our health tour, we went to our meeting with two representatives from the National Theatre of Scotland, Neil Murray and Elly Rothnie. The lecture was called "Theatre without Walls" and it was quite well named. So, the National Theatre of Scotland is a bit of a mystery to someone from the States. This Theatre is funded by the Scottish government with a rather generous budget. The fact that the government supports the arts so completely is so amazing, but seems too good to be true. The government doesn't even have to vet their programs! After discussing it with Neil and Elly though, it's clear why Scottish culture is a huge asset that must be conserved. In Scotland, culture is considered a resource, not a burden or a service. In fact, when asked how Independence might affect the National Theatre of Scotland, Neil and Elly were both confident that, if anything, their funding would increase. In a time of independence, having a strong and flourishing culture is essential to national sentiment and a successful transition into independence, therefore acting as a resource. As Elly noted, "culture allows a small country to punch way above its weight."
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| Everyone with Neil and Elly at the National Theatre of Scotland discussion |
The most interesting thing about the National Theatre of Scotland is that they are the first national theatre company that chose against having its own venue. This gives the Theatre the ability to make the entirety of Scotland its venue. In fact, on their opening night, they had 10 different plays in 10 different Scottish cities open on the same night at the same time, binding the whole nation together in one night of theatre. The setting for their plays has been everything from a traditional theater setting to pubs, airports, and football fields. If all this wasn't enough, they even do international plays basically all the time. In fact, I'm extremely excited that they'll be doing one of their famous "pub plays" in my own college town, Champaign-Urbana! I can't wait to attend.
Our talks about both health in Glasgow and the National Theatre of Scotland were both extremely eye-opening and inspiring.
This weekend will certainly bring more exciting adventures in Glasgow, so cheers till then!
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