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Reports

During my travels, I received free accommodation for a night in exchange for writing a daily travel diary. This diary documented how I reached my next destination, the hosts who welcomed me, the food I was offered, and other experiences along the way. Below, you will find the archives of these extensive reports. Please note that English is not my native language, and most entries were written quickly, often around midnight. Enjoy!
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Saturday, 14 July 2001
North Berwick --> Glasgow, Scotland (UK)

Today I got from Sylvia and Peter's place in North Berwick to Glasgow. Peter eventually wanted to bring me back to Edinburgh again, which is halfway to Glasgow and I would easily be able to get a hitch there.

Before my departure in the afternoon, Sylvia overloaded me with presents and with one for my next host. She gave me a candy rock-stick, Scottish Whisky Fudge and even offered me more souvenirs, but I just can't take all with me in my backpack as I have 61 other countries to visit.

On the road my host in Glasgow, Alan Shields, called me on my phone to tell me that he was in Edinburgh. So Peter drove up to the Edinburgh train station where I met Alan and his wife Laraine and their daughter.

They had been shopping in Edinburgh and were about to take the train back to Glasgow. Alan was so kind that he even bought a train ticket for me to Glasgow too.

In the train we talked about my project (the famous 20 questions) and they were amazed.

Alan once found my website somehow as he works as the Scottish sales manager at [url=www.redhouselane.co.uk ]Redhouse Lane[/url], a graphic and web design company in England.

He typed in his personal info and never expected me to call him this week.

When we arrived in Glasgow we walked from the train station along George's Square and visited the Counting House pub for a drink. This pub used to be a bank and has a big arched window on top and historical statues decorate the high walls. Really impressive. Alan said: "If you have seen this, you have seen Glasgow," which was kind of true.

After a cup of coffee we all walked to the car and drove up to their house, just in a quarter outside of Glasglow, along the motorway.

At home Alan connected his laptop onto the internet for me and Laraine started to prepare dinner. Alan was watching television as he is fascinated by the current Grand Prix car races in England.

After the nice lasagna dinner it was time to pass out the presents and play for Santa Claus. From Sylvia and Peter Alan received a framed picture of the North Berwick port and after unpacking this they all started to think very hard about what to do with their present to my next host.

Around nine o'clock at night Alan's brother Jack, took us out to Glasgow centre so I could see a bit of Glasgow by night. We first had a drink in The Horseshoe, a popular pub as the bar is the longest bar in England. And the Britpop band Travis used to rehearse upstairs this pub. The member of this popular band enjoyed this so much that they donated their Gold Sale Award of their album 'The Man Who…' to the pub.

The next pub we went was the Slug And Lettuce Bar, a fully crowded bar dancing where the deejay played 70's and 90's hitsongs.

As we could barely hear eachother we left after one drink and found a more quiet pub, called Waxys O'Connor. This place is like four or five floors high, but all built between the ground floor and the first floor so you can look down all the way. Carefully crafted wood made it look that trees grow up all the way to the top.

After closing time, midnight in Glasgow, we got back to the car again while the rain was coming down. "This is typical Glasgow weather," Alan said. "No, it's not, this is Dutch weather."

We are still twisting about that.

At home I tried to write another report, but it's getting hard on me.

This report has been written on July 16, 40 kilometres west of the Scottisch city Aberdeen, with powercut-offs every 15 minutes because of the thunder storms passing over. So you can imagine that having to write about the past three days in these circumstances is pretty demanding.[/b]

Good night Glasgow…

Ramon.

In the media in Brazil:
Frontpage of the Tech Supplement of the Brazil Daily Globo:
Maior viagem! (Big Trip!)

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