February 25, 2012
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Glasgow, Scotland
It was off to the airport again today! Ehm... but not for me to return to Amsterdam - fortunately. After a lunch at IKEA in Braehead (Swedish meatballs - obviously - served by a rather large and rather gay guy) we went to the airport to pick up Lynne, Colin and Andy's friend who lives in the London area and who is visiting Glasgow and Aberdeen (her home city) for the next week and a bit. I met Lynne a couple of times in the past so it was great seeing her again, also for me!
After we had dropped off Lynne's luggage in the apartment we returned to the West End for a coffee in Tinderbox and we then went to Dram! (initially wanting to take a subway train into the city centre until the subway dropped us off one station down and didn't continue because of 'an incident' on the line) where we waited for a message from two other friends, Eugene and Diane who were attending a football match (is that what it's called with football matches? Attending?) and who would be meeting up with us later today for some food and - yes - drinks.
Now, 'waiting' sounds like a nasty word, when I said that we were waiting in Dram! but it was actually very pleasant to sit in the pub that was once called Uisge Beatha, chatting, checking the newspapers and doing the whisky game. The whisky game, yes. It's a game that was invented by Andy, Colin and myself, and it's one of the nicest games imaginable. It works like this: one of us goes to the bar, orders three whiskies (of course after having checked that there is indeed enough choice), takes them back to the table and lets the others guess, as good as possible, which whiskies are on the table. Given that there are a hundred distilleries in Scotland, with many of them producing various single malts, it's very difficult to guess the exact whisky (and close to impossible for me) but there are already points to be had for guessing the correct region (Highlands, Lowlands, Campbelltown, Islay, Islands, Speyside) with Speyside, with its 50 distilleries, the guess with the highest percentage for a successful guess. Even though typically we only buy Scottish single malts, every now and then we'll sneak in a different type, such as a Scottish blend, or an Irish or American whiskey, but that's just part of the game.
The whiskies in the picture above were bought at the bar by me. One of them is an Auchentoshan Threewood (Lowlands), one of them is a Ardbeg Blasda (Islay) and one of them is a Glenmorangie Ten Year Old (Speyside.) Up to you to guess which one is which. Quite spectacularly (at least to me, who can't often even tell a single malt from a blend) Colin guessed the Auchentoshan Threewood correctly and also decided that the Ardbeg one was an Islay. We repeated the whisky game and in the meantime tried to explain it all to Lynne (who couldn't be convinced and stuck with her vodka-lime and Diet Cokes.) Now some people might say that the whisky game is just a silly excuse to have some nice whiskies in a pub. But those people... well, we don't listen to what those people have to say.
After Dram! we walked to the wonderful Bon Accord pub where we met up with Eugene and Diane, and not too long after that we had delicious curries in the next door Indian Restaurant. That is truly wonderful in Glasgow; the abundance of Indian restaurants that serve great curries. Coming from a city where Indian restaurants are a bit rarer, having a curry ("the best curries outside India" it is claimed) in Glasgow is a real treat. And tonight was no exception. After we had said our goodbyes to Dianne and Eugene, we walked back towards the apartment but not before popping into another bar on Great Western Road where I ended up being the only one still getting an alcoholic drink (a blend for once) and we also started writing silly things on the fogged up windows. Time to go back home, after a great day out in Glasgow! Oh, and the Ardbeg is the one on the left, the Auchentoshan is in the middle and the Glenmorangie is the one on the right...
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