Glasgow, Scotland. 04.3-7.2016
Another month and another new place. It was hard to choose between Glasgow and Edinburgh. But in the end I found more faces to photograph in Glasgow, so it was decided.
To save on money I decided to take a overnight 8 hour bus ride to Glasgow instead of flying. I quickly learned that it was a disaster of a choice. The 8 hour bus ride turned into 10 hours and our bus broke down at 3am in the middle of the highlands. After lots of complaints and yelling from the other passengers we switched buses and continued onto our journey. I don't think a lot of people can handle being in a bus with 50 strangers for 10 hours and not want to murder every single one of them haha. But somehow I made it.
Upon my arrival I was greeted with typical Scottish weather, rainy and gloomy. The city seemed dull and it certainly didn't help my mood. I quickly sheltered in a coffee shop for a much needed coffee and get my bearings since I had some time to waste till my check in at the hostel. Right after dropping my bags at the hostel I met up with a model I scouted on Instagram only a few days ago. We shot at the Glasgow Botanic Gardens, where rain could not touch us. After I went to a local store to get some groceries for the next few days and went back to the hostel. I've been to a few hostels and this one wasn't particularly my favorite, the people hardly wanted to socialize or make eye contact. What irritates me about this is when you sign up to be in a hostel you probably should be a people person and are open minded so when you get to a hostel and absolutely nobody is friendly that damps your mood. I was completely shattered, running on absolutely no sleep and in between photoshoots, sightseeing and trying to figure out where I was going to sleep the following night I had drained my body of all its energy. That night I managed to convince a fellow traveller from France to come and join me for some drinks and music in one of Glasgow's most famous concert venues where rising artists like The Killers, My Chemical Romance, Florence and The Machine, and many more started their careers.
The following morning I checked out of my hostel and met up with my potential host from Couchsurfing who would be hosting me that night. After I met up with my model and makeup artist for our shoot that day. I had found a insane location outside of Glasgow that I desperately wanted to go but with hardly any information on how to get there we just had to figure it out along the way! We took a hour bus ride through the countryside and once we arrived to the nearest town to the location we asked the locals and found it was about a 3km hike. With no bus to there are only option was to walk it. Thankfully the day was sunny and warm but I had about 10 kg of camera equipment on me. After searching for the place called "Devil's Pulpit" with no signs to point us to the right direction we somehow found it. Devil's Pulpit is a natural gorge with a running river at the bottom. Its hard to explain how crazy beautiful it is, not even the photos do it justice. This place has to be one of my favourite places I have ever shot at. And after we hiked back to the town, the only pub cheered us on for making it and were quite surprised we did it. Once returning to Glasgow I didn't have a good feeling about my host so I got my bags and spent the night at my models apartment.
My final day in Glasgow was meant for sightseeing but ended up waiting on another host and running into bad luck each time. Eventually I found a host but ended up coming late and I was super sick by then and I knew if I didn't collapse into bed soon I would waiting for him to show up. So I checked into a hostel even though my bank account yelled no! I couldn't move or even have the energy to talk to anyone else that night. The next morning I catched a bus to the airport and caught my flight home.
After 10 painful hours on a bus, 2 countryside bus rides, over 6 kms of hiking, many more in between, 3 full days, and 1 flight, Glasgow had left me exhausted.
