Day 17: Glasgow

Ever since starting this trip, when I was talking to other travellers about my plans for Scotland, it went something like this:
"I'm heading to Edinburgh first..."
"Oh, Edinburgh is such a lovely city, you'll love it!"
"..and then going to Glasgow for a few days."
*silent head shake of pity*
There seems to be a pretty universal dislike of Glasgow from all travellers that have been here. Everyone says there is nothing to do, nothing to see, and that it's just a big dull city. I was only planning to spend 2.5 days or so here in the first place, so I wasn't too worried, but the reaction has been so strong that I was getting a bit nervous about what to expect.
After checking into my place and exploring the city center for the afternoon, I can sort of see what they're talking about, but I have to disagree with them. Glasgow certainly doesn't have the old-world feel that a place like Edinburgh does. Instead of cobblestones and castles there are overpasses and shopping malls, but the city still seems to have a lot of character and I think it comes down to appreciating a place for what it is, and not moaning about what it isn't.
On the subject of character though, let me first tell you about my "guest home". From the outside, it looks like a tiny little house on a street of other tiny little attahced houses. From the inside, it quickly becomes apparent that the guest home is actually a warren of these houses attached to each other on the inside - although in ways that makes it obvious this wasn't the original construction. To get to my room from the entrance, I have to navigate a labyrinth of directions along the lines of : take the second left, go down the ramp, go through the door on the right, then go through the door down that hall. Turn right, go through the 3rd door, go up the ramp, turn right again, go up the staircase (spiral!), go through the door on the left at the first landing, go through another door, and then you're in the 2nd door on the left. I was a bit nervous when this was all be explained to me, but luckily in practice if I just keep following the signs indicating ever smaller room ranges I eventually get to my room (or following the "to entrance" ones when trying to escape). The wifi doesn't cover most of the rooms, so right now I'm in dining room #2 (I'm told there's 3 of them in total, but I'm not sure I'm brave enough to explore for the others). We even get the oldschool passkeys - woo.

I'm right near the city center, with one of the most central downtown streets running parallel to the one I'm on a block away. I just walked down the more central streets to see what was going on. There are a lot of pedestrian-only streets in the central core, and as a person who walks everywhere, I quite enjoy them.

Since it was a pretty nice day out, there were also a good number of buskers and street performers around. The one that had drawn the largest crowd was a group of hip-hop dancers. The dancing was decent, if not exceptional, but they were doing a good job of working the crowd.

I stumbled upon the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art (I seem to keep running into these), but it was only open for another 30 minutes. I did a quick walk through to see if I thought it was worth checking out in greater detail tomorrow - it wasn't. Despite a lack of any Edinburgh-like monuments, there are still plenty of interesting streets and landmarks:
The Argyle Arcade. A two-block covered walkway of bling. Shop after shop of diamonds, jewellry and watches.

A bizarre tower that sits alone in the middle of an interesection.

I should be checking things out in more detail tomorrow, as I have special plans for Friday.