Moving to Scotland and into Glasgow

Sunday was a day full of travelling with different modes of transportation the whole day. First we loaded up in probably the fanciest coach bus I’ve ever been on (we had tables on the bus!) and went about 15 minutes until we reached the edge of Belfast to get on a ferry. When I imagined a ferry, I thought a big boat sure with a lot of seats, not a luxury cruise liner with 10 floors and so many activities to do. This is a 2 hour ferry from Belfast, Ireland to Cairnryan, Scotland and I got a manicure and a pretty nice meal with some extra time to spare to check out what else they had on board (which included gambling slots, an arcade, the on-board spa, theater room, I think several bars and a restaurant, and shops with luxury items). To say I was impressed is an understatement. Everyone on the trip was amazed that this was the “ferry” to Scotland, A+ rating to Stenaline. Anyways after exploring the ship, a couple girls and I decided that a spa day would be nice so Shari and I got get manicures, and Ashley and Abbey decided to get massages. It was very nice and we all wished we could’ve brought swimsuits to get into the Jacuzzi! We all grabbed a quick bite to eat which ended up being GIANT kid’s meals that were perfect to hold us over. After sadly docking and getting off the ship, we boarded another coach bus which took us an hour and 45 minutes north to a town called Ayr. Whoever told me I was going to be too busy to read on this trip obviously has not sat on enough buses and trains while traveling, I am burning through books on my kindle. After getting into Ayr, we took a 50 minute train up and into Glasgow. From the Central Station, we walked 20 minutes or so uphill (which was killer, we all joke we better have great legs and arms from carrying our stuff after this trip) to our guesthouse. Glasgow is not how I expected it to be, but I actually really like it. It is surprisingly extremely hilly, like they have the slope marked on all the hills and let me tell you they are a workout. We settled in and then went out to explore a bit before coming back for a big day Monday. Sadly I somehow have NO pictures of this amazement so I have my fingers crossed someone captured it!                    

  

Monday was a new kind of day on this trip which was a really nice change of pace. Instead of going to a school or doing history lessons, we started working with a company called Snook here in Glasgow. Snook is hard to explain and I want to do them the best justice, so I’ll just say they are a service design company that work with a variety of organizations and people to bring the best type of ingenuity to lots of different products and types of problems to make things easier than how they are already. I know, very vague and broad! Basically, as this is the best example they gave us, if you have two coffee shops that sell the same coffee and have the same prices, service design is what makes you choose one shop over the other. Anyways, with Snook we were divided into groups of 7 and 8 and charged with a specific question to tackle. The group that I was put with was charged with the question of how we could better market alcohol awareness to the ages of 16-25 in Glasgow. We did some idea brainstorming in some creative ways, which I am thankful for, because when you think too hard about one singular goal it’s hard to just find the solution. I like that sometimes you can just back into an idea after getting inspiration from something completely different. We took a couple of hours after lunch to roughly craft some ideas, and with some refinement (and lots of arguing) we had 3 fleshed out ideas to run by people in research. That night we were in encouraged to go out and ask some questions of people, so we took that and ran with it. We decided on the bar Nice n’ Sleazy (which was actually was more nice than sleazy) and questioned a couple people while also appreciating the weirdness of the whole thing. It was a good way to end Monday.         

   

The team in action brainstorming

Our friends at MakLab let us use their basement

Tuesday we were back at Snook, where we combined some of our ideas in order to create a better platform for alcohol awareness. We knew we had to present our ideas at the end of the day, so most of our time was focused on getting the rough edges smooth and creating a visual and representative presentation. Our idea in basic was that we would create cheap coasters with humorous pictures and slogans with lead ins to a website with hangover cures that you could vote on, alcohol facts, advertisement from companies encouraging safe drinking, and taxi services that you could use while checking out the website. We did a PowerPoint, handed out rough mock-ups of the coasters, and had a poster with what the website could look like. We got some great feedback from the people at Snook where they told us how we could engage people better, and gave us good examples of the direction we were headed towards. After presentations, we walked to their actual building about 10 minutes away, because we had been using a space underneath a fabrication center. Snook is actually located above a bar and a tea room, so we were taken around their studio and then went downstairs to grab celebratory drinks. After taking with more Snook employees and hanging out we went for a group dinner at Wagamama, which is a really good Japanese chain around the UK. Though after dinner, we were told some bad news about one of the 3^rd year students from Auburn in our program and we all just decided to go back to the guesthouse and chill out there.

Our board being used for organization

Our website mock-up

Wednesday was our free day in Glasgow, so after breakfast Shari, Ashley, and I grabbed some coffee at a shop around the corner and decide to just walk until we saw something we wanted to do. The only thing that was permanent on our schedule was seeing the Glasgow School of Art which was designed by Charles Mackintosh, whom I’m pretty sure we all have a design crush on. Sadly though, last spring the Mackintosh building of the school was damaged in a fire, so they lost the library and still have scaffolding up blocking the building from being used. We got to hang around the newer building and go through a little exhibit they had up explaining Mackintosh’s work, but our last history test was over his work so we already knew most of the information. We could’ve gone on the tour, but if I was going to pay for it I would have wanted to see in the Mackintosh building. We then walked out of the middle of the city to the park district, where Ashley decided she needed to go back to the guesthouse so Shari and I walked around aimlessly taking in the fresh air. We took the long way around the park and then made our way back towards St. George’s square in the middle of Glasgow. We stopped at the Willow Tea Rooms which was also designed by Mackintosh and had a midday break. After walking around the models on the first floor of never built works and grabbing a quick bite to eat, we walked past the markets lining the pedestrian walkway. We, of course, walked into the Primark (which is just like Penneys where EVERYTHING is so cheap) and I had to talk myself out of some great shoes. We just walked until the exhaustion of the day caught up to us and I went back to my room to do a new history lecture since we do have a test before we go home.     

A model of Glasgow School of Art

The real outside of Glasgow School of Art (scaffolding and all)

A detail of the new building of Glasgow School of Art

The fountain in the park

The view from the park

Today we have had a lazy morning where we didn’t leave for Edinburgh until 10:45. We walked another really long walk to a different train station, Queen's street station. We got into Edinburgh and I walked around with Becca and Christina near Princes Street and made a big loop around the castle which we are going to see tomorrow. With Ashley though, I went to see Avengers:Age of Ultron because it came out earlier here than it does in the U.S. and I did enjoy that! I'm off to do another history lesson so I'll fill you in on the rest of Edinburgh soon!