Creepy Isle of Skye Mannequins!

skye1
skye1

If you're a long time reader of this site, you know my affinity for creepy mannequins in historical settings, so there was no disappointment when I made my way to the Isle of Skye and visited the Skye Museum of Island Life. Skye is a beautiful place, that's no joke, but I'm pretty sure I don't think I would have enjoyed living there in the olden timey days. In the first place, you'd have to speak Gaelic and also live in a hut with grass for a roof.

That's a picture of the local blacksmith on the left there. He would have been like your best friend, what with all the horeshoes you had to get made and farm implements that needed to be fixed.

skye2
skye2

The main problem with Skye is that it's just too windy. Actually, if Scotland in general could get a grasp on this whole wind situation, it would make the place a lot more tolerable.

I spotted the museum from the side of the road and decided to pull over. Normally, I'd take a pass at places like this, but the museum charge was a little over $3.00 (US) so I figured I'd take a chance.

The museum consisted of a number of cottages representing different parts of island life - the schoolhouse, the blacksmith shop, the weaving cottage, and the farmhouse. For some reason, they had pictures everwhere that said no photography. Which is odd, because it's not like we're dealing with museum quality exhibits here. So all of these pictures were taken illegally.....by someone else....and then passed to me. The farmhouse probably had the best creepy mannequins of all. Here an old timey farmer and his wife were warming themselves by the fire, because it was probably July and still windy and cold as shit.

skye-farm.jpg

That's the farmer's wife over there to the left. They were setup in their chairs next to the fireplace and conveniently close to the bedroom in case they needed to "get some lovin' on".

I also kept bumping my head on everything. I think everyone was shorter in the olden days.

Overall, it was a cool museum and didn't feel too "tourist trap-y" until I got to an exhibit labelled "How Things Used to Be".

This was basically a collection of invoices and receipts from back in the 1920s and 1930s when they used to use their crazy currency here and so all the prices read like: 1d 2s, two guineas, one crown, two bob, penny farthing etc.

So start saving your Walmart receipts now. You never know when they might end up in a museum one day.

Glasgow Nachos!

Weegee nachos. Mmmm. Aye! 

Weegee nachos. Mmmm. Aye! 

A little over a month ago I made the short rail journey to Glasgow to....well....uh...partake of Glaswegian culture.

And to ride their world famous tiny subway.

And, of course, to sample the famous Glaswegian nachos.

But first, I had to partake in some of the sights. Like the fine example of WeeGee (as the Glaswegians are called here) Early Modernist Brutalist Architecture like the example that you see there to the right.

Watch out for Neds. 

Watch out for Neds. 

I think that was a police station or something like that at one point. This kind of early-to-mid 60s style was a HUGE hit over in the UK. You can see these types of buildings all over the place.

The first thought being when you see one of these monstrosities is, naturally, "What the hell were these people thinking?" I think this is, believe it or not, a police station.

I think I'm lost. 

I think I'm lost. 

Glasgow's subway is equally as charming. Dubbed "The Clockwork Orange" because it only goes around in a circle, the line features really tiny subway cars and some creepy stations.

In all fairness, the subway is in the midst of a major overhaul and rebranding right now, so perhaps I just stopped at the wrong stations.

The other strange thing about the subway is that they're using what looks like the same font as Facebook for all their signage. Many of the entrances for the subway are on streets with normal shops, so when you enter the station it kind of feels like you're entering some kind of Facebook Outlet Shop.

But there were plenty of cool parts of Glasgow, too. 

The Kelvingrove museum (there to the right, can you tell I got Hipstamatic?) is one of those cool old timey UK museums that they used to have during the days of empire, with plenty of exhibits about "the colonies."

Kelvingrove all fancied up. 

Kelvingrove all fancied up. 

Didn't linger too long on the artsy-fartsy part but did manage to see Dali's Christ of Saint John of the Cross. That was pretty cool and fairly painless as artsy things go.

But you're not here to read about art, are you? No, it's a UK nacho review that you're here for and a UK nacho review that you will get.

This day in Glasgow I managed to have fairly decent Tex-Mex food not once, but TWICE! My first meal was at Taco Mazama in the West End and I later dined at Pinto Mexican Kitchen in the City Center. The nachos that you see pictured above were purchased at Taco Mazama.

As to the nachos, overall a fairly decent basket. To their favor, Taco Mazama didn't try to dress the nachos up for you, they simply gave you a basket of chips with melted cheese. The RIGHT melted cheese, mind you, white and not some type of off color cheddar (although Gloucester cheese on Tex-Mex over here seems to work pretty well). The salsa had plenty of chunks of red onion in it, which was a welcome suprise. Taco Mazama is a chain and, luckily enough, there's one directly across the street from my office in Edinburgh so I can visit whenever I like.

I had the veggie burrito at Pinto's which was fairly tasty. One cool menu item that I noticed while dining there was that Austin, Texas favorite, breakfast tacos!

That'll probably need it's own post.