Glasgow, April 7th

Glasgow greeted me with gray weather. Once again I was caught off guard by the friendliness and warmth of the people I interacted with, beginning with the hotel reception, continued by the waitress in a coffee shop, and a lady I asked for directions while trying to find Strathclyde Business School. On entering the building, I was greeted by a television screen, welcoming my humble presence.



The pleasure was all mine.

The town of Glasgow is a smörgåsbord of different architectural styles. After doing six hours of intense discussion about our paper's reviewer responses, John took me to a walk to the town's necropolis, which he tells me means "burial hill".



My previous encounter with the word 'necropolis' was from Neil Gaiman's comic book Sandman
where there was a town of the dead called Litharge, which housed a civilization of undead, who lived down the river on which other civilizations left their dead. They had a magnificient 'necropolis' where they conducted one of the "five approved methods of bodily disposal." The boy hero of the story dreams of a life beyond the necropolis and the mountains.

By the way, those interested in Gaiman's work might want to download "A study in emerald", the best Sherlock Holmes story I've ever heard, read by the author himself. You can get the story free here.



The Glasgow's necropolis turned out to be less sinister from Gaiman's vision. It was a very pleasant place to take a stroll and forget our troubles for a while.