The ride to Glasgow took me about six hours in all, much longer than I had anticipated. Part of the problem with this was the route, which, despite having specified to my mapping software that I would be riding a bicycle, took me along roads that only sometimes had a separate bike path. At several points this would end abruptly along a narrow, high speed motorway with no obvious connection to the next path. At one point I had climb up a grassy hill to find a jogging path through a wooded area that brought me to the next rideable road; in some places I had no choice but walk my bike down the overgrown shoulder for a few kilometers. Thank god for GPS for getting back on track whenever I had to detour, but I’m going to have to be liberal with the manual overrides on the plan for the next route.

Routes aside, the ride was largely uneventful, save for an old man who talked to me when I stopped at a gas station. When I told him I was Canadian he told me he was from wherever the hell we were and had lived there all his life, and then promptly told me what football team he supported. He talked at me for five minutes more, but that’s about all I was able to understand.

Jet lag caught up with me in Glasgow, and I took advantage of having a private room at the University to catch up on some much needed sleep. As everything in Glasgow closed at 5, this meant I was usually didn’t get out in the world until it was too late to spend any meaningful time in museums, so my experience of Glasgow was largely from the outside looking in.

The weather forecast has called for heavy rain for the next three days – the three days I was going to bike to Manchester. So I decided to take the train instead – doing this leg of the trip by train was one of the early possibilities anyway; there’s not much I want to see between Glasgow and Manchester, and it’s a long ride over hilly terrain.

I called to reserve space for my bike on the train, and the CSR told me there was no space left for a bike on that train. Or the next one. Or the next one. Or on any train for the next three days. Somehow I got the feeling she didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, so I hung up and called again, and a different CSR politely put me on hold so he could check with another department, then told me that yes, there was space for a bike on the train. But when I tried to book my ticket my card was declined.

So I hung up and booked my ticket online and the transaction went through. Then I called to reserve the bike space, and a new CSR told me there was no space for a bike on the train, even when I insisted I’d been told two minutes ago that there was. But he hadn’t put me on hold to call some other department so I hung up and called back a fourth time. Finally, success – the CSR called whoever he had to call and made a reservation for my bike.

I’m on the train now, and no one even checked to see I had a reservation.