A night out drinking in Newcastle is not exactly a rare outing for Scots. In fact, there are probably as many Scottish Stag Nights and Hen Do’s there as there are anywhere else in Glasgow or Edinburgh.
The timing of this trip worked out well, because of French friends who were visiting Newcastle the same time as us. The train deal I found was a bit cheaper, but left very early on Saturday morning, 6:15 am.
The first things on our minds was dropping stuff off at the hotel and finding some breakfast. It actually took us a fairly long time to get around to the latter. We walked along the river and checked out the bridges, Sage Gateshead, and some public art before walking up the hill to find somewhere to eat.
After having a bacon sandwich at a French cafe near the arcade, we wandered off in search of Grainger Street Market, which we found quite accidentally – we were advised to go there, but made no effort before hand to find out exactly where it was.
We went through the entrance by the Black Garter pub – I am keeping a running collection of amusing place, shop, and pub names, and that one sounded very saucy. The market reminded me a lot of the Granville Island Market, but had to be at least twice the size. It was split into a few parts, but it looked like it could have been a converted warehouse like the one in Vancouver. It had a high glass ceiling, and all of the large open spaces were filled with vendors selling fresh produce, deli meats, cheeses, clothes, and tourist knick knacks.
While walking around a few of the other shopping streets, we stopped for a moment to listen to some buskers, and were met with a very nice surprise. We were expecting to meet up with Morgane and Luca at the train station later that afternoon, but there they were sitting on a bench not far away.
Now being a foursome, we walked around a bit more and eventually made our way over to the Laing Art Gallery. They were doing an exhibition on a Victorian painter (named John Martin) that we all really enjoyed – lots of vibrant colours, vivid landscapes, and stories from ancient mythology and the bible. One of these days, I’ll actually have to read the bible front to back because I always find there are a few gaps when I try to remember the stories.
We arranged to meet up later, and split into pairs again. Aarti and I went by bus out to the biggest mall I’ve ever seen called Metrocentre, which kind of sounds similar to a place in Burnaby where I used to work. It dwarfed that one. IT’S A BIG, BIG, MALL.
Wright After Reading 