Glasgow

A blizzard of family: not just mother, aunt, sister, sister's partners, but cousin and husband, second cousins and their spouses, and a beautiful girl child, the first grandchild, doted on by all. 

My you-sensor is overloaded. Encounter after encounter, the giving and receiving of gifts, the exploration of a different country and city, the styles sightly and glaringly different, the being part of a clan gathering for a grand nuptial ceremony and celebration.

At my request, my cousin told me of a walk around the neighborhood I could take. Immediately I began asking directions of people on the street--a father standing outside a school, a trio of boys licking a soccer home, a mother with several children pushing a pram, some gaunt older guys with florid cheeks and beaky noses like my grandfather and others. Some could help and others could not, but all stopped, and but their minds to the task.

The day so beautiful (at that moment), the pedestrians so numerous, the co

 so palpable, the architecture and landscape so clearly not American,