Aberdeen; City of Oil Rigs

Note: the next few entries will be about my trip to Aberdeen for a conference from 10-13 of June... sorry for the delay!


Can you get any more traditional than a real life Inn? Nothing conjures up images of highwaymen clad in ruffles and velvet riding noble horses, bar wenches, and medieval debauchery than a duty wooden bar with rooms on top. And that’s just what we got in Aberdeen.

I had never stayed in an Inn before, and The Globe Inn in Aberdeen seems to be an excellent first experience. It IS an old, dusty, wooden bar, with creaky chairs and creaky floors and a creaky manager. The insides are covered with old relics of the real Jazz age – violins and trumpets and records and old-timey music advertisements. A cheerful mural caresses the beer garden out back, bringing out scenes from New Orleans and Nashville and Harlem. Old wooden stairs covered in atmospherically worn creep noiselessly up from a discreet corner of the bar, taking a select number of “residents” to the upper regions of the Inn, housing eight squeaky clean and quaintly faded rooms. A pub that happens to have rooms above, reminiscent of the days of horse travel and before the concept of reservations. It feels like you can walk in, order an ale and a hot meal and, dripping wet or weary with wandering, ask for a place to stay for the night. And stabling for your horse.

Well, today, it’s minus the stabling.

The pub was crowded with football revelers by the time we arrived, and buzzing with Pro-Croatia or Pro-Germany sentiment and the smell of ale and steak pies. Our room was right above the bar, with barely any pub noise passing through the thick Scottish walls. The accommodation itself was truly first rate, with tall windows, plush Victorian furnishings, shortbread biscuits to go with afternoon tea.

Throughout our 3-day trip to Aberdeen, Aberdeenians, all who had heard of the famed Globe Inn, seemed totally in the dark as to the fact that there were actually rooms for rent above it. A hidden gem.

The purpose of our sojourn was for a conference, so we took it easy in the afternoon while I read and rehearsed and shortened and rehearsed again the paper I would be giving tomorrow morning.