Scotland:  Glasgow

First of all, I gotta give a shout out to my parents who made the 12 days we were in Scotland possible.  My Mom barely had time catch her breath after retiring to come take good care of our little ones and my Dad was kind enough to come help her and to sand and stain our deck and put in the garage door insulation--two things on our to-do list out of the way!  Thanks Mom & Dad!!

Although I was excited about our trip I was dreading the flight over.  Ended up not being too bad, as many things go, and we were there in no time (well, not literally; it still was 3 flights tallying over 5K miles, 80 miles of car travel and several hours in airports).  Glasgow is a very fun city!  We were based in Glasgow for 5 days.  I really enjoyed the atmosphere in the city.  Part of me is definitely a city girl.  We ate at cafes, pubs, a tapas bar and yummy restaurants.  J had his conference there at Glasgow University and he was kind enough to let me sit in on his presentation so I could see him in action.  Kinda like 'take your wife to work' day.  He had some other conference stuff to do on other days but we still saw quite a bit of Glasgow.  

One of the city's pedestrianized streets

We walked from our hotel in West/Central Glasgow all the way to St. Mungo's Cathedral in East Glasgow.  It was well worth it.  An amazing cathedral and the oldest standing building in Glasgow.

Just East of the cathedral is the Necropolis.  This is the coolest cemetery I have ever visited; and I've seen a fair share of cemeteries.  Tombstones are right up against the hills and some look to have the tomb even in the hillside.  A very calm and quiet spot of Glasgow. 

On the way back to our hotel we hit the City Chambers Building.  It's kinda like City Hall over there.  The interior had beautiful mosaic work in the entry and beautifully crafted marble staircases.  In the upper left of the trio of pics is the city seal of Glasgow.  We also walked through the Central train station.  It was huge!  It is kinda like the station in the Hugo movie with shops and eateries; very unlike the train stations in NYC and D.C. that I've been in. 

While J was at his conference I went to the Glasgow Botanical Gardens and had fun taking lots of flower pictures.  I found the pensive man with a pensive monkey on his lap a bit humorous and loved the large greenhouse with a winding trail the middle of the 'forest'.

A shot of Glasgow University with a cool bridge that is indicative of all the cool stonework we saw throughout Glasgow and much of Scotland.  We also went to some museums, etc.  We did so much walking in those first days after such a long trip over that my legs got stiff and J was massaging my calves nightly.  Thank you hon!  We had much better weather than we expected and though it was cold (mid-40's to lower-50s) we saw quite a bit more sun and less rain than we thought we would.  And every morning at the hotel we had a Scottish breakfast with our choice of:  bacon, sausage, eggs, croissants, haggis, panini, yogurt, fried mushrooms and fried tomatoes, and jams.  Next up:  Edinburgh and Stirling