Friday, January 05, 2007

Scotland!

Our flight from Dublin left on time and we made it to Glasgow a few minutes earlier than scheduled. Our hostel is HUGE and just a few minutes walk from the central train station where we rode into town from the airport. Dinner was at an Indian restaurant down the street from our hostel called Spice Garden.  We had a ton of food and while it was a bit pricey (what isn't with the exchange rate?) it was very good. We are in for the evening enjoying Scottish/BBC telly and dessert. Not bad, not bad at all.

One night in London...

Kate and I had a great evening running around town tonight. I have my
tickets to Salisbury for tomorrow with the Deverells (I get to see
Dizzy the dog too!). George took us to Pasta Brown - the place
continues to impress me. We wandered around Oxford Circus some before
George drove us back to the hostel for the night. Kate and I are
absolute zombies tonight. I suppose two nights without sleep will do
that! Time for bed...another long day tomorrow!

The Book of Kells, Trinity College, and St. Patrick's Cathedral.

It was very difficult to roll out of bed this morning, but we managed to get downstairs and out of the room a little after 8 a.m. to start another day of touring.

It was a bit damp out and thankfully not raining as we walked from the hostel to St. Patrick's Cathedral. The cathedral is beautiful and one portion of the site is being repaired. There is a lovely grassy area with benches and swings adjacent to the cathedral and people were walking through the park as we took photos.

We continued walking until we reached Grafton Street where there were shops absolutely everywhere. We found a card shop with funny cards and a new artist we find amusing (www.edwardmonkton.com), had coffee and scones from Marks & Spencer, and were delighted to find a jewelry store at the end of the street that was closing and thus everything was on sale! I found a pair of white gold star earrings to replace the ones I bought in the Netherlands about 4 years ago, a claddagh ring, and a trinity knot necklace and ring.

Trinity College was just across the street from the jewelry store, so we walked across and into the gated campus. Kate found it amusing to take a picture of me taking pictures because that's all I've been doing - I have about 300 photos so far (from 3 days of travels). I hope to make it to the 1000 mark by the time we head back to the states.

At Trinity College we bought tickets to see The Book of Kells. It was amazing to see such craftsmanship and the attention to detail on each page of the book(s) in the collection.

We are now back in the Temple Bar area. We had crepes and lattes for lunch and have another two hours or so before we need to pick up our luggage from the hostel and take the bus to the airport for our flight to Glasgow.

The weather here is impeccable! It's windy, but nothing we can't handle. More later from Scotland - I hope to add more pictures late tonight.