My new favorite... somehow I found it in Glasgow

While in Edinburgh we decided to take a day trip to Glasgow. It was only a 30 minute ride from where we were staying in Linlithgow and we figured it would be fun. Glasgow is much more industrialized and not nearly as pretty as Edinburgh! If you want to go shopping, it's got a lot to offer... Jesse found a bunch of soccer-related merchandise to buy himself and I did buy myself a scarf and a cheap purse. 

The sightseeing highlights of our afternoon in Glasgow were the city center, St. Mungo's Cathedral, and the Glasgow Necropolis. The Necropolis had a ton of really cool tombstones and statues with interesting inscriptions about where other family members were buried and such. It also had a killer view of the town - too bad it was mostly newer buildings and hardly comparable to the view from the Edinburgh Castle! There was a wedding about to start at St. Mungo's, which was cool to see everyone get dressed up for. Yes, the men in the bridal party were wearing their respective family tartan kilts. Another funny "sight" we saw was a girl in a Boise State sweatshirt. Random.

Glasgow City Chambers

St. Mungo's Cathedral

View from St. Mungo Cathedral's gate 

Glasgow Necropolis 

My highlight of the day trip was lunch at a pub called The Piper. My order of sweet potato, cumin, lime soup was the perfect light lunch... I needed to save room for the dessert I was determined to order at some point in the trip: Sticky Toffee Pudding! I may be dating a French pastry chef but I do have to say that this may be my new favorite dessert! I don't understand why the Brits call it a "pudding", since it's a warm, moist date cake topped with a toffee sauce and served with vanilla ice cream (or custard or cream). Did I mention that it was warm? And there's a toffee sauce on top? This dessert didn't stand a chance and had Jesse asked for a bite, I might have hesitated. If you've ever watched me eat dessert, you'd know that it took me about 40 minutes to eat it, since I savor every teeny-tiny bite. This is a little piece of heaven on a plate! For his dessert, Jesse happily sipped a Belhaven's Best, which is his favorite of the Scottish ales he tested out. 

Sticky Toffee Pudding, my newfound love 

Jesse's new love, Belhaven's Best

After wandering aimlessly around Glasgow, we found a bar to watch the France vs. England rugby match. This took a little work, as every pub we went into was packed and could barely offer standing room... which didn't work for me. The spot we settled into had an interesting mixture of a few people watching the game, groups there just for dinner, and a "hen party" of 30-somethings complete with penis-paraphernalia. This was the first rugby match I'd watched on TV but without the sound, I was lost in my own world (which wasn't so bad, considering I was in Scotland!) It was pretty cool to see Prince Harry in the crowd celebrating England's win!

Next up: Five days in LONDON!

Bisous, 

-kelse