Scotland 2023

 I'm up at 3 in the morning because I had a lot of caffeine today and have a lot of things on my mind. Figured the perfect distraction would be a blog post...so here we are.

Last month after going to the North Sea Jazz Festival, we went to Scotland. I don't think Scotland likes me very much. I felt like I had a string of bad luck. Starting with Easy Jet. Never, ever, ever fly Easyjet. They are a trash airline with trash customer service. They didn't get my luggage on my flight. They left it in The Netherlands. We flew in Tuesday...and they didn't get my luggage to me until Thursday night. And have yet to "reimburse' me for the things I bought because I had nothing. The gate agents weren't helpful...they don't pick up their phone. I could go on and on. But basically not having your luggage really puts a downer on any trip. I'm getting upset just thinking about it now.

Anyway....we stayed at a really nice hotel in Glasgow. The  IHG Grand Central. It is  connected to a huge train station and right in the middle of everything. Great location. We did manage to get to the highlands. Which are beautiful. Our tour guide talking about and pointed out where they filmed for the James Bond movies, Outlander, and the Tri Wizard Tournament in the Harry Potter movies. Did you know Hogwarts is located in Scotland? I only learned that last year I think and I was mind blown because I have read he Harry Potter novels a dozen times now and seen the movies countless times.

We also went on the Loch Ness cruise. I feel like the first time I heard of the Loch Ness monster was on Scooby Doo. So I can't think of Loch Ness without thinking of Scooby. I really enjoyed the cruise though. You learn a lot. The tour guide we had was very engaging, knowledgeable and had the cutest accent. 

My favorite thing about the cruise was learning about the two different sides of the Loch. One side looks like the U.S and the other side looks wild- the Highlands. The story is that they are two different tectonic plates. I found it captivating. I loved looking at the different sides. I couldn't capture it with my phone but seeing it was nice. There was even a wild goat (or something) on the wild Highland side.

I love cows. I think they are so cute. And I just love watching vids of people playing music and the cows always coming over to listen politely. We got to meet the Highland cow. Or coo. They are huge! But so cute. We even got to feed him carrots. I was scared at first but I did manage to give him/or her  a carrot. Such a cutie! 

We managed to go out for the fanciest dinner. I did the wine tasting. It was a LOT of wine- I didn't really like the wine much. And the food was pretty good. Especially the way they cooked the veggies. 

Fanciest (and most expensive) meal I have ever had! 

We visited  the Cathedral and two museums- Kelvingrove Art Museum and St. Mungo museum.  Kelvingrove had a ton of paintings and everything else you could think of. St. Mungo had lot of religious items from all different religions. It really emphasized respect of different religions and was beautiful to see.   They even had a mummy- which I feel some type of way that the Egyptians preserved those bodies and they end up on display in a foreign country. It seems...wrong. 

We also visited the church. I believe the Glasgow Cathedral is  the first Protestant Church I've ever visited. I always love to visit church. They actually filmed some scenes from Outlander in it. 

Overall I wasn't too impressed with the food in Scotland. We had the worst fish and chips. It was greasy, bland, and flavorless. If you want good fried fish, you have to go US Southern Fried. I didn't even get a picture of it..it was so disappointing. But we did go out for Afternoon Tea. It was OK. The strawberry pastry wasn't good though. And the Scottish Breakfast tea was very weak. I can make better cups of tea at home.  Sandwiches OK. I do love the set up though.

And last meal, I had Steak Pie- it wasn't bad. It was actually pretty good.  And tried Sticky Toffee Pudding. It was very interesting. Very much so on the sweet side. And you can taste the dates in it. It wasn't what I thought it would be, but I'm glad I tried it because I was intrigued by the name. This was an order we made at hotel in Edinburgh.

And that's all! I do need to go back one day because there is a lot I still need to see...