On the way home

This is Hamish the Highlands Cow, friendly, but a bit hairy I'd say. LOL

Tyrone Crystal makes the trophy for the All Ireland Champions and over the last couple of years it has been for their home team Tyrone. This is a copy of the 2008 trophy that was given to the team.

7 July

So here I am on my Aer Lingus flight back to Chicago. Tomorrow I'll be on a Southwest plane back home. I'm always a little melancholly at this point. Lots of time to think and reflect on about the last 3 weeks. It's doesn't really seem like it was that long. I really coul have found tons to do over another week or two or three.

I briefly touched on our last day with the flight delay from Glasgow and then a relaxing day for me in Dublin topped off with going to Riverdance at the Gaiety Theater. The theater was a restored older theater and just magnificient. It was small, no more than about 800 people, but it was packed this Monday. We had seats just off center in the second row. Perfect from my perspective. Seeing the show live was definitely an experience. A great end to a vacation that was way too short.

I keep thinking about next year and wondering if I can swing another trip then. I've tried every other year, but keeping find more reasons to return sooner. The B&B experience is the way to go. Small towns and small pubs. Sitting at the bar and talking to the regulars. And giving all the towns their own chance to show off their own craic.

Once I get home and life starts to run away with me again, all this will be a very special memory. I'm hoping to scap most of it, like I have my other two trips. I'm thinking this will have a little different slant. I will be putting up a selection of pictures as soon as I can sort through the 700 or so that I've taken. I may actualy have to do more than one slide show. No decisions there yet.

We arrive in Chicago in about 2 hours now. I've spent the first part of the flight catching up on some much needed sleep. I think I run on adreniline while traveling and now I'm all out of it. Sarah and I are hoping to meet up with Becky and her mom tonight or late this afternoon for a little while. We'll both be heading to the Midway Airport around 5am on Wednesday.

Three weeks, where did it go?

A

July 5th

Loch Lomond, Scotland

After breakfast this morning we caught a taxi over to the tourist office to await our tour of Loch Lomond , the Trosachs, and Stirling Castle. It was a small tour bus and not full( there were 8 o the tour) so very relaxed and just the perfect thing for this beautiful sunny day. We headed out of Glasgow crossing the Clyde River, the main shipping river in Glasgow, and into the countryside. Within about 45 minutes were were at the shores of Loch Lomond for our first look-see. It's difficult to describe all the sites we saw. The day was wonderful for siteseeing. We even fit in a one hour cruise on the Loch from a town called Balach, and could see Ben Lomond, the tallest mountain in Great Britain. Not fog, and no low clouds. Only white clouds in a blue sky followed us all day along with stories of how the song “You take the high road, and I'll take the low road” was written by soldiers who were imprisoned – one waiting to die (the high road) and one waiting to be released (the low road – walking home).

Our driver was full of information and laughs as we traveled through the highland and the lowlands, separated by a fault line. It was a full day from 9am to 6 PM with several stops, the last being at Stirling Castle, originally built by King Robert the Bruce, and torn down and rebuilt about 3-4 times since. A monument to William Wallace was just across the valley from Stirling Castle. Very impressive. And again the scenery was very impressive.

While this post is short, the day was full of sites around Glasgow. I really loved getting out of town and into the country again.

July 4th

July 4th

What an interesting day in Glasgow. After breakfast – I've cut down from the full breakfast (same in Glasgow as in NI) to just a blended coffee (they have a great automatic machine here) and some toast as my arteries were screaming at me. Georgann and I decided to hit the library again for a few emails and I was able to post the last two posts. As we left the Mitchell Library we stopped to chat with the welcome guard and he explained that I might not want to wear my gray-green sweater today as there was a Loyalist march throughout the city. It was too late to go back to the B&B so I was stuck, but we ventured to the closest stop for the Hop-on-Hop off tour.
We could hear the drums and marchers a couple of block offs. Seems that July 4th in Glasgow is the annual Loyalists march. The marchers and watchers were all over the city and causing massive tie-up with traffic and detours. Needless to say, the Hop-on-Hop-off tour was one of the things that was really delayed. The one and a half hour tour was taking almost 3 hours. We sat at the stop for about 45 minutes walked to the next stop, waited for a while (I did call the company and they appologized, and said a bus would be around eventually) and then decided to head across the street for lunch. Near the end of our Subway lunch I saw a bus pass by. We hurried out to wait at the stop and finally after about 5 minutes another bus arrived so we hopped on.
Glasgow is a fascinating city with old and new buildings all over. The Royal Concert Hall is new, and the Chamber Building in George Square is stunningly old. Their SECC (Scotland Entertainment and Concert Center is so new it looks like an armadillo with it's multilayered shape. All the current rock concerts are held there. If we hadnt' had such a late start we would have stopped at several of the locations along the way like the Kelvington Grove Art Museum and Galway University. As it was we finally arrived back at our starting location at about 3:30. At one point our bus broke down and the sent a replacement bus that took us back to the beginning of the tour to wait for a new driver. Seemed like something was telling us not to take this tour.

We ended up at a pub called O'Neill's for dinner. Good food and drink.

July 3

July 3rd

Here we are in Glasgow, Scotland arriving around noon today. It was cloudy and threatening but didn't dampen out spirits. Okay, so what is it about many of our reservations being at locations on steep hills? The maps all looked so flat to me. LOL
But this place, is at the bottom of a hill and around the corner is everything we need to be touring around Glasgow. After a little lunch at Subway ( it was our first taste of real American food since we left home) we split up. Sarah took off to venture around town, and Georgann and I were headed toward the Mitchell Library to hook up some internet time. After a few missteps in directions we figured out where we needed to be and quickly ended up at the library. It wasn't until later that I realized what an feat of architecture this building held inside. I didn't have a camera that could capture enough of it to show you how amazing it was. The spiral staircase alone, waas 3-4 stories high and the domed ceiling at the top was beyond words. We'll be going back again and I hope to take some more pictures and will post them. I asked the lady at the entry if this was a converted building, as I just couldn't imagine that it was purpose built as a library. But to my surprise it was build as a library. I don't know if there is any info online for it but you might want to check. I'd love to try and do a 360 degree video of just the upper walls in the main hall to show it off.

And then we found the internet access area. Georgann and I now have library cards that will get us in to any Glasgow library! There were about 50 computers available for free for one hour if they were busy, and an extra hour if they were not busy. The window where I sat looked out through floor to ceiling, wall to wall windows. As I worked I watche the sky get darker and darker. The next time I looked up it was pouring, not just raining, but reallly pouring. Neither Georgann nor I had brought umbrellas – actually I didn't even bring an umbrella but a plastic poncho, but it was at the B&B – and we were not prepared for the rain. We tried to wait it out, but by 4PM it was still sprinkling pretty heavy. We headed out and when we were almost back to the B&B it started pouring again. Sarah had also gotten caught in the downpour and we all retreated to our rooms to dry off and warm up for a while.

We headed to the West End for dinner and found this interesting Italian restaurant that serves almost all meal selections like tapas, small portions. As we were served the waiter we had, Jack, asked where we were all from. When he heard that I was from California he explained that his father was in Woodland, a city outside of Sacramento and one of the largest tomato growers in the area. When you talk about a small world, it's amazing how small it can be. I liveed in Sacramento for 30 plus years and we briefly chatted about familiar places to both of us. Who would have thought I would have met a Muslim Glaswegian with family in Sacramento? I asked how he ever ended up in Glasgow and he said “family politics” and a long story! LOL We did take pictures and an some point I'll get those posted too.
The ameretto ice cream with a shot of expresso was exceptional.

By the time we headed back to the B&B after dinner the sun was shining. Hoping for a clear day tomorrow for a Hop-on-Hop off tour of Glasgow.

We're staying in an area called Charring Cross. I think there was a movie with that title or something about Charring Cross. I'll have to check next time I'm on the internet.

And my final note for the day. I had finally gotten used to using the euro, and then in Northern Ireland it was the pound, and one last day with the euro and now back to the pound for 3 days. I'm really struggling with this pound and pence thing. I'm finding out that it's much easier to just hand the person a paper bill with a number and get change. When I have a bunch of change, I just hold it out and the person I'm paying takes what they need. So many of the coins look the same. I do know and remember some, but I've given up on the others. There is a 1 pence, 2 pence, 5 pence, 10 pence, 20 pence, 50 pence, and then it goes to one pound (coin) and 2 pound coin. And so many are so close to the same sized, shape and color. Two more days and I can exchange it all back for dollars!

Haven't downloaded any Glasgow pics yet, so I'll have some next time. Either from Dublin or home. I can hardly believe I'll be back in the US in 4 days and home in 5.

Looks like our friendly taxi driver Tom will be picking us up on Monday to take us back to Dublin town. He's been calling semi-regularly to make sure we are okay. Very nice guy.

Checking in

Just a quick post here for those of you who are following along. We just arrived in Scotland - Glasgow to be exact - this afternoon and since we had not accessed email for a few days wanted to spend a little time catching up this afternoon.
I have two blogs to post from the last couple of days in Ireland and hope to get back to the library tomorrow to get them posted. As it is I only have about 10 minutes left on my time here and wanted to catch everyone up a little.

Time has been flying by and I can hardly believe we only have 4 more days over here. They will be jam packed for sure. The weather the last couple of days has been a little iffy with some sprinkles and some downpours. In fact as I look out the window it looks like it could pour down any minute. Hope it holds off until we get back to our B&B.

Just wanted to say HI to all and wish you all a very Happy 4th of July. More to come later.