Glasgow & Inverness, Scotland

For my birthday Jason took me up north to Scotland for a long weekend. We hopped on a train from Newcastle up to Glasgow, spent the night there, and then spent the next night up in Inverness. Here's Jason showing that we road first class up to Glasgow! :) Yes I know we're special, but the catch was that first class was some how actually cheaper than a regular seat! Go figure!:)

Waiting to take off!

Glasgow, Scotland city center. Train ride up to Glasgow took about 3 hours. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the town and seeing the sites.

City Center Glasgow

City building in the city center

St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art. This was a great free museum that was very interesting and fun to go through.

Should have remembered this from my religion 101 class at MSU, but this is Shiva as Nataraja (Lord of the Dance) from the Hindu religion.

Jason wanted to take this picture for his brother-in-law Greg! This painting shows a Jewish Sabbath meal.

Mexican Skeleton, don't remember what it said about it, but something about how they dress up in skeletons to hide from the dead. (Honestly don't remember, but thought it was a cool picture!)

Glasgow Necropolis with Glasgow Cathedral on the left

Glasgow Necropolis, huge cemetery at the top of the city. They buried the dead up here to help stop the spread of infection.

Glasgow Cathedral

More of the necropolis

As you can see it was a large burial ground.

Largest monument we saw in the cemetery.

Such a beautiful day, sunny but still chilly outside.

Inside the cathedral.

Beautiful stain glass windows

Oldest house in Glasgow. St. Nicholas Hospital, founded in 1471 AD.

Enjoying a birthday drink with my hubby!

Inverness, Scotland. We left Glasgow early the next day and took another 3 hour train ride up to Inverness. Once we arrived we checked into our hotel, enjoyed a nice lunch, and went to find the bus station where our tour was to take off from. If you get a chance look up on a map where Inverness Scotland is located. We were way up there in the Scottish highlands!

On our bus ride for the Jacobite Lochness Tour.

River Ness with the highlands in the background.

Me and Nessie!

Walking to the boat.

Our boat to take us down the River Ness to find the Lochness!

More scenic views

Jason and Me

I was fortunate enough to catch Jason as he saw the Lochness monster swimming through the water. But unfortunately since I caught Jason's reaction I missed seeing the Lochness! He was pretty excited to see it! :)

He obviously couldn't believe it!haha

More of the country side.

Coming up to Urquhart Castle. It's down in the right hand corner.

Jason walking into the castle.

Jason showing us how they used the corn drying kit.

Another view of the castle.

Bird's eye view of the castle with the water behind.

Jason peeking through one of the wall's of the castle.

Heading back to the bottom level.

Not sure what this is that I'm standing on! :) Toilet?

View from the castle.

Another side of the castle.

After the castle we went and visited the Lochness Exhibition, which told the history behind the monster including all the myths, stories, and work people have done into finding the monster.

London, England

Earlier in the month I traveled down to London for the week with Carolina. Once in London we met up with her parents, and I was also able to meet up with a friend of mine from Texas who I used to play soccer with. My first day out I met my friend Lauren Siepiela, and the two of us ate lunch at a tex-mex restaurant called Texas Embassy. It was really good and of course something we both enjoyed! Afterwards she showed me around the city. Below is a picture of Trafalgar Square with the National Gallery.

View of Big Ben and Parliment as while we crossed one of the many bridges.

The London Eye

In front of Big Ben

Downing St. where Gordon Brown lives. His place is over on the right behind the gate.

One of the guards behind Gordon Brown's place

Buckingham Palace

Picadilly Circus. This is London's Time Square.

China town London. All these beautiful paper laterns were put up for the Chinese New Years.

On our second day we started the day off at the Tower of London.

Tower London

Walking down to the crypt of a church located right outside Tower London.

View of Tower Bridge from inside Tower of London.

Inside Tower London, guards marched around as they traditionally would. These guards are located all over London and are the same ones you can see outside of Buckingham Palace.

It was a sunny day as you can tell, but here's another picture infront of Tower Bridge (not to be mistaken with London Bridge, which Carolina and I thought this bridge was).

After Tower of London we went up into Tower Bridge to see the city from another view.

View from the bridge, this is the Thames River.

London

Once we saw the view from the top of the bridge we went down to the boiler room and were able to take some funny pictures with these random cut-outs!

Carolina's the girl and I'm the boy!haha

After Tower Bridge we had a quick bite to eat, travelled over to the Globe Theater where William Shakespeare put on his many plays. The real Globe Theater does not exist anymore, but this was rebuilt to show a representation of what it would have been like. Plays still go on here during the spring and summer time.

Here is the main stage.

A close up view of the more expensive seats in the house.

Overhead view from the top seats in the house. As you can see it's an open top, so if it rains the people inside do get wet. They tried to use all the same materials and set it up just as it would have looked in Shakespeare's time.

In Shakespeare's time the pennystinkers were located in the middle area of the theater which was exposed to the weather. They were called this because these standing room seats cost a penny, and were sold to the poor who ususally stunk.

One night Carolina and I met Lauren and her boyfriend Tom for dinner at a Moroccan restaurant. Neither of us had had this type of food before, but we had a good time!

Lauren with her boyfriend Tom.

After dinner we went across the street to a little pub for a drink.

The three of us.

Westminster abbey.

The front of the abbey.

London Parliment.

Side view of Parliment.

Beginning of the changing of the guards.

We saw these two carriages leave Buckingham Palace on the way to Parliment possibly? Not sure if anyone was in there, or if it was for show? Who knows but it was fun to see.

The crowds outside of Buckingham Palace waiting for changing of the guards.

More people waiting to see the guards change.

As it begins. The whole event takes over an hour. Very neat to see, but that day was so cold despite the fact that it was sunny outside.

The guards came in waves. First they came down one street and then they came down another street. Totally not what I was expecting for changing of the guards.

Carolina and I freezing our butts off outside Buckingham Palace.

Then the guards came riding in on horses.

St. Paul's Cathedral, where Princess Diana got married, and also Florence Nightingale is buried down in the crypt. Beautiful inside, but we were not allowed to take pictures inside. Carolina and I actually walked up to the top of the Cathedral, which took us about 30minutes!

View from the top of the Cathedral. Below is Millineum Bridge and to the left is the Globe Theater (the white building with the brown covering).

The London Eye and another view of the city.

Kensington Palace. No longer used as a Palace for the royalty, but some of the extended family will still visit here. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside here either.

Statue outside of Kensington Palace.

The gardens outside of the palace.