Glasgow

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For my birthday Martin surprised me with a trip to Glasgow! We got up early in the morning and set off on the two and a half hour drive into Scotland. Lucky for us Ashley was around to watch Wicket and Ziggy so we were dog-free for the weekend. Woohoo!

We arrived at the very impressive Hotel Du Vin around mid-day. The hotel had bought out an entire terrace of old stone houses and converted all of them into rooms. It was very old and traditionally decorated. We walked in and all the men were wearing kilts (man-dresses, as I like to call them) and there were bottles of Whiskey set out for everyone while they waited in the lobby. We sat on a leather sofa by a warm fire and waited to check into our room. After a few minutes our kilted friend came over to tell us that our room wasn't quite ready but that they would by happy to upgrade us to the super fancy room. So, of course, we agreed. It meant waiting an hour or so for them to finish cleaning the new room, but we figured it was probably worth it. So we set off into the city to check out the sights (what few Glasgow has). We started at the university. The campus is very impressive. The buildings are full of old gothic looking spires and statues. Glasgow University was founded in 1451, making it the fourth oldest university in the English speaking world. We walked through the campus discussing all the famous scientists who came from Glasgow throughout the years, which was strangely appropriate as we were walking past the Kelvin building.

After looking around the campus we walked to the very trendy Ashton Lane to find some lunch. We ended up in a tiny Italian restaurant on the second floor of one of the buildings. In order to get to the door we had to climb up a tiny spiral staircase on the outside of the building and then cram into the narrow restaurant. The food was definitely worth it though. I had some pretty amazing Mozzarella sticks.

After lunch we walked back to the hotel to see just how fancy our new room was going to be. We weren't disappointed. Each room in the hotel was named for a particular kind of wine and we ended up in the Feudi Di San Gregorio (which incidentally we found a bottle of a couple weeks later and it is DELICIOUS). The room was beautiful. It was decorated in reds and dark purples and had an enormous window looking out across the street. The best part though was the bathroom which was raised up a step and had a huge clawfoot tub on a heated tile floor. There was also a tv in the bathroom. Once we'd settled in, Martin had one more surprise for me. He had a bottle of Champaign sent up to the room (delivered by a man in a kilt, of course). We drank champaign while sitting in a lavender scented bubble bath and watched a James Bond movie on tv. It doesn't get much better than that.

We had a great time in Glasgow and are definitely planning to got back.

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