More Glasgow

This is where we stayed - Kim's parents' home.

I love how most of the homes in the UK have names. Their home's name is 'Sunnyside'.

On Day 2 we went downtown to sight see, meet up with some friends, have lunch, and do some shopping. On Day 3, Kim, her parents and I drove out to see nearby Loch Lomond. It was beautiful and again we were lucky with the weather. After walking around the town and the loch, we settled into the beautiful and newly built (2008) Boathouse Restaurant which is part of the Cameron House properties. From what I understand, it's a mansion, golf course, retreat which is quite a famous place for get aways, weddings, etc.

I loved the decor in the Boathouse restaurant. Here is one of the chairs by the fire. It's made out of oars and fishing poles.

When we finally went in for lunch it was already 2:30pm on a Monday so rather quiet.

I'm a huge, huge, huge fan of seafood. It was delicious. We started with mussels and I had 1/2 dozen amazing local raw oysters. Then, Kim and I both had the ceaser salad with fresh prawns and anchovies. It was incredible!

Curt called while we were there and we all talked to him and wished he were with us. We then told him what we were eating and he was less than thrilled... I think we'll be making a trip there together sometime in 2010. As of now there is a direct 3 hour flight from Budapest to Glasgow on Ryan Air. My round trip ticket was less than USD200 so it is reasonable. The only challenge is Ryan Air's strict 15 kg luggage allowance. They charge 20GBP for each kilo that the passenger goes over - ouch! My luggage on my return was 15.1 kgs. phew...

The other challenge was getting up at 4:15am to catch our 6:50am flight on Wednesday morning.

Glasgow for 3 Nights

I've always wanted to get to Scotland and Ireland and I finally had the opportunity to visit one of the two with my great friend, Kim, who is from Glasgow. We went sans hubbies and sans kids from Sunday through Wednesday to visit her parents who still spend 6 months of the year in their home in Glasgow (the other 6 months of the year they are in Mexico).

We landed Sunday at about 6pm into Prestwick airport and drove immediately to the nearby beach in Troon to get a big whiff of the fresh sea air. Kim's dad, Harry, picked us up. The sun was shining and the weather was cool - not as cold as I thought but significantly cooler than the 27 degrees C that it was in Budapest upon our departure.

The above left photo is Kim with her dad, Harry. The above right is a view from their old house (a beautiful huge home that they had always wanted me to see but ended up selling it a couple of years ago). If you look closely, you'll see the rainbow off in the distance.

Next is dinner time at the Matheson home: poached salmon! We started with the Scottish traditional dish of haggis. Many would be grossed out to know what haggis is so I won't explain. Just think of a sausage type dish. It was served with 'neeps and tatties' (mashed turnips and mashed potatoes) but no 'dram' (whiskey) and it was delicious! I was amazed at how Kim's mom dressed the salmon. It was a piece of art and unbelievably tasty.

Kim and her mom posing with our dinner.