Scotland

I got back to Limerick yesterday after a short trip to Scotland with 2 of my friends. Having not done too much planning for the trip other than booking the flight and hostel, I wasn't going to fret about planning things to do there. Call it lazy, I like to call it stress-free. (Not that I didn't see a fair share of Glasgow and Edinburgh). We flew Ryan Air, the cheapest (1 cent flights) and largest airline that flies to all of Europe. They use smaller airports outside of large cities to cut costs and use their almost monopoly at most of these smaller terminals to their advantage. Anyway, we took a train from Prestwick Airport into Glasgow, and then took the underground to the Blue Sky Hostel in the West End, a vibrant college area in the city. The staff was very helpful and the hostel had the typical hard beds and cold showers, but it was a bargain. Using the city map I picked up, we chose to utilize the 25% off TGI Fridays coupon for dinner. We then walked around the area near our hostel a bit. I decided to check out some things to do the next day and used the free computer to Wiki some good tourist spots. So on Wednesday we walked only a kilometer or two down the street to the Glasgow Botanic Gardens. They had two enormous and elegant metal greenhouses filled with more plants than one could ever imagine. I took a lot of pictures, but I could have easily spent a week there looking more in depth. After we walked down the main road into downtown taking in the sights we grabbed some Pizza Hut lunch. Walking out of Pizza Hut I was asked to take part in a taste test for new flavors at KFC across the street. Good thing I had saved just a little room. After sampling three new prototype flavors of highly fattening KFC chicken I kind of wanted to buy a treadmill and a home gym. We met four girls in the hostel from NYU studying in London for the semester and went out with them for dinner. I decided going to Edinburgh was necessary so I planned on that for Thursday. We hopped a bus for an hour ride to Edinburgh and was immediately impressed with the Georgian/Medieval Architecture visible everywhere. We hiked up the hill to Old Town to see Edinburgh Castle. The word panorama was coined by a photographer in Edinburgh, and it was clear why the view of the city was such a great example. Unfortunately the castle was closing; I was looking forward to seeing inside the massive walls surrounding the castle. We took a look around a few other Cathedrals nearby and then headed back into the New Town. Friday our flight wasn't until 6:30, so we had a lot of time to kill. I had wanted to go up the Glasgow Tower (40 stories) to catch a good view. We took the subway across town then waited in line in the Science Center where they sold tickets. Just our luck, the tower was closed due to high winds. From there we grabbed food and headed back to the airport. I had checked in online and therefore making us priority passengers and no need to check in, yet on the flight to Glasgow the passes wouldn't scan correctly. Turns out only EU residents can use the online check-in, so on the way back we had to check-in (which is not free on Ryan Air). A few blinks later we were landing and I was happy to breath again after being surrounded by babies, one of which kept saying "daddy" to me.

Ok so here's this week's panoramas:

Glasgow Botanic Gardens:



View of Edinburgh from Edinburgh Castle (Where the term panorama was coined)