Due to a confluence of events, incuding a friend’s sabatical, we have headed out for a whirlwind tour of Scotland, Germany, and Iceland.  Now, when would be a good time of year to head to such Northern climes?  Why October, of course!

We actually did not start out thinking “October should be good time to visit these places with good weather”.  Our friend Peggy (Margaret to anyone who has not known her for 30 years) managed to get a year off from her professorial duties, but between coordinating our schedules and hers, the first few weeks of October is just what worked.

We’ll be spending a bit over a week in Scotland, then a bit over a week in Germany, and finally about three days in Iceland.

After nearly a year of planning, we finally found ourselves once again trekking to SeaTac by bus and light rail. We had a dilemma, however, since the Sounders played at 1 pm, and our flight was at 4:30. Hmm, not enough time to do both so we had to sell our tickets and head to the airport super early in hopes we could find the game playing somewhere at the airport.

We had many reminders of what we were missing as we headed south on the Link. Every station on the north route had Sounders fans waiting to be taken to the stadium. Alas, the airport has some weird airport satellite service and our plan did not work out. No Sounders, but we were entertained by the massive group heading home to Mexico City after a cruise to Alaska. Not sure there are any souvenirs left in Alaska after watching their carry-on bags stuffed with goodies headed to the plane!

The flights over were nicely on time and uneventful. Kudos again to Icelandair for a relatively pleasant flight experience. Personal TV screens with movies and TV episodes, sufficient legroom, and pleasant staff. After a brief stop on Reykjavik we were soon on our way to Glasgow, and before we knew it we were heading down the motorway on the WRONG SIDE of the road!

A church near our hotel

We didn’t have to go far this first day, though, and we soon found our hotel. Since the room wasn’t ready, we went out in this restaurant-filled neighborhood and found some fish and chips– surprise! Very tasty, and then we cruised around this university area and discovered just how many restaurants and pubs there are around here.

The gentleman who invited us to play- he was very good

After lunch we explored more of the area and found the local lawn bowling center were several people were practicing. Wow, they were good! One guy asked if we wanted to take a hand (at least our best guess of what he was saying) but we decliined. I have to say that the bench we were sitting on was so nice at that moment since we had been up about 24 hours at that point.

A very nice grouping- we think

We also admired the beautiful old buildings of Glasgow University and the Museum and Art Gallery. At this point the room was finally ready so we went to our room and collapsed on the bed for an hour or so, then made ourselves get up and stay up (actually, Mike had to prod Tami multiple times to keep her from falling back asleep) so we could enjoy yet another meal and find yet another pub! Mike had fish and chips again and Tami took advantage of the Sunday Roast and Yorkie tradition. Yum.

Beautiful tower at Glasgow University

Now we are back in the room working on the blog. Mike just found Tami a football game to watch – YAY! Interestingly, a number of the local games we are finding to watch have the commentary in Gaelic.  And Mike has his maps in hand for the coming days. Ah, good to be exploring the world again!

Typical street

Museum and Art Gallery