Kilcreggan and Glasgow

I spent this past week in Kilcreggan visiting my grandma. It is such a beautiful place which resulted in a plethora of landscape pictures. There was a lot of hills, clouds, sheep, water and sky which made for an amazing setting. Kilcreggan is on the river clyde but it's the estuary part where it enters the ocean so you can see the Isle of Arran from the beach. I took a long walk every evening either on the high road near her house which went past lots of fields and sheep with amazing views or down to the beach. The beach was really great with tons of big rocks to jump around on and small ones to attempt to skip. They were the most perfect skipping stones, all of them were smooth and flat but unfortunately this still didn't do me any good because I suck at skipping stones, shoot.

My grandma kept me pretty entertained. She took me out and about somewhere everyday AND she let me drive her car. It was very entertaining. I didn't injury anyone and just ran into the curb a few times. In my defense though, the streets are very narrow and anyone would get slightly nervous when an oncoming bus or truck is extremely close to you. Driving on the other side of the road and shifting with my left hand was pretty fun though.

Some of the interesting places we went to were Luss which is a cute small village on Loch Lomond and Inveraray which is this fishing village on Loch Long. The village and setting there was really pretty but unfortunately I think I got one of the first meals that I actually couldn't eat. Something to do with raw salmon and cream

cheese on white bread... Not my favorite thing I've ever tasted.

I met a lot of my grandma's friends and mostly hung out with a crowd that had a good 40 years on me or so. I made it

to church with my grandma AND a women's guild church meeting. I managed the life of an old person pretty well. All the people that I met were very interesting for the most part. They all had a lot of stories. Unfortunately I think my name and the way I said it confused 99% of them so I will forever be fondly thought of as 'Chelsea' to the old ladies of Kilcreggan.

After a week in Kilcreggan I went back to Glasgow to stay with my cousin Jacqui. It was her son Freddie's first birthday. There was lots of cake and little kids. It was really nice to spend time with all three of my cousins and all their kids. Emma, my cousin chris's daughter who is almost 3, likes me which is really fun. I think she likes me because I talk funny but either way she is always entertaining and makes me laugh. I'm beginning to be better at deciphering a 2 year old with a scottish accent so it makes things easier.

While I was in glasgow I also got in some sight seeing. I explored the west end more where my cousin lives and went to the botanic gardens, the Kelvingrove art museum and the city chambers. I really like just exploring the city and managing to get the right busses places makes me feel very competent.

Well that's all and I'm back in dundee. This weekend I hope to get a trip in so hopefully I will have something interesting to report upon soon!

Scotland things

So now that I have been gone for about 3 weeks it is probably time that I started a blog for friends and family to check up on my activities...

Recap of the last few weeks:

The day that I got into scotland was my cousin Christopher's wedding so I was able to

go to that. It was really great to be there and se

e my family-

my 3 cousins and my grandma. All my cousins recently had kids as well so it was so fun being able to meet them and hang out with a below 3 crowd. They are all really cute and great. The wedding party was all wearing kilts as well so it was a good way to feel

that I was in Scotland.

I spent 4 days in Glasgow and just looked around and saw the city a bit. The Glasgow cathedral was pretty good and it had a really interesting

old grave

yard. A lot of the graves were flat ones on the ground that had been grown over with grass so I kept

feeling like I was stepping on dead people. The architecture was really nice like most old cathedrals. I think some parts of the cathedral dated back to the 15th century. I guess it was built for Glasgow's patron saint, saint mungo, and his crypt is in the basement of the church. It just made me think of harry potter.

From there I went to Dundee to stay with Erin. Dundee is a nice University town. Erin is going to grad school

there for her masters of fine arts degree. The town has some pretty places such as dundee law, which is not a law school but a big hill. It's pretty great at sunset. One side of

Dundee is on the water so that makes it nice as well. On the first day I got there Erin and I went to St. Andrews with 2 of her friends from her program. It was nice to see all the old architecture, and being the golf

enthusiast that I am seeing the old course- where golf was apparently invented- was neato. We also later attempted to mix with the locals at

several gatherings in dundee which were entertaining.

I went to Edinburgh the following weekend to visit family friends. My mom use to live in Edinburgh back in her 20's and one of her best friends still lives there. They have a daughter who is my age, Stephanie, who I've known since I was about 2. She was my wonderful tour guide and we explored all the great things in Edinburgh. Edinburgh is an amazing city. It's really beautiful and has so many interesting aspects/segments to it. Each part of it really feels like a completely different small town. The old town and Dean village were particularly nice with so many cute old houses and cobbled streets. I also was able to go to pubs one night while I was there with steph and her friends. Bar time was pretty great with lots of people and random drunk girls stumbling over the cobbled streets.

From there I went back to Dundee for a few days and then off to my grandma's in Kilcreggan for a week which I will post about later. Sooooo that is what I have been doing! Done.