I'm in the middle of another photo upload, so check out the photo page. Glasgow pictures are up (albeit captionless for the moment), as well as some shots of our Thanksgiving dinner (in the Neighbourhood gallery) but I may not be able to get the rest of the Scotland pics up today, unfortunately. It's been a hectic week, but things are coming together... I've finished and submitted both of the homework assignments due this week, and by the end of tomorrow my law school applications will be finished and submitted, so I can leave for Paris with a clear conscience and a blank to-do list. Right now, though, I've got a few loose ends to tie up before I can spare a whole lot of time for blogging.

I will, however, take the opportunity to write about Scotland. It is fantastic, and I highly recommend going, although ideally you'd take more time than we did. We had kind of a whirlwind tour, arriving in Glasgow Sunday evening, heading to Edinburgh Monday afternoon, and returning home late Tuesday night. Still, we got to see lots of cool stuff, meet up with some great people, and have a few good pints. Our friend James, a fellow Guelphite, was our Glasgow guide, since he's doing an exchange up there this year, and Sunday evening was occupied with a walking tour of the city (Glasgow is far more walkable than London) and some pub time. Monday morning, we went to the McLellan Galleries, which are currently housing the highlights of the Kelvingrove art collection while its building is being refurbished. They have a fantastic collection of Glasgow Style stuff, with emphasis on the Mackintosh, of course, and loads of incredible paintings from all periods and styles. We spent a couple of highly enjoyable hours there, and then retired to the famous Mackintosh-designed Willow Tea Rooms for lunch. Despite their fame, they still have very reasonably priced (and very good) food, so we had an excellent lunch and then caught the train to Edinburgh.

Upon arrival in Edinburgh, we checked in at our hostel, which was really nicely equipped but pretty far from downtown, and then went back to the city centre to find some food and explore. We walked around the Princes Street and George Street shopping area for a while, before finding a nice cozy local pub with excellent meat pies and toasties, not to mention excellent beer. Thus fortified, we headed south into the Old Town area to find Greyfriars Bobby and the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter (Ian laughs, but I maintain that this is part of British literary history.) On the way, Ian was happily surprised to find a statue of the famous Scottish philosopher, David Hume, so he posed for a photo op.

In the morning, we visited Edinburgh Castle, which, although touristy, is a lot of fun and has some beautiful views over downtown Edinburgh and out to the Firth of Forth. We also enjoyed some shopping on the Royal Mile before catching the train back to England. After a stop in Leeds to hang out with a friend of Ian's for a couple of hours, we arrived home around midnight.

I'm definitely planning on going back to Scotland at some point, and I'd love to spend a lot more time in both Glasgow and Edinburgh. Both of them are beautiful cities, especially Edinburgh, and both lend themselves very well to leisurely exploration if time permits. It was a great trip, although exhausting, and I'm looking forward to a couple of days at home before tackling Paris.

One other point: long-distance train travel beats the hell out of the bus.