Scottish Stay-cation

We were lucky to have not one, but two groups of friends visit us last week from the states! We were so glad they decided to make Scotland part of their adventure and were determined to show them all the things that make this country great. While Glasgow has a lot to offer (especially in the alcohol department), there are so many great places that are easily accessible from the city. Our goal was to show our guests the sights, while still exploring places that were new to us. I think we succeeded!

Day 1 – Tarbet & Loch Lomond
 We took the train from Glasgow to Arrochar & Tarbet, which is a stop along the West Highland Line that ends in the coastal town of Oban. This rail journey is one of the most scenic in the UK, winding through the hills and glens on the way north. We had previously driven this route on our January trip to Arrochar, but taking the train gave us an entirely new (and beautiful) perspective!

After an hour and 15 minutes on the train we arrived in Tarbet and walked 10 minutes into “town” which sits right on the shores of Loch Lomond. We decided to take a 30 minute cruise across the Loch to Inversnaid (via Cruise Loch Lomond). The water was extremely calm and quiet, a peaceful way to see the Scottish hills. When we arrived at Inversnaid we walked to a small waterfall, where our friends got engaged! All of the excitement squashed any desire to hike, so we sat outside with a pint and toasted to the happy couple.

Day 2 – Edinburgh
We have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Edinburgh. Whenever we go, we do all the touristy things (which takes about 3 hours) then walk around aimlessly looking for a unique, non-touristy place to eat and drink. It seems that all of the pubs around the royal mile serve the same steak pie and lager for a hefty tourist price. Edinburgh is a beautiful place, but we need to keep doing research to make the £12.50 train journey worthwhile.

The great thing about Edinburgh is the beautiful history that is all within one mile (and free)! Since our visitors were split over the week, we made two trips in the week. We have a good route down: hike up Arthur’s Seat, walk up the mile to the castle, then eat/beer. It’s a pretty fool-proof plan 🙂

Day 3 – Glasgow
  I always wish we got to spend more time (to eat and drink) in Glasgow! It was one of our friends’ birthdays, so the girls went for a sparkling Afternoon Tea at the Corinthian Club. There is nothing more British than afternoon tea, especially when it comes with a bottle of Prosecco, and the Corinthian Club is such a beautiful building – perfect for a trip with the girls.

Don’t worry, we didn’t leave the guys hanging. Friday night we went to Craft Beer Rising, an awesome beer festival at our favorite brewery. This was the second year we were at the festival and it didn’t disappoint. We were also very happy to see our friends from Thistly Cross Cider, who are always a good time!

Also visited in Glasgow during the week: Charcoals Indian Grill, WEST, Drygate, BrewDog, Bar Soba, Blackfriars, Bar Home, Bar 91 and, of course, The Ark.

Day 4 – St Andrews
  I have a colleague who is from St Andrews and he is always raving about the place. Being the home of golf, we assumed it was going to be full of posh tourists who flew in on their private jets for a round. I was pleasantly surprised at how wrong we were! First of all, the course is public. People were so friendly (mostly older, American males) because they were all so excited to be at the course. We walked around the famous 1st and 18th holes before having lunch at the clubhouse.

St Andrews is on the east coast of Scotland and it is such a beautiful, quaint wee town! We walked along the coast, which was lined by cliffs and old ruins of castles and cathedrals. After our windy walk we ended at St Andrews Brewery in town. My only complaint about St Andrews is that there isn’t a train that connects to the city, so we took a 2.5 hour bus ride each way. But worth the travel time.

Day 5 – Edinburgh
(see day 2)

We’re ready for our next round of visitors! 🙂

Our Forest Holiday

Tomorrow we go back to work after nearly three weeks of holiday. Three weeks! We’ve been pretty spoiled on our first Christmas in Glasgow: lovely Christmas dinner just the two of us, New Years Eve (or Hogmanay) with new friends and not setting an alarm for 19 days in a row. But the best part was having that extra week to spend with my cousin and her husband, who made the trip from Michigan to spend time with us.

We started out in the city with the usual brewery tour (West, BrewDog and Drygate), followed by a day-trip to Edinburgh. The Edinburgh Christmas Market was still in full-swing, which added a festive element to our visit. We also went inside the iconic Edinburgh Castle for the first time. Even if you don’t like museums, the history and the views from inside the castle are pretty spectacular. One of our visitors had a particularly adventurous palate and inspired us to taste some traditional Scottish dishes such as Haggis and Black Pudding. And, of course, a visit to the UK wouldn’t be complete without Fish & Chips!

Our real adventure started on Monday when we traveled to Arrochar/Ardgarten, Argyll for a 4 night stay at Forest Holidays. To get there, we rented a car from just outside the city (to avoid highway traffic on the M8) and drove for about 30 minutes to Arrochar. The folks at the rental place must have thought we were trustworthy because we were upgraded to an Audi A6 (despite the fact that we were Americans who had never driven in the UK and going to the forest). Driving on the left side of the road (on the left side of the car) is pretty crazy at first, but Steve had it down and delivered us safely to our cabin.

I can’t say enough good things about our experience with Forest Holidays. Our 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom cabin had a full kitchen, heated floors and a hot tub on the patio (plus cable!) – but the views were what made this place amazing. The cabins are situated on the banks of Loch Long, nestled amongst the Arrochar Alps and under the view of Ben Arthur (aka the Cobbler). The retreat offered a small shop for food and over 100 miles of wooded and hilled trails. It was so nice to get out of the city for a few days and experience the beauty of Scotland.

Winters in Scotland are cold, windy and rainy, but we had fairly mild temperatures (low 40s) and a few spots of sunshine before a storm came in towards the end of the week (hail and winds up to 80mph). On our first day, we took the 2.5 mile walk along the lake into the village of Arrochar and ate at Ben Arthur’s Bothy, a traditional pub with a fantastic view. The next day it rained (all.day.) so we decided to brave the elements and take the very curvy and narrow road through Glen Croe up to the Rest and Be Thankful. We ended up in Inveraray after a pretty white-knuckle drive and warmed up with lunch in the cozy George Hotel. We had plans to travel up to Glencoe on our final day, but the weather deterred us from a day on the roads. Instead we took a sunny window in the morning to walk partway up the Cobbler for some amazing views. I couldn’t believe that this beautiful place is only a few hours from our flat in the city. It was the perfect getaway and I can’t wait to get back in warmer weather!

We ended the week with a feast at Viva Brazil and said goodbye to our visitors (after one last game of Euchre) at 3.30am on Saturday. Although seeing them go made me slightly homesick, it was so unbelievably great to have family in town and a chance to show off our new city. We’re getting pretty good at this hosting thing and look forward to our next round of visitors 🙂

Happy 2015!

H

xx

Payday Bank Holiday

Last Monday (29th September) we experienced our first official bank holiday – a day that seemingly has no historical significance, just a reason to not work. Ok, I guess some bank holidays have significance, i.e. Christmas, New Year’s and Good Friday. But there are the occasional randoms that get thrown in, such as the “early May” bank holiday. The weird thing about those random UK bank holidays is that they are different from city to city. Edinburgh, Glasgow and London all have different bank holiday dates. There are also “substitute” days, which I can only assume are like make-up days for bad weather in Northern Michigan.

But I’m not going to complain about an extra day off. Unfortunately, I spent most of the day writing a paper for my Leadership class (which takes place Monday nights, midnight – 2.30) but we did get the chance to check another City Centre restaurant off our bucket list. Originally we had set out to go to Tropeiro for an all-you-can-eat meat fest, but when we arrived they had a sign saying they were closed until further notice. Not to worry, for Glasgow has two Brazilian meat houses!

We spent the next two hours at Viva Brazil, where £14.95/person (at lunch) gets you unlimited amounts of 15 different types of meat and access to a full-blown salad/side bar (plus dessert). While the food was awesome, I can’t say the same about the service. At some point between the second round of parmesan pork and dessert, our waitress went on a 20 minute break and we didn’t see anyone until she returned. We were in full-on meat coma at that point and neither of us really had the energy to care.

With the bank holiday also came payday. To celebrate, one of my co-workers organized an office outing to the bowling alley. There was a lot of speculation that Steve and I were exceptionally good at bowling. Maybe it’s because we’re American or because my family bowls every Christmas, or perhaps the fact that I told someone that our average combined score was 150 (oops). I was also told not to expect much from Glasgow’s local lanes, warned that it has “weird carpet, strange clientele and too many video games.” Uh, clearly no one has been to a bowling alley in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. It turned out to be a pretty classy establishment, but we didn’t reach our 150 average. Although Steve did impress everyone with his technique.

“Payday pins” left me pretty much useless on Saturday, but we did make it downtown for dinner at The Raven. Surprise! They serve slow-smoked BBQ plates with a pretty decent beer selection. You know it’s bound to be a good place when your table setting involves wet-naps, paper towel and six different types of sauce. On the menu for us: pulled pork sandwich, jalapeño burger, spicy cheese fries and Drygate brews.

Home just in time for the Notre Dame game at the early time of 8.30pm (but we all know I watched three episodes of Gilmore Girls on Netflix). Cheers to another week!

The only photo from the weekend. Beer and BBQ sauce.

The Great French Surprise

Right before I started my new job, Steve asked me to keep the weekend of September 19th open for my birthday celebrations saying he could “neither confirm nor deny” that he had something planned. He then purchased the following: tickets to Craft Beer Rising at Drygate, two bottles of wine (in case we couldn’t leave the flat due to the referendum) and an air mattress. Anyone else may have questioned the last two items because a) Steve doesn’t drink wine and b) our first guests weren’t due to arrive until January, but I guess I’m super gullible.

It had already been a pretty exciting week with an amazing birthday package from my mom and the big vote, so on Friday I was not really in the mood to be rushed from work to the Ark for just “one quick drink with the guys” before going to the beer festival. When we got there no one else was there, which irritated me to no end until I felt an arm around me asking if I’d like a drink. It took me about 20 seconds (followed by a lot of gasping and screaming) to realize who it was: my friend Céline, who had come all the way from France to spend the weekend with us!

Céline did one year of her masters degree at Grand Valley and during that time we became friends (and roommates for a hot second). I’ve only seen her once in the past five years since she lives in Cannes – but now I’m on her side of the world and a quick plane ride away. With Céline’s help, Steve pulled off one heck of a surprise 🙂

Since it was Céline’s first time to Glasgow (and Scotland in general), we decided to start with what we know best about this town: beer. After a few more “OMG OMG” moments, we headed to Craft Beer Rising – the largest craft beer festival in the UK and this year was the first time it has been held outside of London.  I’ll admit that Céline and I spent the majority of the time chatting, but we did spend some time at the booth of Thistly Cross Cider. Not only do they have great cider and an awesome staff, but they have connections to J.K.’s Scrumpy Hard Cider based in Flushing, MI. It was really hard to suppress my love of Michigan (especially since I was wearing one of those MI HOME shirts).

The rest of the weekend was spent showing Céline around our neighborhood, shopping, and checking a few things off of our bucket list:

Bread Meats Bread is pretty much what it sounds like: a variety of grilled, smoked and pulled meat on a delicious bun accompanied by any type of “chip” you can imagine (we opted for sweet potato and bacon with sriracha mayo). Their kitchen wasn’t much bigger than ours, but it was the first time we had to wait in line to eat anywhere in Glasgow.

Mansion House is a three-story club with seven different themed rooms ranging from karaoke, comedy, tiki lounge and

Steve’s incredible limbo skills are displayed at Mansion House

70s/80s dancing. It was pretty clear that it was the type of place that is mainly frequented by bachelorette parties, but they had some great late-90s dance music going on (Xtina’s “Dirty” anyone?) and a confetti gun. Almost made up for the fact that we saw three separate people get punched, detained and leave with blood all over them. Nothing like a little late-night excitement!

Glasgow Green is one of the city’s oldest parks and Steve and I have only ever run through it.

Glasgow Green

What’s more shocking than the fact that I was running? The sun was out all day on Sunday, which made for a beautiful morning to enjoy a latte and walk through the park!

Amore is the second Italian restaurant we’ve been to and was a perfect choice for a late lunch. Their pizza was spot-on and the entire staff spoke Italian (that’s pretty legit, right?).  Again, only a block from our house so that could be dangerous.

More than anything, it was great to have a familiar face with us in Glasgow. Thank you for coming to visit, Céline, and for reminding us that we are not alone in Europe!

City Centre Weekend

So forget what I said before about having found our “neighborhood bar” – it was too soon to tell. Living in the city centre puts us within walking distance of some of the best bars and restaurants in Glasgow and this past week we found a few more local favorites.

Citation’s classy patio

Too much Strongbow at The Libertine

First, there was the global selection at Beer Cafe, followed by the accidental Strongbow at The Libertine and a ‘Raging Bitch’ brew at Blackfriars (our second time to this traditional pub). Then during the week we had two outings with my new co-workers, one for a mojito at Metropolitan and another for wine and “fizz” on the sunny patio at Citation. Did I mention these are all within 0.1 mile of our flat?

The WEST beer garden

Our tour of breweries in Glasgow continued this weekend with a visit to the surprisingly fancy WEST brewery in Glasgow Green.  We were slightly taken aback when a waitress (who was wearing a floor-length apron and white button-down shirt) asked if we had a reservation to sit in the restaurant – not very craft beer like. So we opted to sit outside with everyone who had brought their dog. Literally EVERYONE had a dog with them – Frenchies, Maltese, Labs, Airedale, Yorkies and (much to my dismay) a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy. We were a bit disappointed with the selection and variety (only four beers on tap, mostly German-style lagers) and left after one to head to Drygate.

Now this was more our style: industrial feel, sunny beer garden, awesome staff and a great selection. I almost cried when I saw Founders in their bottle shop and would be lying if I said I didn’t get a little homesick. Then the bartender asked Steve to help him with his Fantasy Football lineup* and I knew we were really going to like this place. Oh, and this is a half mile from our flat.

This post seems to indicate that we do a lot of drinking, but don’t worry (moms) we’re not that wild. With only one drink at most places, we’re usually home (and sleeping) by 10:30pm. And we do eat…

Pre-Theatre

…but eating out is expen$ive in the city. An average restaurant would probably cost roughly £16 (~ $26) per person mostly because everything is a la carte. A lot of bars will advertise “2 meals for £7.95 – every day, all day!” which is usually a set menu of generic, ok-tasting items (that are the same no matter which restaurant you go to). So we haven’t been able to get to the foodie side of Glasgow living.

But this week my co-worker told me about the amazingness that is “pre-theatre” – a set menu that most upscale restaurants offer before 6:30pm. I had seen these menus and just assumed you had to have theatre tickets (midwest upbringing), but turns out it’s just an early-bird special to get butts in seats. So Friday night we went to Qua, an Italian cafe next door to our flat. For £10.95 per person, Steve and I each enjoyed three courses: minestrone, mozzarella fritta, flatbread pizza, spaghetti con salsiccia, lemon cheesecake and hazelnut spongecake. We left stuffed and happy that the only thing more expensive than our food that night was our bottle of wine. Surely this won’t be the last of our Pre-Theatre excursions!

*Steve here* I should make it known that I gave the bartender rational, but eventually crap fantasy advice. It was RG3 v. Jacksonville or Luck v. Philly. I reasoned that his choice was not RG3 v. Luck, but to either start RG3 this week or cut him– if he can’t put up numbers v. Jacksonville, when will he? RG3 was carted off in the first half with a dislocated ankle….

I leave you with a few more photos from our ‘hood:

Pre-Theatre at Qua