Aberdeen!

Over this past weekend, Martin and I went to Aberdeen, which is the third largest city in Scotland. It's on the east coast, which meant it had much much better weather than Glasgow. We actually saw sunshine! I'm surprised we didn't burst into flames. 

So. We left Glasgow on a bus early on Friday morning and arrived in Aberdeen around noon. It was a very pretty drive through the lowlands. When we got there, we got lunch at a neat little restaurant called Giraffe then headed to the hotel. Now, when we booked the hotel, it seems kind of sketchy. And by kind of, I mean really. We weren't even sure if there was going to be a shower! So we were very pleasantly surprised when we arrived to see this:

The room was huge! Nice big bathroom, big windows, on the fourth floor, huge bed. Seriously though, it was the biggest bed I've ever slept on. See? (Martin included for scale purposes)

The whole first afternoon was spent napping. We were totally beat from traveling and lots of walking. We only ventured out to get dinner at Wetherspoons, which is apparently a chain of pubs across Britain. It became my new favorite, because it was dirt cheap. Food wasn't half bad, either. That night, we watched Thor, which was pretty lame by itself, but it made Thor make more sense in the Avengers. Hint hint you should see Avengers.

The next day, Saturday, we decided we should actually venture into the city. Aberdeen has been dubbed "The Silver City", and for good reason. Almost every building is made out of granite, so the whole city was gray and sparkly. Thank goodness we had a sunny day and it was nice, otherwise I can see how it would get really dreary. 

This was a club. Inside an old church. We saw at least four of these. Kind of bizarre, right?

The city really was lovely, though. 

While walking around, we found this really cool old church and graveyard. And we all know how I feel about graveyards, so we had to investigate. It was very well preserved, which is definitely not the case of all Scottish graveyards. 

I have literally no clue what this building was, but we passed it a bunch of times, and it was really pretty. Maybe some sort of government building?

This was called Castle Gate, and I'm not quite sure why... there certainly wasn't a castle in Aberdeen. 

The other side of Castle Gate.

And finally, after tons of walking, some ice cream and lots of complaining about a bad choice of shoes, we finally made it to the beach. Gorgeous, right?

We got so lucky with the day. It was lovely and sunny. Pretty chilly still, though. 

The cold apparently wasn't anything to Martin, who insisted on building a sand castle. Before you ask, no, I did not partake in the castle building. I was happily perched on a wooden plank, away from the cold sand. 

It was a beautiful day! 

After the beach, we headed back to the hotel for a bit and got cleaned up. I was covered in sand and I didn't even touch it! We went to a really nice Italian restaurant for dinner and managed to get a table even though it was a busy Saturday night. Another stroke of luck! Afterwards we headed back to the hotel, watched Bridesmaids (which I did NOT like at all) and turned in early. The next day we packed up and headed out, grabbing lunch before getting on the bus. We got back to Glasgow in the middle of a downpour and had to walk home all the way from the bus station. And yes, we looked like miserable drowned rats when we got there. Not pleasant at all.

Even with the icky rainy ending, it was a really fun weekend. I'm really glad I got to see Aberdeen and a bit of the east coast of Scotland. They certainly have nicer weather over there. But I like Glasgow better. :) 

Did you know? I come home in a week and a half. It's really blowing my mind. I can't believe my five months went by so fast. It was a blink. It's going to be really bittersweet to go home. Heavy on the bitter. I don't anticipate an easy re-entry. So please be patient with me if I'm a cranky bear for the first few weeks! See you all soon. Love from Glasgow.