An Olympic Weekend!

The Olympics have begun! Now that we live in the UK we find ourselves cheering on the red, white and blue. That could be either Team USA or Team GB (Great Britain). Britain has been all abuzz in preparation for the Olympics, and the BBC has non-stop coverage of almost any event you could want to see. The Brits were kind enough to spread some of the events out so that not everyone would have to travel to London to get their taste of the Olympics, and Scott and I took full advantage this past weekend as we journeyed to Glasgow to watch the US women's football team take on the Columbian women. Glasgow is less than 2 hours driving distance away, but we had not been there yet, so we decided to make a weekend of it.
Scott and I stayed in a small boutique hotel that was just a few minutes walk from Hampden Park, the site of the football match. After arriving late Friday evening, we awoke on Saturday to .......you guessed it, rain. Luckily it did not rain all day and, after a breakfast that included haggis for Scott, we took the local train to downtown Glasgow. We have a habit of starting our visits to large cities with the hop on- hop off bus, and that's exactly how we spent the morning in Glasgow. It was a great way to see the major sites in the city, and to decide what we wanted to come back and visit on Sunday.

There were several markets going on around Glasgow and after our bus ride we stopped in at a European Market in the Merchant Square area of Glasgow. This food stand looks to be a repurposed fire truck.

Well, we don't actually know what these blokes were about, but they were also in the Market we wandered through.

We had a lovely morning riding around and learning about Glasgow, but soon it was time to head back to our hotel, grab our flag, and get ourselves off to the football match. We arrived early, found our seats, and quite enjoyed watching the match, which the US won 3 - 0. At one point I ventured to the concession stands to see what they might have to offer in the way of snacks. Expecting to find popcorn and peanuts I found, instead, that they had a variety of meat pies and chocolates. Sometimes I am still surprised by the differences in our two cultures!

We arrived early and a kind person offered to take our picture to prove we were here!

Gooooaaaallll!

Team USA!

Outside the stadium.

Sunday Scott and I had some time before our late afternoon train home, so we returned to two museums that we had passed on the bus the previous day. The first, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, was really interesting, and featured some beautiful paintings including Salavdor Dali's "Chris of St. John of the Cross". There were also some exhibits about early Scots, and even a section featuring Glasgow artists. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the exhibits here.

 The museum has a beautiful organ, and concerts are held periodically. This museum was actually mostly destroyed by bombs during WWII and had to be rebuilt.

The Kelvingrove 

"Floating Heads" by Sophie Cave -- There are over 50 of these floating heads hanging from the ceiling in the foyer. They depict different emotions that people see on a daily basis. 

Well, enough with the art, and off to the 2nd museum: The Riverside Museum. Don't let the name fool you, this is a British Transportation Museum and one can find all manor of vehicles inside, and a tall ship floating on the river outside. We spent some time looking at the exhibits here.

As you can see, we found a vehicle for each of us! We did wander around the streets a bit near the train station, mostly window shopping and people watching whilst we waited for our train. We had a nice weekend in Glasgow, and since we were there the US women have won a third football match.

Go Team USA and Team GB!