It was so great having him and being able to show him around and introduce him to my new friends. One of the first activities we all did together was go see Harry Potter. Megan and Colleen got very into it and wore their Gryffindor scarves!
One of the downsides of that first week was that I still had my regular classes. Lee came to my Sociology class with me, but we didn't really have time to explore Glasgow right at the beginning of his visit.
We did, however, have time to go to Stirling on one of my days off. The first thing we did was go to the Castle. We did the audio tour and learned all about the history of the castle. I really enjoyed listening to all of the information because the first time I was there I didn't get the audio part. When we were in the great hall we sat in the thrones. Just like a king and queen! So cool!
Something that I had been nervous about for a while was the weather. I have had some good luck with it this semester, but I was so worried that the weather would be bad for Lee's visit and we wouldn't get to do everything we wanted to. Boy was I wrong (at least the first week...). When we went to Stirling the weather was amazing! We had a terrific view around the castle which made the whole trip even better.
Our second stop in Stirling was the Wallace Monument. This was by far Lee's favorite part of the day. We got to do a short, 10 minute, hike up from the visitor's center to the monument which was a lot of fun because of the whole nature thing. Then when we got to the monument we began up the stairs to the top. The stairs were in a spiral which was a little dizzying, but we survived. To help the spiral-ness, there were a couple of platforms on the way up so we could stop and get some history before continuing up.
On the first landing there were these large signs explaining the life of William Wallace. There was also his sword (6 feet long!), a weird video with disembodied heads explaining his life, and a life-size, scary figure.
I thought all of the history and explanations were interesting, but what I really loved, again, was the view from the top of the monument. Once again, I couldn't help but being thankful for the amazing luck we were having.
Stirling was definitely the perfect first stop for us on our tour around Scotland and I'm glad we had such good weather and such a good time.
On a slightly different note, when we got back to the train station in Glasgow I saw this sign on the wall. :)
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