A Cuppa Tea

Kelvingrove Art Museum

This morning I went to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.  It was in a gorgeous, old building.  All of the museums are free in Scotland!  When we walked in, a man was giving an organ recital; the organ was two stories high!   The music filled the entire building.  The gallery had three highlights for me: (1) My favorite painting was an oil painting by Anthony Green from 1990.  (2) I loved the floating heads exhibit.  (3) Half of the bottom floor was an exhibit on native animals to Scotland.  This includes the red squirrel (not the grey), the moose and the haggis (a mythical creature said to be the source of the Scottish food haggis).

Afterwards we walked through Kelvingrove Park.  I had a fantastic time watching all of the dogs!  I found a lovely Border Collie mix patiently waiting for his owner in front of a fountain.  When the owner arrived, she threw his ball into the fountain, and the dog jumped right in!!  The dog was swimming around this beautiful fountain, happy as a lark.  It was so cute.  Most of the dogs run off leash in the park.  I also met "Schubart" who followed Madeleine and me for a few yards.

Madeleine outside Tchai Ovna tea house.

We walked to Tchai Ovna (pronounced chai-ov-nuh).  It was a very quaint tea house down an alley way.  The tea house was the size as my family's living room at biggest.  A cat was sitting on one of the only free chairs so I had the shop keeper move the cat so I could sit down and then put the cat back down on my lap.  We drank Russian Caravan tea and shared a Mediterranean Plate (falafel, hummus, etc.).  And for dessert... a chocolate fudge brownie!

Next Madeleine showed me around the University of Glasgow.  Holy smokes.  What a gorgeous university!!  We walked down a street lined with what looked like old houses but were actually academic departments!  I seriously felt like this was the closest I was going to get to Hogwarts.  The view from the university, which is on the top of a hill, is gorgeous as well.

                                

See the Uni in the background?

Hogwarts???

Looking up at the Uni.

At dinner

Madeleine estimated that we had walked 5 miles throughout the day.  When we arrived home, I collapsed on my bed and fell into a deep sleep.  I was woken up an hour later to get ready for dinner.  We were going to Mister Singh's for Madeleine's birthday dinner.  Mister Singh's is her family's favorite Indian restaurant.  I met more of the family and we had a delicious meal.  Some of the Indian waiters were even wearing kilts!  The waiters brought Madeleine a birthday candle on Indian ice cream and the entire restaurant sang to her.  A few minutes later Madeleine was presented with a framed photo of her blowing out her candles from only a few minutes earlier -- a gift from the restaurant.