Tut-Tut, It Looks Like Rain

 Day 2 was fun , crazy, and interesting all wrapped into one. We got up and noticed that it had been raining quite a lot, from the looks of everything, so we caught an Uber the 2 miles to the church building.  It was a bit brisk and  very damp and we just plain didn't want to walk in that quite yet.  We attended a lovely church service, where we were welcomed with pure joy and warm smiles, fist bumps, and hand shakes. The talks that were given we filled with words of love and service - this was echoed everywhere we went. For example, in the Botanical gardens we visited afterward, we saw this plaque that showed how dedicated Scotland is to unity with everyone around the world, and there has also been many places raising funds to help with relief efforts in Ukraine - it brought tears of gratitude to my eyes a couple of times.  

As I mentioned before, we made our way to the Glasgow Botanical Gardens and spent the rest of our morning and early afternoon meandering our way around the beautiful gardens, river walks, and many greenhouses.  They have a stunning rose garden - oh how I wish I could capture the smell of that place!  Fresh rain scent mixed with the beautiful fragrance of the many colorful roses was absolute heaven!

There was even this weird crochet-covered-bench in the gardens, too LOL 

It started to rain on us while we were there, and we weren't fully equipped (no umbrellas and I was the only one with a thin rain jacket...oops), so we started back to the hotel (still a little more than 1.5 miles away).  We stopped at a quaint diner (think antique and vintage meets eccentric modern decor).  The food was wonderful, but we were a little taken aback when we ordered lemonade and they brought out some odd ginger-sprite concoction with a lemons slice in it. 😂 We'll know to ask if they have fresh squeezed varieties in the future haha.  The rain started to let up, so we started off toward the hotel again, only to have the heavens completely open up on us.  We took refuge in a small petrol-station-grocery-store for a few minutes to warm up and grabbed a drink while we were there.  We've discovered that it is rather difficult to find plain bottled water here - they sure do love their sparkling mineral water here (we're learning to read they labels better haha). We finally made it back to the hotel and changed out of our wet clothes and rested for an hour before deciding to venture out again.  This time, we went to a street that could be considered an outdoor mall - shops lining the entire street, bustling crowds and bicyclists making their way up and down the place and so many sites to be seen!  We even found the Tardis - sadly the "police" sign was broken and torn out of it because of the riots that have happened over the last couple of years.

We wandered through some shops and then came back to the hotel to meet our tour guide for the week and have dinner, which was delicious, by the way!  Then we ventured back out to see more sights, only...

...with all the pigeons and sea gulls flying around, its bound to happen.  Today just wasn't my day for good luck LOL Thankfully, the staff at our hotel is totally understanding and offered extra hand towels to clean it up (its happened to them too haha).

But, I've LOVED seeing the architecture around here!  The many cathedrals, older town-homes, and the many varieties of other buildings are absolutely stunning!

Tomorrow's adventures are bound to be amazing - can't wait to share them with you!