Tuesday, July 9, 2019 First Full Day In Glasgow

I got a great nights sleep 😴 last night and got up at 7:00 AM rested, refreshed and ready to explore Glasgow. The hotel has a complimentary breakfast buffet so I started the day by loading up on cheese and salami and fruit and yogurt and eggs and sausage. If you are the type of person who has a cup of coffee ☕️ in the morning and doesn’t eat anything until noon, you have no business staying at a hotel that offers a complimentary Full English breakfast.

After breakfast I started walking towards the University of Glasgow. Jan’s daughter, Kelly, did her semester abroad at the University of Glasgow and was kind enough to send me an email with a list of things to see and do in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Kelly encouraged me to tour around the campus of the University of Glasgow. After graduating from the University of Denver, Kelly spent a year as a CLC, Collegiate Leadership Consultant, for her sorority, visiting a new college campus every week. In Kelly’s opinion, the University of Glasgow has a top of the list beautiful campus. I walked for an hour in the rain ☔️ to get there but it was worth the effort. You were right Kelly, the campus looked like it is right out of a Harry Potter movie.

This is the inner courtyard of the University campus.

This is the University of Glasgow Chapel.

This is the altar. Directly behind the altar is a series of panels listing the names of the 742 students, alumni, faculty and staff who served in WWI and never returned. On both sides of the altar there is a series of panels listing the names of the 450 students, alumni, faculty and staff who served in WWII and never returned. Scotland lost two generations of its best and the brightest young men fighting these two world wars. The chapel was an amazingly beautiful and peaceful place to contemplate the futility and tragedy of the First World War and the Second World War.

After visiting the chapel I walked across the quad and explored The Hunterian Museum.

This is a great museum and admission is free. You know how much I like free.

The University of Glasgow has had a number of very distinguished professors over the centuries.

James Watt was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer and chemist whose Watt steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and also the rest of the world.

Dr. James Lister is known as the father of modern surgery. He pioneered the practice of antiseptic, or sterile, surgery. And he invented Listerine!

William Thompson, the Baron Kelvin, was an Ulster/Scottish mathematician, physicist and engineer who helped to develop the second law of thermodynamics which states that the total entropy of an isolated system can never decrease over time. I have absolutely no idea what that means, but it sounds important. He also invented the absolute temperature scale that bears his name, the Kelvin Scale.

After I finished touring the University of Glasgow campus I walked across the street to check out the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

What a beautiful building. They have an art gallery and a natural history museum all in the same building. As a bonus we got a 30 minute pipe organ concert.

The guy playing this enormous pipe organ really knew what he was doing.

The Kelvingrove was hosting a retrospective exhibit of Linda McCartney’s photographs.

Linda McCartney was Paul McCartney’s wife and a very talented photographer.

After touring the Kelvingrove all afternoon I walked back to the hotel through Kelvingrove Park.

Apparently Lord Kelvin is a pretty big deal in and around the University of Glasgow.

At the end of the day I was thankful I didn’t have to walk up those stairs to get back to my hotel.

This is Lord Roberts. It sounds like he was a pretty big deal in the British Army. VC means Victoria Cross. That is the British equivalent to America’s Medal of Honor.

A memorial for the Scottish soldiers who died during the Battle of Normandy in World War II.

A memorial for the Scottish airmen who died during World War II.

After I got back to the hotel I asked the guy at the front desk for a dinner recommendation. Kelly told me the Indian food in Glasgow is great, so I was pleased when the guy at the front desk recommended a nearby Indian restaurant, Bombay Blues.

The owner of Bombay Blues, GV, promised to serve me a fabulous meal if I would reciprocate and give him a fabulous review on TripAdvisor.