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Old 23 Feb 10, 10:02 AM  
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Summer-Caitlin
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Join Date: Feb 10
Travel to Glasgow

Day One...

We awoke at 6.00am, I had great difficulty getting to sleep that night so I was extremely tired. I jumped in the shower first as I had my make up and hair to do while Steven organised a few last minute things. I had given my mom explicit instructions to be at our house by 8.00am. I do not like rushing and I wanted to make sure she had all her documentation with her before we left for the train station. While Steven was in the shower I made sure all my documentation for my wedding vendors was in my travel wallet and we had all the tickets etc. Now I have doing my make up down to a fine art, I can do it in 10 minutes if pushed, but if I have time I spend about 30 minutes doing it, with absolutely no difference I could see Steven getting frustrated that I was taking so long:cutie: Anyway my mom called at 7.30am to tell me she was in a cab and she would be about 10 minutes, great, I wasn't even dressed yet! She arrived at 7.45am on the dot and I had ordered a cab for 8.30am to take us to the train station. As soon as she came through the door I started rifling through her documentation, passport, tickets, and travel insurance docs. I made sure she had her meds as she has to take certain tablets for the heart bypass she had 3 years ago. She also had to get extra travel insurance so she would be covered if she had any problems while away.

With that all checked I got dressed and we sat with the Disney DVD on in the background while we chatted about the adventure to come.

8.25am and we get a call that our cab is out front. I do one last check of my documents (yes, I'm obsessive that way) and we grab our bags and go outside. Now Morgan had been picked up the night before to go into the kennel, I found it weird that we closed the door without saying goodbye to him or giving him a hug, I hoped he was enjoying himself and was feeling good, the amount of guilt I felt by leaving him was huge, but the vet had said he was doing well so I didn't really have a choice.

The cab driver helped us with our luggage, my huge pink suitcase, and my mom's smaller pink suitcase, Steven had a huge black suitcase along with his backpack which we had stuffed with all our hand luggage stuff.

In 10 minutes we were at the train station, our train wasn't until 9.37am but I wanted to be there early to check the platform and have some breakfast, as far as I was concerned the holiday had began and I was ready to start eating out

We went to a cafe called The Lemon Tree in the station, I had a croissant and a huge Cappuccino, Steven just had Tea and my mom had the same as me. This cost us £9.74 (about $19.00) and I was mortified, I can't believe they charge so much here, I couldn't wait to get to the States where I knew I would get better value for money. Steven said he was feeling a bit nauseated, so I told him he was likely hungry and should eat something, not taking my advice, he sat quietly and drank his tea, men!

After breakfast we went to the FastTicket machine where you can collect train tickets you have ordered online. I swiped the Credit Card and put in the Ref number for mom's return tickets, received them, no problem. I swiped the Credit Card again to input our reference number and our card disappeared...WHAT, the machine stared blankly at me. I told Steven to wait there while I went to find someone. I began to panic slightly, I hoped this wasn't like an ATM where it swallowed your card and didn't give it back! I eventually found someone and she said it happens all the time and she would just switch off the machine and it would spit out my card, thank god. Card in hand I went to try again, this time the machine didn't even ask for my card, it just said Error, so I queued in the ticket line, 10 minutes later I received my tickets and we headed over to the platform. Mini drama over we sat and waited for the train, which appeared 5 minutes later.

Boarding the train was a hoot, these are trains that go to Glasgow which has a huge airport, one would assume the luggage holder would be pretty big, uh uh, it was tiny. I stared at it and laughed, there was no way our 3 suitcases were going to fit and there was no way we could put them in the over head or at our feet. A passenger came up to us and offered to remove his suitcase as it was quite small and was taking up alot of room, we thanked him and proceeded to try fitting our cases into the storage compartment. We ended up having to put our luggage on top of one another and cramming it in so it wouldn't move during transit.

The train journey was uneventful, mom and I chatted non stop, Steven watched the scenery mostly, we had a table seat which I had reserved so it was great to have the table to lean on, and put our coffee when the coffee cart came round

At 12.15 we arrived in Glasgow, I knew this station quite well as had often came down to Glasgow on business, so we headed straight for the cabs as I wanted to get to the hotel to drop off our bags. I asked the driver how much to get to The Holiday Inn Express and he quoted me £18.00 ($36.00) I actually thought this was pretty good, so we jumped in. I had never flown from Glasgow before but had specifically booked this hotel because of the close proximity to the airport. 15 minutes later we arrived and we were just 2 minutes walk from the airport, perfect!

I had booked a room with a double bed and double sofa bed, I figured there was no point booking seperate rooms for one night, plus the cost would have been much more than we budgeted for. So we checked in and went upstairs to our room

Here are some pics:

This is the bathroom, it had a great power shower:



Here is a view of our bed:



The sofa bed is in the background:



I was pretty happy with the room, it was small but it was only for one night. So after looking around I decided we should go to Braehead Shopping Mall as there were some things I wanted to pick up and mom wanted batteries for her camera. So we went over to the airport to catch the bus to the mall. Braehead Mall is pretty big and has loads of good stores, I however wasn't in the mood to shop much so I only wanted to pick up what I came for.

Here is a pic of the shopping mall:



We went into Boots which is a huge Pharmacy in the UK, I bought sunscreen, shaving gel for Steven, fake nails and my mom bought batteries and sunscreen.

We had a look round the mall, but we were really worried about our luggage allowance so I was too afraid to buy much more. As it was 2.30pm Steven said he was hungry so I agreed to us eating a snack at one of the counter services at the Food Court. Now I only wanted us to have a snack as I planned on us eating at Tony Romas. We ended up getting a Philly Steak Sandwich each with fries and cokes, so as you gathered we wouldn't be eating at Tony Romas that night.

After lunch we headed over to Xscape Centre which is just across the road from the shopping mall. This is an activity centre that has indoor skiing, wall climbing, mini golf etc. I didn't intend to do any of these things but I wanted to have a look anyway. We stayed for about an hour and then decided to just go back to the hotel and have dinner there later on.

Here is a picture of the outside of the hotel:



I was pretty tired so I decided to take a nap before dinner, Steven managed to snap a pic of me sleeping:



I awoke much more refreshed and we headed down to dinner. The menu was pretty bland so I ordered Carrot and Coriander soup and Sticky Toffee Pudding, Steven had Fish and Chips with Peas and my mom had Pasta Carbonara. My soup was gorgeous, I will say, but the portion was small. Stevens fish was greasy and the fries were undercooked, but mom loved her pasta. This was really expensive too, £30.00 ($58.00), I knew there was a reason I wanted to eat elsewhere

After dinner we headed up to the room and Steven jumped in the shower then fell asleep almost instantly, I had loads to do, I wanted another shower and had my toe nails to do and I wanted to go over my wedding stuff.

Mom and I chatted til about 12.30am, while we both did our nails, Steven was sound asleep. I pulled out mom's sofa bed while she was in the shower, which believe me was no easy feat. We ended up going to bed at 1.00am and we had to be up at 5.30am, the air con was really loud and I kept waking up through the night. At 3am I got up and switched it off as I was really cold. Steven didn't wake up once but I could hear my mom moving alot too. I think I was so nervous about the flight, I couldn't wait for it to be over. I settled down again and managed to drop off and dream about the fun that was instore.

Coming Up:

No way, we've been upgraded, the dreaded flight, and I never knew I had the attention span of a gnat.
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Married August 20th 2007 at Sea Breeze Point, Wedding and Honeymoon TR http://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=384760
DDP reviews http://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=392481 Next visit September 9th-25th 2010 Old Key West 16 nights with DELUXE DINING

Edited at 10:09 AM.
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