Scotland Trip 2009

I'm EXHAUSTED from the whole day of traveling home. It started in Glasgow @ 5am and ended in Rexburg at 4am the next day... Anyways, Scotland was wonderful! We arrived Friday morning around 7am and from their went straight to our lovely Marriot hotel and then to downtown Glasgow to get familiar with the area and find the train station. We took a train to Stirling which is where the William Wallace Monument is. A castle dedicated to him and what he did for Scotland and their freedom. It is placed on a LARGE hill and it is 4 levels: entry, 1st (video, swords, pictures), 2nd (pictures, statues...) 3rd (the top!) over view of all Stirling and the city below. You can see rivers, mountains, hills, houses, farms and it's ALL green! From Stirling we took a train to Edinburgh. What a awesome city! We walked around town and took LOTS of pictures! The city was so beautiful and lively. We saw 2 bagpipers on the side of the street, we always enjoy that (that was one of the best things about the whole trip!) We enjoyed lunch at Pizza Hut which actually was very good. Then hit up Edinburgh Castle which was absolutely phenominal. I took about 200 pictures just at that one location. (Over all about 500 for the whole trip) P.S. we saw LDS Missionaries in Edinburgh! They said there is about 14 missionaries in all of Scotland, the work is slow but they love it. One was from Albania and had been adopted to a family that lives in Idaho Falls. And the other was from America, not sure where. But he goes to BYU Provo. After Edinburgh we headed back to Glasgow and rested up for the next day which we knew was going to be long. The wedding day! All the Antis men wore the 'Burns' Family kilt, which was a purple tartan with all the fixin's! It was very fun to see all the family there including Aarons aunt and uncle from Virginia. The rest of the guests were for the bride. And boy did Julie look good! A gorgeous dress and lovely hair. The ceremony was nice and after that we had a nice dinner.... needless to say, I didnt eat it all. But it was fun to try the Scottish food. The wedding was very nice and I enjoyed every bit of Scottish Culture! And the dancing was fun to watch. The Wedding ended around 2am but we left around 10pm... we were exhausted! Sunday was a short day, we had a brunch at the brides fathers house. We ate some more interesting scottish food. My favorite was a tomatoe-something. It had some sort of cheesy, tasty topping on the half cut tomatoe. The brunch was fun, I met a lady from England and another from The Island of Louis (Northern Scotland islands). Talking with the people that live in England and Scotland are fun, but it definitaly takes longer to understand them. I found myself asking them to repeat what they said many times. After brunch, we headed to downtown Glasgow for some souvenior shopping @ the Pound (dollar) Store! I bought most of the souveniors for my family for them to enjoy. After shopping, we had to head back to the hotel because the rival soccer game between Celtic and Rangers was about to end which means the streets would be crazy and we didnt want to get caught in anything we shouldnt have been. So we headed up to the Exectutive Room to watch the end of the game and have some treats and drinks and surf the internet. It was so fun! The next morning we woke up at 5:30am and took the flights to New Jersey, Texas and Salt lake city. Finally we arrived home at 4am.... boy that was a long day. But it was all worth it and we hope to go back to Scotland again soon!