First Adventure: St. Andrews
Ok, I am well aware that I have been letting the blog slip a bit, not updating regularly and what-not. For that I apologize, but I have been busy, so this should be a relatively interesting post. Plus, I have pictures!
So, I last wrote on Tuesday therefore I will start with Wednesday. I am fortunate enough not to have any classes at all on Wednesday and I had decided to get a bit of exercise in. I went to Holyrood Park in the morning (home to Arthur's Seat) which is quite a walk in itself (because I went to the main entrance, opposite the Palace of Holyroodhouse, where the queen chills when she's in Edinburgh) and then just started walking on random trails. Now, the park is full of craigs (typically used in the north, a craig is a form of the word "crag" meaning "A steep or precipitous rugged rock." Courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary, www.oed.com) and these craigs have many trails on them. Here, in Britain, they do not call huffing and puffing up trails of dirt and rock "hiking", they call it "walking" - so do not be fooled when you are asked to do some walking, wear proper shoes. So after quite a bit of walking (approx. 2 hours) around various craigs in Holyrood Park, videotaping good views, and listening to The Smiths on my MP3 player, I decided to head back down to town, grab a bite to eat and then head off to a beginners fencing lesson. The first thing I learned is that fencing is much harder than it looks. For one thing, you must keep your knees bent at all times and your feet perpendicular to eachother. Also, the "on-guard" position consists of contorting your arm and wrist in a quite uncomfortable way. Then there's the lungeing (sp?). But it was quite fun, nevertheless, and I will be continuing it. Not to mention, one of the older members of the fencing squad was ridiculously good-looking.
Wednesday night I met up with Christina at a pub called The Abbey for dinner. We got gigantic cheese and bacon burgers (note: in the UK, bacon is more like ham), chips and salad, plus beer (of course) for approx. £3 each (not including beer). I adore pub food. Anyhow, we ate the monstrous meal and had noticed that the pub was really filling up. Not to mention the appearance of 4+ identical green and white striped shirts. Possessing the intuitive minds that we do, we finally deduced that we were in the midst of the start of a football game: Glasgow Celtic vs. Milan, as it were. We stayed for a good 20 minutes amid the drunken, rowdy crowd, and I must have heard the phrase "fer fuck's sake!" at least 45 times. It was quite an extraordinary experience and I definitely plan on going for another game, getting a proper table with a good view of the screen, and staying for the whole time.
Thursday, I had a ludicrous tutorial at 9 AM, followed by another at 10. Tutorials are like recitations, except attendance is required and it's where you really get graded. Really boring stuff though, and too early for me.
Thursday night I spent trying to get back all of my lost sleep from the night before (the girls had come back roaring drunk) as well as much of Friday morning. Speaking of Wednesday night, one of the girl's boyfriends has a little brother who came over quite late on Wednesday, when I was forced to get up and shut off the music, making the poor, pissed girls apologize all over themselves. His name was Nicky and upon finding out that I was American he proceeded to ask me the most hilarious questions, such as: "Do you live in a big house, like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?" "Do you live, like, in the ghetto?" (West Philly, yo) and my favorite, "So do you own chains? Big ones?" Apparently, because I'm American, I'm supposed to have a large collection of bling.
Friday night I went out with Nicole and Christina to the movies. We saw Wimbledon - ADORABLE - I need my own Paul Bettany. Before the movie, we had some ridiculously expensive cocktails and a very posh bar called The Slug and Lettuce. And after the movie, we headed to a bar/restaurant called Negociants, where I ate my first Sticky Toffee Pudding. It was like heaven in my mouth. Really. If you ever have the chance, eat it. Delicious.
Despite going to sleep after 4:30 AM, Saturday morning, I woke myself up at 8 to meet Christina and catch a bus to St. Andrews for the day. The bus ride was quite nice, and we got excellent views of the Firth of Forth and the Fife countryside - including green pastures with sheep and cows, quaint stone cottages, the sea, and fishing villages. It was incredibly picturesque. And that was just the ride!
St. Andrews is a small town, and I don't think I would've liked to have spent more than a day there (so glad I decided not to study abroad there, by the way), but it is incredibly beautiful and perfect. The weather was absolute shit in Edinburgh, but it was sunny and cool in St. Andrews. There were beaches, with kids and dogs playing in the sand. There was the cathedral and the castle. There was perfect stone houses covered in ivy with flowers on the windowsills. There was the golf course. It is picture perfect, no doubt about it.
We went first to St. Andrews Cathedral and the graveyard surrounding it. The graves were centuries-old and included some pretty famous people, including the philosopher Adam Ferguson - former professor and namesake for one of our university buildings. Typically, graveyards make me a bit uneasy, but I was just bowled over by the beauty of this one. I'll post pictures of it soon.
The remains of the cathedral were also quite breath-taking (due to the Reformation, everything medieval in St. Andrews consists of ruins - the cathedral, castle, etc.). We climbed to the top of St. Rules tower, which consitsed of extremely narrow and steep winding stairs - reminiscent of our trip to Prague and the Great South Tower there, remember girls? From the top, the views of the town and coastline were fantastic and there was a great, rough sea breeze.
After that, we headed to the medieval St. Andrews Castle. These were also ruins, but terribly gorgeous ones. The grass was so green (as it is in most of Scotland) and the sea an intense gray-blue - it made for excellent photographs. We climbed around the ruins, poked into old rooms, took loads of pictures, listened to history lessons from a ridiculously knowledgable staff, and marvelled at the beauty and age of it all. We also got to climb in very small mines / countermines used in the old days to try and infiltrate the castle / stop enemy forces. The history of the place is fantastic. Read about it here: http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/standrews/standrewscastle/.
After that, we walked along the coast, past the British Golf History Museum, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, and the Old Course. We decided to play a round at the Himalayas Putting Green, right next to the Old Course, and just as immaculately manicured. St. Andrews is, after all, the home to the sport. Well, I am the first to admit that I am a terrible golfer (actually, not really a golfer at all, I've only putted and gone to the driving range a couple of times) and Christina is not great either (sorry hun, but you're not) so it was spectacular when the group of Scots behind us (two young attractive guys with what appeared to be their fathers) started to joke around with us. They were all terribly charming and quite good-natured, which was important because on some of the holes, we took as many as 7 strokes (not to mention the photographing and videotaping). I had been doing a bit of golfing with bags on my arms, and one of them remarked, "Oh, her handicap is just because of all those bags" to which I smiled and replied, "Yes, that must be it because usually I'm really good." It was loads of fun and definitely great to say that I did at least partial golfing in St. Andrews.
Speaking of the bags, they were filled with my first souvenir purchases since arriving in Scotland. I got a two things for myself, plus a few postcards. I bought a book on the rules of golf - which is fantastic and another thing, which some of you may figure out if I send you a letter. *wink* It was great because I have been searching for this mystery object for years, and I got to buy one in St. Andrews!
Anyhow, that's pretty much all that's been happening around here. I'll be spending today doing schoolwork (bah) and hopefully seeing Girl With A Pearl Earring tonight at the Film Society screening. Hope all is well at home.
So, I last wrote on Tuesday therefore I will start with Wednesday. I am fortunate enough not to have any classes at all on Wednesday and I had decided to get a bit of exercise in. I went to Holyrood Park in the morning (home to Arthur's Seat) which is quite a walk in itself (because I went to the main entrance, opposite the Palace of Holyroodhouse, where the queen chills when she's in Edinburgh) and then just started walking on random trails. Now, the park is full of craigs (typically used in the north, a craig is a form of the word "crag" meaning "A steep or precipitous rugged rock." Courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary, www.oed.com) and these craigs have many trails on them. Here, in Britain, they do not call huffing and puffing up trails of dirt and rock "hiking", they call it "walking" - so do not be fooled when you are asked to do some walking, wear proper shoes. So after quite a bit of walking (approx. 2 hours) around various craigs in Holyrood Park, videotaping good views, and listening to The Smiths on my MP3 player, I decided to head back down to town, grab a bite to eat and then head off to a beginners fencing lesson. The first thing I learned is that fencing is much harder than it looks. For one thing, you must keep your knees bent at all times and your feet perpendicular to eachother. Also, the "on-guard" position consists of contorting your arm and wrist in a quite uncomfortable way. Then there's the lungeing (sp?). But it was quite fun, nevertheless, and I will be continuing it. Not to mention, one of the older members of the fencing squad was ridiculously good-looking.
Wednesday night I met up with Christina at a pub called The Abbey for dinner. We got gigantic cheese and bacon burgers (note: in the UK, bacon is more like ham), chips and salad, plus beer (of course) for approx. £3 each (not including beer). I adore pub food. Anyhow, we ate the monstrous meal and had noticed that the pub was really filling up. Not to mention the appearance of 4+ identical green and white striped shirts. Possessing the intuitive minds that we do, we finally deduced that we were in the midst of the start of a football game: Glasgow Celtic vs. Milan, as it were. We stayed for a good 20 minutes amid the drunken, rowdy crowd, and I must have heard the phrase "fer fuck's sake!" at least 45 times. It was quite an extraordinary experience and I definitely plan on going for another game, getting a proper table with a good view of the screen, and staying for the whole time.
Thursday, I had a ludicrous tutorial at 9 AM, followed by another at 10. Tutorials are like recitations, except attendance is required and it's where you really get graded. Really boring stuff though, and too early for me.
Thursday night I spent trying to get back all of my lost sleep from the night before (the girls had come back roaring drunk) as well as much of Friday morning. Speaking of Wednesday night, one of the girl's boyfriends has a little brother who came over quite late on Wednesday, when I was forced to get up and shut off the music, making the poor, pissed girls apologize all over themselves. His name was Nicky and upon finding out that I was American he proceeded to ask me the most hilarious questions, such as: "Do you live in a big house, like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?" "Do you live, like, in the ghetto?" (West Philly, yo) and my favorite, "So do you own chains? Big ones?" Apparently, because I'm American, I'm supposed to have a large collection of bling.
Friday night I went out with Nicole and Christina to the movies. We saw Wimbledon - ADORABLE - I need my own Paul Bettany. Before the movie, we had some ridiculously expensive cocktails and a very posh bar called The Slug and Lettuce. And after the movie, we headed to a bar/restaurant called Negociants, where I ate my first Sticky Toffee Pudding. It was like heaven in my mouth. Really. If you ever have the chance, eat it. Delicious.
Despite going to sleep after 4:30 AM, Saturday morning, I woke myself up at 8 to meet Christina and catch a bus to St. Andrews for the day. The bus ride was quite nice, and we got excellent views of the Firth of Forth and the Fife countryside - including green pastures with sheep and cows, quaint stone cottages, the sea, and fishing villages. It was incredibly picturesque. And that was just the ride!
St. Andrews is a small town, and I don't think I would've liked to have spent more than a day there (so glad I decided not to study abroad there, by the way), but it is incredibly beautiful and perfect. The weather was absolute shit in Edinburgh, but it was sunny and cool in St. Andrews. There were beaches, with kids and dogs playing in the sand. There was the cathedral and the castle. There was perfect stone houses covered in ivy with flowers on the windowsills. There was the golf course. It is picture perfect, no doubt about it.
We went first to St. Andrews Cathedral and the graveyard surrounding it. The graves were centuries-old and included some pretty famous people, including the philosopher Adam Ferguson - former professor and namesake for one of our university buildings. Typically, graveyards make me a bit uneasy, but I was just bowled over by the beauty of this one. I'll post pictures of it soon.
The remains of the cathedral were also quite breath-taking (due to the Reformation, everything medieval in St. Andrews consists of ruins - the cathedral, castle, etc.). We climbed to the top of St. Rules tower, which consitsed of extremely narrow and steep winding stairs - reminiscent of our trip to Prague and the Great South Tower there, remember girls? From the top, the views of the town and coastline were fantastic and there was a great, rough sea breeze.
After that, we headed to the medieval St. Andrews Castle. These were also ruins, but terribly gorgeous ones. The grass was so green (as it is in most of Scotland) and the sea an intense gray-blue - it made for excellent photographs. We climbed around the ruins, poked into old rooms, took loads of pictures, listened to history lessons from a ridiculously knowledgable staff, and marvelled at the beauty and age of it all. We also got to climb in very small mines / countermines used in the old days to try and infiltrate the castle / stop enemy forces. The history of the place is fantastic. Read about it here: http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/standrews/standrewscastle/.
After that, we walked along the coast, past the British Golf History Museum, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, and the Old Course. We decided to play a round at the Himalayas Putting Green, right next to the Old Course, and just as immaculately manicured. St. Andrews is, after all, the home to the sport. Well, I am the first to admit that I am a terrible golfer (actually, not really a golfer at all, I've only putted and gone to the driving range a couple of times) and Christina is not great either (sorry hun, but you're not) so it was spectacular when the group of Scots behind us (two young attractive guys with what appeared to be their fathers) started to joke around with us. They were all terribly charming and quite good-natured, which was important because on some of the holes, we took as many as 7 strokes (not to mention the photographing and videotaping). I had been doing a bit of golfing with bags on my arms, and one of them remarked, "Oh, her handicap is just because of all those bags" to which I smiled and replied, "Yes, that must be it because usually I'm really good." It was loads of fun and definitely great to say that I did at least partial golfing in St. Andrews.
Speaking of the bags, they were filled with my first souvenir purchases since arriving in Scotland. I got a two things for myself, plus a few postcards. I bought a book on the rules of golf - which is fantastic and another thing, which some of you may figure out if I send you a letter. *wink* It was great because I have been searching for this mystery object for years, and I got to buy one in St. Andrews!
Anyhow, that's pretty much all that's been happening around here. I'll be spending today doing schoolwork (bah) and hopefully seeing Girl With A Pearl Earring tonight at the Film Society screening. Hope all is well at home.
posted by Melinda at 1:15 PM
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