St. Andrew's Day in St. Andrews

November 30th was St. Andrew's Day, which is Scotland's national day. To celebrate, Historic Scotland (who runs the historical sites around Scotland) gave free admission to its sites. I decided to take advantage of the offer and check out the cathedral and castle in St. Andrews (because, really, where else would you go to spend St. Andrew's Day?). I just went for the day and really enjoyed the town. If I wanted to get away somewhere for 3 or 4 days just to chill, I would go to St. Andrews. It has a great main street and a fabulous beach that you can walk along forever.

St. Andrews Cathedral

 I wandered around the cathedral ruins and the castle ruins (where I learned that castles were not only built for royalty but also to protect religious leaders) and then headed out to the west sands to go for a walk on the beach. On my way to the West Sands, I passed the golf museum. I'm not a huge golf fan (or really any sort of golf fan) but entry to the museum was free for St. Andrew's day so I went in and completely surprised myself by finding it interesting! I learned about how golf balls have been made throughout time and about the evolution of golf clubs. I was fascinated except for some other stuff in there about famous golfers and who won what (i.e. the other 85% of the museum content).

The West Sands

St. Andrews is a great town and I'd like to go back but I have to admit that my favorite part of the day (other than actually finding the golf museum interesting) was the bus ride back to Edinburgh. I'd been noticing that when I go places on weekends, I always feel slightly disappointed when my train/bus actually gets to its destination. I realized that it was because on the train/bus, I didn't have to do anything like figure out where to go or what to do - I was free to just sit there and do nothing. The bus ride back from St. Andrews was even better because it was two hours long and it was dark outside, which meant that I didn't even feel like I should be paying attention to the scenery. I just put my earphones in and sat there listening to music. The perfect ending to a great day.



St. Andrews

London

Two weeks ago I made a weekend trip to London. I stayed with an aunt and uncle who live about 45 minutes outside of London and who graciously invited me to stay with them. We spent Saturday in London doing touristy things: seeing Big Ben and the parliament buildings, going on the London Eye (of which I enjoyed the coming back down part.... not a fan of heights or ferris wheels), touring the London Tower and taking in some art at the Tate Modern. Sunday we had lunch with my cousins (who I previously only had vague recollections of meeting) and their families.

View of London from the Eye

View of London from the Eye

View of London from the Eye

Obligatory Tower Bridge photo

 

It was a great weekend. I think my favorite part (other than getting to know family that I don't see very often) was looking through old photos of my dad and uncle from when they were growing up. I am definitely my father's daughter - even I could see the resemblance.

Reading News and Learning Lingo

I'm a bit behind on my posting but thought I would post this one before I forget. This morning I had a reminder that I should really pay more attention to local news. I woke up and got ready for work and just before I left, I opened my curtains and that's when I realized that it was pouring rain... horizontally. We were having some sort of gale weather event of the magnitude that if it occurred in Ontario would require "Storm Watch 2013" status (not that we over exaggerate weather at all...). I shrugged, put on my rain jacket and headed out to the bus stop. I didn't realize how major the event was until I got to work and discovered that there were 80 mph winds and flood warnings, all the trains in Scotland were cancelled and they closed the bridge over the Forth. We don't have a tv in our flat, I don't have a radio and I've never been much for buying newspapers but I'm starting to think that I should at least check out some local news websites every once in a while just to ensure that I don't shrug, put on a rain coat and head off to work during the apocalypse.

The weather did provide me with a learning opportunity today though. I will probably never forget the difference between pants and trousers in the UK. "Pants" mean "underwear" here, which I had learned before but had forgotten in the midst of trying to keep everything else straight (remind me to tell you about the time I accidentally flipped off a co-worker when he asked some question to which the answer was two so I held up two fingers). Anyhoo, I had gotten soaked walking from the bus stop to the office this morning and just before lunch I said "Ugh, my pants are still wet!". The guy sitting next to me gave me a really weird look and then clued in and said "Trousers! Your trousers are still wet!", while everyone else had a good laugh. Always learning...