Where the Sun Shines on the Cities of Saints

Last Saturday, three of my friends and I took a day trip to St. Andrews, which turned out to be a most excellent choice. We awoke bright and early and ran to the grocery store, where I got baguettes, ciabatta rolls, and juice (the best breakfast you could ask for) and then ran to the bus station. We hopped on an 8:40am bus and had a fun filled ride passing by bridges, country, and the sea. I guess you had to be there. Maybe this picture helps:


So we arrived in St. Andrews with a little repertoire of things to do, but got very quickly lost. We walked through an area for a brief time where students reclined on benches wearing their quintessential preppy St. Andrews clothes, right outside one of the student shops (which had a sale - school scarf for only £30!). But those were only a handful of students, so I didn’t judge the town too much. After stopping and asking a student who looked a tad more welcoming, we got excellent directions to the shore where the castle and cathedral both lay. Upon reaching said shore, however, we quickly ran down to the nearest beach in our excitement to see such a thing in Scotland. Also, I should note that when I thought of St. Andrews, I thought of golf. Not the ocean. I was happily proved very wrong indeed, and we spent the first part of our morning walking the tiny beach we had found, which the St. Andrews castle happened to overlook.

Thus, the castle was the place we went to next, and what a castle it was! Unlike the castles of Stirling or Edinburgh, a great deal of this castle was in ruins, and it was also a bit smaller than those two. Yet little did I know how many hidden facets and adventures it held! We first went through the historical exhibition that was in the visitor centre, which was very overwhelming, as it was full of histories of conflict between kings, bishops, pagans, and so forth. Typical medieval Britain, really. But one of my favorite stories depicted there was about how people tried to attack the castle by building a tunnel (though they called it a mine) into the castle. Well, the castle-folk got wind of this, and began to build a ‘counter-mine’, which would intercept this one, and then they could... fight in the mine instead of the castle. The pictures were quite gruesome, actually, and I quickly decided that I would not want anything to do with fighting in a mine (or digging one for that matter, since the pictures portrayed the fights happening while people were mining - they didn’t fare well). Good. There’s a life decision made. We left the exhibition and started exploring the castle, where we found many ‘false starts’ for the counter-mine. This wasn’t fully explained, so I guess they started to dig, and then decided ‘Woops, no. Let’s dig over there instead.’ and proceeded to make several very large holes in the ground. If I had been a groundskeeper then, I would not have been pleased. Anyway, though, then we found this:


And we were SO excited. We explored them hurriedly and happily. There were some people already in the tunnels who didn’t share our excitement as much, and it was a bit too exciting for our groceries as well, which took a few tumbles through the mines (safely retrieved though).

After that, since we had lost a bit of our energy, we explored other parts of the castle, and spent a great deal of time just staring out to the sea, which was a more stunning blue than I have seen in some while. We were subdued by it, and the peacefulness of the entire situation could have lasted a lifetime.

Taylor, Yannick, and Blake in one of the scenes that gave this post its name.


After quite reluctantly taking ourselves from that eternal scene, we headed back towards the city area, on our way to the cathedral. IFSA-Butler actually had given us all a travel newsletter a week before, and in it was a page on St. Andrews which I found (luckily) the day before. It suggested a famous doughnut store called Fisher & Donaldson’s which I stopped at to get a (also suggested) fudge doughnut. Now, when I think fudge, I think chocolate, which is (I think) understandable, but nonetheless incorrect. This was a doughnut with a creme colored frosting, and a white cream filling, both fudge, but not chocolate fudge. It was not what I expected at all, but I did enjoy it. For a country that doesn’t have many doughnuts (i.e. as America does), I was surprised, and a bit overwhelmed. But in a good way.

We then trod over to the cathedral after picking up some excellent lunch at a French café (I think I saw a French flag... not too sure), and we found it to be not exactly as expected. It was an old ruined cathedral, and inside of the ruined walls, surrounding the spires, were countless headstones. Really creative ones too at times (see the album for some examples - link at bottom of post), but almost too many for me to envision the area as a working cathedral. I’m not sure if the graves came first and the cathedral was just much smaller than it seems or what the deal was - the organization of it all was a bit confusing. Anyway, we got a chance to climb up the only stable standing tower (with tickets for two of us, the other two - Taylor and I - are members, so we actually got escorted up). It was a stunning view from the top, and from there we saw many exciting things, including a pier, which is exactly where we headed next. That was an even more subduing and peaceful experience, with beauty I cannot easily describe.

We had to tear ourselves reluctantly away from there as well, after which we headed back to the city to an IFSA-Butler suggested Ice Cream shop, which had over 150 flavors, including Irn-Bru! I’m not sure if I’ve told you about Irn-Bru (pronounced Iron-Brew), but it is a Scottish soft drink that surpasses many major ones in sugar content (33% of daily intake, I believe) and tastes like liquid, sugary bubblegum. Overwhelming. But in a bad way. It does have 10% of your daily intake of Iron though! Anyway, none of us got that type of ice cream, for good reason. I feel as though it was more of a novelty anyway. Afterwards, we dragged ourselves back to the bus station and had a weary, bleary-eyed ride home. Except it was MUCH longer, as it wasn’t the express bus we had taken that morning, but instead one that traversed the countryside through many seaside villages, which I really enjoyed - when I could keep awake for it. Here’s a good one to close with, a picture I took on that ride home, embodying my love for this country:

p.s. I’ve posted three albums to my Google public photo gallery, all viewable at: http://picasaweb.google.com/riordan.frost