St. Andrews

If you thought the last few posts were long... brace yourself. Go get a glass of tea or a bite to eat ... you'll be here awhile.

Sunday was a day we'd been looking forward to from the time when we first started planning our trip. St. Andrews was hosting its annual Highland Games, including the national Heavyweight Championships: events such as hammer and weight throwing, caber tossing, and tug-of-war (Which apparently is rather serious business over here). Things looked a little grim for the first bit, with us oversleeping and waking up later than we would have liked, but we hurried through breakfast, which was perhaps unwise given the gravitas of a cooked breakfast, and caught a bus to Waverly Station. We bought our tickets, almost over-spending by about 40 pounds by buying tickets to Aberdeen instead of Leuchars, as the 9:10am Edinburgh-Aberdeen was our intended train. But we quickly sorted it out, purchased te correct tickets, and got to the platform at the same moment the train was pulling away.

Luckily, First ScotRail is a rather sophisticated (If necessarily complicated) system. We were able to get on a different train, the Edinburgh-Perth, mere minutes later, with our Leuchars tickets, as you can ride any train that goes from your origin to your destination. You can even take breaks, so if there's something you want to stop for you can hop off the train, take as long as you like , and then hop back on later that day and keep going with no penalty or extra payment, though this is not possible for the trip out, only the return trip.

We're just starting to get good at using public transportation, but sadly Sunday was probably our last real jaunt on the train and bus systems. I say sadly because while the system is not particularly cheap (About $50 US for our trip to St Andrews, with buses included), the rides are beautiful. The train ride up to Leuchars, just outside St. Andrews, was as lovely as we could have wanted.

Some beautiful port town

Crossing over the Firth of Forth

We got to see much of Fife, a beautiful section of the country, and passed fields of wheat and soy (Unless I miss my Kansas-educated guess), bounded by rock walls, small streams, and hedges. The rock walls are somewhat similar to the ones that are ubiquitous in New England, but generally a bit higher and cemented in place rather than precisely stacked and joined. Many of the houses are made the same way, and I'm sure there's an architectural term for this kind of masonry, but I don't know what it is.

View from Leuchar's Station
We arrived in Leuchars at about 10:30, and shortly afterwards caught the bus to St. Andrews, which takes only 10 minutes or so. On the way we passed a “field” of what can only be described as Dr. Seuss Trees. I have never seen them anywhere and Becky and I were both intrigued and a little frightened by them. I'll be doing some research and posting some pictures from the interwebs sometime later.

Market Street
So cute - reminds me of New England

A Scottish Garage, FYI :)

A quick walk from the bus station took us down Market Street and to the Tourist Information Center, which was pointless as it was more gift shop than anything else, though we did pick up maps. They didn't mention the two main attractions we were there for, however - the cathedral and the castle. Only in Scotland can they leave medieval architecture off the tourist maps, seriously. Luckily Becky had a hand-drawn "map" of their locations so we quickly left and continued on to St. Andrews Cathedral.

Becky and I both were awed by the cathedral ruins. It is very poorly publicized, and it would have been easy for us to skip the cathedral and castle, which are next to each other, entirely. We knew almost nothing about them, and might have simply gone from the bus station to the golf course and games without ever stopping by, as there are plenty of other castles and churches on our list of sites to visit during our road trip through the Highlands.

We were quite happy that we took the time to go, though, as the beautiful pictures will attest. In 1158 the church began construction of a grand new cathedral, intended as the seat of Catholicism within the kingdom of Scotland. We entered from the west, passing through what is left of the main entrance, as would most parishioners.

This picture is awesome - click on it to see it large!

Dave is Tiny

As we strolled through the nave, we witnessed the changing architecture of the south wall, which is due to alterations in the design as the construction, which took over a century, went on.

One of the most striking things in the nave is the remains of the pillars which would have held the cathedral roof. They look like great bits of cobblestone pavement set in the ground, and if a few of them didn't still have a foot or so worth of pillar left on top of the base, there would be little to indicate that they were anything more than stone discs.

Becky is the Central Pillar ... right ...

We walked the grounds, taking in nearly a millennium's worth of burial stones, looking through the small windows in the outer wall of the churchyard, and peering into empty tombs.

A Tomb

Eroded Gravemarker

View through to the North Sea

Having circumambulated the grounds, we headed back towards the center to check out St. Rules's tower, which predates the cathedral itself.

It is a square tower, over 100 feet tall, with a small ruined chamber on the east (Seaward) side. We noticed that there was an entry gate to the tower itself, and turned to head to the visitors' center to get ourselves some tokens, but right outside the tower were two young Herring Gulls and an older plain-jane seagull.

After playing with them for a while, mainly by whistling back and forth with them, we turned to go, but as I turned off the video camera we noticed a third young bird hopping towards us. He was scraggly and thin, and as he came closer we realized that this was likely to do with the fact that his upper beak is cocked about 45 degrees in the wrong direction. We took a shining to him and so took a few pictures. If we'd had food we probably would have given it to the little fellow, whom we named Freakbeak (Our more imaginative readers can probably deduce the uncensored version of the name, which rhymes with a creature from Harry Potter).

The visitor's center and mini-museum was nice. They had a great collection of sarcophagus covers, most of which I couldn't get pictures of due to the fluorescent lighting on the floor, which completely washed out nearly every picture I took, no matter how much I fiddled with the exposure settings. I did get some good pictures in the second hall, which contained older stonework that I was able to get some good shots of.

The triptych (If I may give myself such airs) I took of a stone chest – apparently there is no indication that it was a burial chamber or tomb carving – is of one of the best surviving and most complete pieces of early Gaelic stone carving. Also on display was another ancient piece of stonework that was given to a school. It was carved of stone that probably originated with the Vikings.

Many of the smaller pieces of stonework on display were actually recovered by the trust that oversees the cathedral now, rather than found buried on the grounds of the church. They had been used in the construction of nearby buildings, as after the Scottish Reformation the cathedral was partially collapsed and was subsequently plundered, its parts used quite irreverently by locals for anything they might need them for. I can't help but wonder if this anti-Catholic sentiment is also partially responsible for the poor advertising of the cathedral, which is almost certainly among the greatest ruins in Scotland. After viewing the two rooms of stonework in the visitors' center, we headed back over to the tower.

It was quite a bit more daunting than we had at first estimated. From outside, it looks pretty tall. Once you're inside, climbing first the spiral metal staircase the curators installed, and later the spiraling stone staircase that has been there for almost a thousand years and leads to the top, you begin to wonder if you haven't accidentally stepped into some cruel Catholic purgatory, where they trick tourists into climbing stairs forever to get misplaced revenge on those who tore down the cathedral in the first place.

Not to mention squeezing past other people while ascending and descending, the difficulty of which is hard to overstate. (Site note from Becky: I was on my hands, literally CRAWLING if that helps you any). An unspoken rule quickly emerged that the climber did the passing, unless the climber was old or unfit enough that the descender should take the risk of falling. The person being passed hugs the outside wall of the staircase while the passer lunges up 3 or 4 steep spiral steps, mere inches wide near the center of the staircase, without the aid of a handrail.

However, the view from the top of the tower was worth it:

(We ARE actually on top of the tower with St. Andrew's behind us ... We seem to have this problem with other people taking our photos (See our Providence trip on Facebook!)

We finally continued on to the castle, which we endeavored to peruse rather quickly, as the games were due to begin very shortly.

There was a German family of tourists and we were enchanted by their children. One had a mohawk and a saltier flag, and was standing by himself atop the ruins near the gatehouse and pretending to shoot people. The other was with a girl, younger and waving a rampant lion flag.

Lastly we explored the siege tunnels beneath the castle. I actually took a video of the entire length of the tunnel, narrating it with an explanation of the historical significance of the excavations. But the camera won't transfer that video to the computer correctly for some reason. Suffice to say the tunnels were amazing and I'm pretty upset about the loss of the video. I might invest in an SD card reader to try and bypass the camera dock and pull the data directly off the card and see if that works, but I'd hate to waste money on it if it turns out not to work.

We walked from the castle along the sea down to St. Andrews. I hadn't realized before that the Old Course is closed every Sunday, and turned into a public walking park, with only the putting greens restricted from pedestrian traffic. However, the practice greens are thrown open to the masses, though you must pay to use them, resulting in, to quote myself, “The finest putt-putt course in the world.”

Sophisticated!

We got some pictures and video of families putting, the old stone bridge, and the like. Next we headed across the course, past the rugby club and its fields, over to the fields where the highland games were. A quick note about the fields – they were perfectly level and the grass was all cut like a golf fairway, even though the fields aren't part of any of the courses at the golf club. I can only imagine how wonderful it must be to have a field like that to play rugby on, considering that we play on fields that are often uneven and littered with sewer drains, sprinklers, and rocks of all varieties.

The games were great fun.

Moo Coo!!

There was a standard size oval track laid out on the grass, inside which the heavyweight events took place and outside which all of the running and biking events took place. It was certainly fun to see all of the biking events, where lean men on racing bikes moved at half the speed you would expect thanks to the grass they had to ride on. The competitions were entertaining, and when it came time for the visitors' race, it didn't take much coaxing from Becky to get me to divest myself of the contents of my pockets and cross over the line to the track.

About a dozen people entered the field for the race, several of them from the US but also people from Italy, Germany, Sweden, and France. It was one full loop around the track, and was “handicapped,” meaning they had an official there giving certain people head starts. I was placed a little ways in front of the main pack, along with a guy in his 40s and a guy wearing jeans. So if you ever have to handicap a race, just remember that fat people, old people, and improperly dressed people all start together, 20 meters or so in front of the main group and 20 meters behind the children.

None of us were prepared when the starting gun fired, having only moments before been placed at our handicapped locations and all still engaged in conversation. I hadn't given so much as an iota of thought to the logistics of the race, and so the moment the gun fired I turned and began sprinting down the track. I quickly left behind the two men I was placed with and began to overtake the children, but my pace was such that there was no way I could maintain it for the full length of the track. Some people can all-out sprint for four hundred meters, but not me. Once the distance has exceeded that of a standard rugby pitch, I am out of gas. I was passed by the winner at about the halfway mark, and as we entered the last turn I slowed considerably. I realized that my lack of pacing was going to cost me the race (Which, to be fair, I was unlikely to have won even if I had paced myself, being then only in second place). I hadn't had a chance to stretch or warm up at all, and my legs were suddenly on fire and starting to ignore most of my instructions. Perhaps if I had had Coach Fergal bellowing “YOU'RE NOT FIT! FORWARDS, GET THERE!” I would have done better, but I doubt it. In the last 20 meters I could barely stay on my feet, and I crossed the line with a large group of equally unfit runners.

As I exited the track and rejoined the spectators, I was congratulated by several people, all of them smiling broadly. When I met up with Becky, she laughed and told me good job. It was then I began to get suspicious. Apparently my early lead had made me something of a crowd favorite, encouraged by the announcer's play-by-play. You can hear it in the video: “DOES THE AMERICAN HAVE THE STAMINA?!”.

It seems that Scots love a fat guy trying to run fast, and as I bought a bottle of water and collapsed in the grass, several other people congratulated me on my running and told me I put on a good show, one of them a police officer. It was all rather surreal and amusing, if a bit embarrassing.

The lack of stretching and warmup caught up with me, and I felt rather sick for a little while after the race. I've played in two rugby tournaments in the last month, all of which involved considerably more running than the race, but I learned yesterday that warming up and stretching are, indeed, quite crucial to performance. I grabbed another bottle of water and Becky and I took our leave of the games shortly thereafter, as they were beginning to wind down. The walk back across the golf course reinvigorated me, and we popped into the British Golf Museum, and though we opted not to pay the entry fee (They were closing in less than an hour) they had a neat exhibit in the ticket and gift shop, sculptures of the golf grips of prominent golfers.

We walked around the town for a while looking for a good place to eat, finally settling on a cheap little French restaurant with an inexplicably Italian menu, Le Rendezvous. Spicy Chicken Pizza and Mac and Cheese where shared, and leftover pizza will make my dinner today (Monday) while Becky is at the opening reception for her conference.

We caught a bus back to the train station, which wandered for a bit around the small towns around St. Andrews, providing us with even more attractive scenery. The train home was a bit crowded, and I slept fitfully for most of the hour-long ride, while Becky endured sitting next to a rather smelly and drunk Scot who kept ordering beers and getting more drunk.

Ah, my people.

Back in Edinburgh, we located an electronics store and pharmacy that I was to hit up running errands the next day, then walked briefly through the grounds of the University, locating some of the buildings Becky would need to visit over the course of the conference. We decided on a quiet night, and unwound watching TV and looking through pictures from the day back in the dorm room...

While drinking Strongbow from a 2 liter bottle ... in plastic cups.

Ahh, the good life!

Make sure and scroll down to the post from Saturday (Royal Mile Act I, Scene II) to see more pictures Becky has posted!