Nick Devine vs. The Mines

Yes, I already know what you are going to say. Nick, it’s been forever since you last blogged about the epic adventures known as your life in Scotland. I would reply, yes you are absolutely right and I apologize for that. My goal has been to try to update this thing once a week and last week I dropped the ball.

Frankly last week was all about writing essays and getting school related stuff out of the way, you know the study portion of study abroad and it was a pretty uneventful weekend. I wrote a 2500 word essay for religion and am currently waist deep into another 1500 word essay for my Global Cinema class. They are not super exciting and sometimes demand way too much attention and time but I am learning a ton while I write them so it’s all worth it in the end. Being an outsider here (a.k.a. American) It is very interesting to see the way my views and beliefs stack up with people who are not like me. Often times I am called to 'speak for the American population' in seminars and it’s quite an odd experience to say the least. I really don't feel qualified to 'speak' for everyone in America or frankly even myself sometimes. That has been one 'of the hardest things here to adjust too, and the fact that fries are chips and chips are crisps, but that is a whole different topic aside. I believe it has made me more confident though, and that has helped my presentation and vocal skills when talking to other people and presentations.

So anyway, to the things you actually want to read about.

This Saturday we took a trip to St. Andrews, the home of golf and the Old Course. We took the train there at way too early o'clock and sat on a train for a good amount of time. We got to the station closest to St. Andrews and we thought, "Hey it can't be too far from here, let’s just walk there and save some cash!" Wrong move on our part. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful countryside, pleasant horses hanging out, a couple of tractors passed by and it was more or less like walking through Wisconsin this time of year. The problem lies at the point where the 2-3 miles walk turns into the 5-6 mile hike up a never ending hill of doom. That whining aside it was a pleasant walk and we did not get rained on once. We went by the Old Course, the famous one, and we got to walk along side of the fairways at some point. We wanted to do a walking tour of the area but we could not because there was a local match going on and they would not let us on. We had to stop and quit talking at one point because someone was lining up a shot on the 18th green, which they promptly missed. I snickered; inside of course because they would have hit me with their club had it been vocal.

St. Andrews is along the coast of Scotland facing east so there was a good deal of beach and rocks that were poking out into the bay. We walked along the beach for a bit and climbed some of the rocks that were there and had some fun taking pictures of the area. Next we climbed into a local pub and had a good lunch with some nice locals we met. After the wonderful soup and sandwiches we went to the ruins of the old St. Andrews castle. It was really neat and only some was left standing. We got to learn about how they tried to siege the castle by building tunnels underneath it and how the occupants of the castle tried to counter mine them and attack when they were not expecting it. We actually climbed down into a mine and it was very dark, wet, and narrow in there. Needless to say I felt like Spider man crawling around on my hands, and singing the theme song of course. We looked at where all of the dungeons and great halls as well as some of the supposed storage containers for the cities namesake, St. Andrew.

Walking uptown we went to the cathedral, which was again ruined (They can never keep anything nice in St. Andrews...) we got to tour around the cemetery and look at a lot of dead people and the stones that now represent them. Inside the cathedral museum they had all of the sarcophagi of famous people in the area with all sorts of really good carvings on them. The Tower of Rule is a huge tower that was built right next to the cathedral and acted as a lighthouse as well as being a really big tower of such. It was unfortunately closed due to unexpected electrical issues with some of the lighting. After the Cathedral we looked at some more grave sites and moved along our marry way.

We decided that we had already had too much fun in the day so we started our journey back home. As we were walking down the main street we happened to pass the world’s best ice cream shop and knowing my group we naturally had to stop. It was actually very good and I ended up getting a Blackcurrant and Raspberry milkshake that was pretty impressive I must say. After walking a bit more we had decided that we were going to take the bus to the train station rather than try to walk the 5-6 miles again. The bus driver we had was very funny and kept us laughing the whole way to the rail station. The rest of the day passed and no rain was had which meant it was a great day all around.

So that was my Saturday all in a nutshell. Now I must continue with my essay and start some econometric homework so I do not get swamped down the line with that. I will be doing another blog post sometime this weekend with some of my upcoming ventures and here is a small preview, 4 new countries, updates on kilts, and of course a lot more castles!

Until next time, this is Nick, signing off.