Blogs from Saint Andrews, Fife, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe

April 24, 2012 – St Andrews We're here! We arrived this morning in St Andrews, and Damian reckons he's died and gone to heaven. There are more golf courses here than you can poke a stick at (or a club at) and they're all beautiful courses. You drive along a road, to see sheep and dairy farms mingling with golf courses, all nestled up against the ocean. I'm in heaven too – the countryside is just beautiful, so you could say that St Andrews has been Tailormade just for us! The golfists amongst you should get that wee pun LOL We have spent a wonderful day exploring Cambo Estate. Cambo Estate is stunning. There is no other word to describe it. Cambo House itself is awe-inspiring – a grand manor home. We are staying in “The ... read more

Saint Andrews is a small town on the west coast, about two hours from Edinburgh by bus. We don't know for sure, but we guessed it's about the size of Salem, MA. It is known as the birthplace of golf (whether or not this is true, I don't know, but there was a fairly large golf course and several golf shops around town) and home of the oldest University in Scotland, which seems to have inspired a ton of international students (many from the US) to study abroad here. Similar to Edinburgh, American accents in this town were everywhere. The town looked to me like a cross between a fishing village and a college town. Interestingly, the same can be said for Salem. Unlike Salem, Saint Andrews has not beaten the daylights out of the dead ... read more

The day started off sunny and pretty cool. Today we travelled to St. Andrews and then to Edinburgh. At St Andrews we learned that the Scots put up St. Andrew’s church to show the cardinals in England that they were capable of having their own church separate from England. The church supposedly had some bones from one of the disciples, St. Andrew and in the day people would go on pilgrimages just to see this church and touch the casket holding the bones of St. Andrew. The church was enormous and very ornate. Later a man named John Knox gave a rousing speech at the local Presbyterian church denouncing the Catholic religion and how the bishops lived in opulence while the people were in poverty. This led to the whole town converting to Protestant and heading ... read more

We got up early for us on the trip...7:30 AM - unimaginable!!!! ;) We were both super draggy from being out the night before, but me being the crazy organizer that I am, I wanted to make sure that we got to the station and grabbed our tickets with plenty of time. So, we locked up and said goodbye to our flat and Edinburgh, and took a taxi to Waverly Station (which seemed super lazy because it's not that far away, we just didn't want to drag our bags over the mound). We had no problem collecting our tickets, so we stopped for a coffee before jumping on our train to Leuchars, which is where you have to take the train to in order to get to St. Andrews. An hour train ride and a short ... read more

The Cheerleading Society held a social at the one club in St. Andrews. Yes, cheerleading in Scotland. The society played Bring It On at the Freshers' fayre to reel in potential members. Later they asked me if Cheerleaders really wear their uniforms to school everyday like they do on GLEE. Clearly they are a lot of fun!... read more

Geoff is a "pig in mud" - the old course at Saint Andrews, the home of golf. Chatted with some Australians who were about to tee off and then invaded the course for a few photos. Went ot the Scottish night - bagpipes, haggis, a ready supply of Italian wine but no Scotch !!! resulted in huge amount of merriment.... read more