Pictures: A) Beach at St. Andrews. B) Whiskey Distillery in Scotland.. Known for Blair Athol Whiskey. C) Group outside of Distillery. D) Epic Dessert at Cafe Biba!! E) Bridge heading over to Dundee (By the way, I am terribly nervous going over bridges and voiced my opinion about bridges in general.. and the tour guide proceeded to tell us this bridge had collapsed before.. and the one we were currently driving over was "sinking". Lovely infrastructure Scotland. At least we know the U.S isn't the only country failing in this category.I realize I have not posted a blog in a few days so I will update you on my life here.. First and foremost, I have been using new soap (Dove) so my arms are not getting too beat up anymore Uncle Tommy! It's still nothing compared to an American shower with American water and American shampoo and soap, but hey it will do for now. The shipment of American shampoo and conditioner should be arriving any day now! ... coupled with my American snacks like popcorn I would kill for right now.
Monday I had my first real, legitimate class - last week was basically being introduced to the structure of the classes and such so I was pretty excited to see what a class at St. Andrews would be like. I woke up kind of late and half-ran the 20 minute walk into town to make it on time... to realize it was CANCELLED!! Apparently my teacher got a stomach bug on Sunday and in his words.. "You don't want to know anything more than that". So I left it at that and came back to go back to sleep. I had to start reading The History of the Peloponnesian War so i got started on that (It's not as terrible as I imagined it would be). Monday night we had Chinese New Year for dinner - veggie spring roll, sweet and sour chicken, some weird pancakes I wasn't too fond of. The food is getting better though! After dinner I went to the student union with some new friends for Mr. St Andrews which is basically a talent show where a guy is picked from each hall and they compete for the title. I couldn't get into the show due to a lack of ticket so me and some people played the Pub Quiz instead - which is so hard!! My team leaned on me during the "American States" round and you know.. I got them all right. I think my team came in third to last place so our goal of winning a case of cider was shot. After that I came back and watched Bill Bailey - a British comedian with some people. Basically the entire performance ripped on America so it was sweet that I was the ONLY American in the room. Everyone kept looking at me asking if I was offended. Whatever - not everyone loves America like we think they do. Actually, a lot of kids I have talked to here say they have no interest in visiting America. Strange. I went to bed pretty late (around 4) and woke up Tuesday morning... ok Tuesday afternoon and continued my readings. Tuesday night dinner wasn't too terrible either - BBQ chicken and I had salad, which I later found plastic in so pushed it away. Tuesday night my hall had a wine and cheese - 2nd one of the semester. The cheese I am not a fan of - too strong for my pallet. After the delicious wine I went out with some Colgate kids to a few bars, then met up with other friends and went to Empire - the home of the greasy, late-night, drunken food place. They have pizza which isn't too bad and chips and cheese (my newest thing!). Although the ketchup here is much different.. it still tastes pretty good to me.
Today I woke up and met three friends in town for lunch at Gorgeous - which is the typical baguette place. I have a new favorite sandwich too - if you know about my thanksgiving tradition you won't be surprised that chicken, mozzarella, and cranberry is my favorite. They also give you a cheap price for students which is nice. We walked with our food down to where the bus was going to pick us up to head to the town of Pitlochry, where the oldest whiskey distillery in Scotland is! I finally got to see the St. Andrews beach and it is beautiful!! It looks freezing but the views are wonderful! There is also an aquarium by the sea which looks neat. Our bus ride to Pitlochry took us right by the Old Course Hotel - by the way.. that place is so expensive. For one night in a REGULAR room the rate is about $700 USD. The suites go up to about $10,000 USD a night!! We also drove by the 18th hole of the Old Course which was pretty cool. On the way to the whiskey distillery we saw Highland cows which basically looks like massive bulls with a lot of hair - and of course.. lots of sheep too!!! The whiskey place was neat. The one room smelled awful and the tour told us hungover college kids often throw up when they walk into a room completely drenched in the smell of whiskey. I bought the whiskey connoisseur in my life, Joshua, a bottle of Bell's Whiskey since he is such a big fan. After the whiskey factory, which is the oldest in Scotland and started around 1790, we headed into the town of Pitlochry to walk around and get some food. We stopped at a place called Cafe Biba for food and I got a banana toffee sundae which was amazing.. and huge!! They also had haggis there which I am still weary of trying, I know I will eventually.. but not just yet. Our trip back was nice. It gets dark very early here so everyone was pretty sleepy on the ride home.
Tomorrow is my first actual Scottish class since my Monday class was cancelled. We'll see how it goes. This post is far too long and has worn me out!
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