Today we had an informal class trip to St. Andrews in the morning. It was just over an hour ride from Edinburgh on the train, which was completely bearable because there was such amazing scenery the entire ride! We rode past the coast as well as rolling hills of farmland speckled with sheep and cattle and lined with trees and stone walls. It was all breathtaking! I would have to say that Scotland’s countryside definitely give Ireland a run for its money.
When we arrived in St Andrews we had to take a very short bus ride up to town where we got off and walked down to the coast where the St. Andrews Link golf courses are. We spend a while hanging out on some rocks on the coast and taking in the views and then we finally made our way to the courses where we wandered around for a little bit trying to figure out where the Old Course was. It turns out that we were actually walking past the last couple holes of the course the entire time, but it was so open and didn’t have any obvious fairways, sand traps or greens that we didn’t know it was a course. It is so different from any golf courses that we had ever seen before, but I guess it makes sense that the course wouldn’t be too standard since it was made a long time ago. Once we figured out what it was it was neat to know that we were seeing the “birthplace of golf” and so many famous and talented golfers had been right where we were. Surreal!
We made our way down to the country club where a couple of girls suggested we eat lunch. I thought that the prices would be insanely high at such a prestigious place, but they actually turned out to be very reasonable so I enjoyed an chicken and bacon sandwich while feeling significantly out of place in my blue jeans and tennis shoes among all of the older, well-dressed Scottish golfers.
After lunch we wandered through some of the nearby shops and sat down to enjoy the surprisingly warm and sunny weather. We eventually decided to make our way back to the town centre to walk around for a little bit before we took the train back to Edinburgh. It was another enjoyable ride in the scenic country followed by a little more shopping in Edinburgh. Then, we came back to the flat for dinner and a little break before we went to a couple of comedy shows that were part of the Fringe Festival. One other girl and I went to see Dan Atropolski at the Pleasance Dome. He’s a British comedian who was pretty funny, but we also soon felt a much larger cultural barrier than we ever had before on the trip. It seemed that many of his jokes were about British people or culture that were way over our heads so we had absolutely no idea what was funny. It was still a cool experience and we were able to pick out enough humor for it to be worthwhile. When Dan’s show was done, the other girls then met us at the same place to see Bo Burnham. (For anyone who doesn’t know, Bo is a 19-year-old American who had a big break as a YouTube phenomenon a couple years ago). He was absolutely hilarious! He played the piano and guitar, sang, read “haikus”, and just had a great show! Bo performed for about an hour, and afterwards we walked around in an outdoor hangout area that was set up for the festival for a few minutes and then came back to the flats for the night since we have our last official class tomorrow morning.
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