Day Four: More Oxford

We began our day with “breakfast in hall” (feeling very much like Harry Potter, but with more coffee…), then the students headed off to St. Peter’s College with David for a lecture, while I began the exciting task of doing some laundry! Since I had to walk through Oriel College to get to the laundry room, and the College is full of blooming flowers and espaliered trees, the task was actually almost enjoyable. Once I had a pile of clean clothes (and several hours of much needed Colgate work done as well…), I convinced the kids to finally get dressed and leave the flat with me. We walked across the Bodlein Library complex and down Parks Road, pausing on the way to admire the Rhodes House and take the classic American-kids-in-a-British-phone-booth photo, which we had not yet done. We stopped at the excellent Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which houses the university’s collection of zoological, entomological and geological specimens, including several dinosaur skeletons, a procession of mammal skeletons, gems, meteorites, and a head and foot of a Dodo, which are apparently the most complete Dodo remains anywhere in the world. Some of Darwin’s specimens are here, and prove to be quite popular, but Emma’s favorite exhibit by far was Mandy the Shetland Pony, which is a stuffed pony that actually has a “Please Touch” sign displayed in front of it (this must be a first for a museum of “entomological specimens”).

Behind the University Museum is the equally excellent Pitt Rivers Museum (also free!) of “archaeology and evolutionary anthropology.” This is basically a fancy way of saying the museum has just a little bit of everything imaginable from every culture on every continent in every era. We saw costumes from Tahiti collected from Captain Cook, African pottery, Inuit parkas, warrior helmets made from pufferfish, Melanesian masks, Chinese fishing hooks, Russian toys, Native American moccasins, locks and keys from the Kingdom of Benin, Canadian ice hockey skates, and Japanese drums. The entire third floor was devoted to weaponry through the ages from each continent, much to John’s great pleasure, and both kids thoroughly enjoyed the “mouse trail” for kids that the museum put together: after picking up “maps” at the front, they would read a clue about the location of a small wooden mouse, then find the right display case and use wind-up searchlights to look for the mouse, “Where’s Waldo”-style, somewhere in the displays.

By the time we explored both museums, David’s lecture was done, so he met us there, and we walked to Wadham College, where he attended classes during his junior year at Oxford. We took a few photos as he reminisced, then walked around the corner to the Alternative Tuck Shop where he used to stop in for ham and cheese toasties (which, according to David, also always contained cucumber and a thick layer of butter!) after his tutorial. We also did a bit of shopping, and outfitted David with all kinds of Wadham College gear for an early birthday present. We dropped off our purchases, and met most of the students at Oriel College for the short walk to Magdalen Bridge, where we would start our afternoon activity of punting on the River Cherwell (which leads to

the Thames…or the “Isis” as it is called here). Punting involves a long, low wooden boat and a long pole, and the punter stands on the end (apparently, the end on which you choose to stand is dictated by whether you are an Oxford or a Cambridge man...) and pushes against the shallow riverbed to propel the boat down the river. At least, that's the idea. The reality is that the pole often gets stuck, and the boat careens from one side of the river to the other, slowly drifting under various bridges while a gaggle of spectators (some of which are sober, and others which are not) stand atop the bridge and heckle the punter and the punter's already-worried passengers. Our group took four "punts," and we split up into those that might not mind getting wet (John was in this group, which ended up being all the male students...) and those that were carrying relatively expensive electronic equipment in their relatively new purse, and would prefer not to get wet (that's me!). David ended up punting our boat, also populated by Kristen and See Hee. The look of trepidation on Kristen's face in the photo below as David guides us under a bridge pretty much sums up the experience!

Once we were on dry land, the students split off from us and headed to a pub. We hit a "sweets" shop for the kids, then went back to our flat for some itinerary-planning for tomorrow. Once the kids got hungry enough, we left again for dinner, and David found a fantastic Indian place that caters to vegetarians. The food was really quite good, and though we all love Indian food, the kids were especially into this one. Emma ended up with a lentil dish and I got a pumpkin saag, and we both ate pretty much every bite, and John got a chicken shish wrapped in a thin egg omelette. I'm not quite sure that's what I ordered for him, but it turned out to be a happy mistake because he kept prodding me to ask the waiter for the recipe! The waiter was quite nice, and asked us what "part we were from." We said New York, and he said that his brother used to live in New York. We explained that we weren't from the city, but were from upstate New York, and he said, "My brother doesn't live in the city either. He's from another part...New Jersey, maybe?" We just nodded and smiled, too polite to point out that New Jersey is actually a whole different state! Then he showed us a photo of Bill Clinton visiting the restaurant a few years ago (when he was much thinner!) that they had framed on the wall. I'm assuming that's probably the only framed photo of an American president anywhere on the walls in Oxford!

We took a long, slow walk through the streets of Oxford as the sun went down, and though it's spring break for the Oxford students, the streets were still quite busy. We talked about what a great time we all had in Oxford, and how we all wished (even if just a bit) that we could stay for one more day instead of moving on to London! Maybe we will have to stop here again on our way back north!

Day Three: Oxford

We left York this morning, and made it to the train station with plenty of time to spare, after either I or the St. Andrews travel office made a mistake in booking the train tickets (I thought we were buying the 9:27 departure, but actually ended up with the 10:34 departure). The students were very understanding about having missed out on an extra hour of sleep, and sat amidst the luggage nursing Costa coffees for an hour before our actual train arrived. Once we actually did board, the four of us ended up sitting at a table, which makes for an absolutely fabulous train trip and gives the kids ample space to spread out their snacks and their coloring pads. David got in a bit of work, and though I had brought my computer to do some work as well, I actually couldn’t tear myself away from just watching the English countryside go by outside the window. Not only has spring sprung here so the grass and the trees are gorgeously green, but I was struck by the difference in the scenery from that in the United States—here there are no billboards, no suburban shopping areas, no mega-gas stations. Just serene and tranquil scenery. I passed the time by looking for lambs in each flock of sheep, and watching a canal system that moved along (and sometimes under) the train tracks, which was full of canal boats and lined by fishermen. The kids had a ball on the train as well, especially after so many plane trips. Here, they had plenty of space, could look out the window, and kept getting up to talk to various students and go into other cars to use the space-age bathroom, which featured electric door openers and locks that were very much straight out of a Jetsons episode. John kept asking how much longer we would be on the train, but only because he wanted to stay ON for a longer period of time!

We arrived in Oxford just after 2pm, and walked through town to Oriel College, where we would stay for two nights. The outside of the college is pictured above, and quite beautiful. The college’s official name is “The House of the Blessed Mary the Virgin in Oxford, commonly called Oriel College, of the Foundation of Edward the Second of famous memory, sometime King of England.” It was founded in 1326 by Edward the II, though most of the buildings date from the early 17^th century. The college’s famous alumni include Cardinal John Henry Newman, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Beau Brummel, who is credited with creating the suit-and-tie fashion for men. I can certainly understand the latter, as this is definitely a suit-and-tie kind of place. Our denimed and backpacked group screamed “Americans!” as we walked through town. After we had settled, we began a tour of the various colleges, led by an official city tour guide who was excellent—full of interesting facts and able to keep our group on the move. The colleges are absolutely stunning—it’s almost impossible to decide where to look as you walk, since one building is even more

beautiful than the next. Our guide took us to many of the well-known sites, such as the Radcliffe Camera, which is the main reading room of the Bodlein Library, and the Bridge of Sighs, which is synonymous with the center of the city. We also saw several sites used in the filming of the Harry Potter movies, such as the Divinity School, which was used as the infirmary in the films, and the tree at New College under which Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy fight and Professor Moody turns Draco into a ferret.

After our tour, the students went in search of some of the famous pubs such as the Eagle and Child, which was frequented by C.S. Lewis and JRR Tolkein. The four of us went in search of the previous haunts of another scholar—we walked to the neighborhood where David lived here as an undergraduate during his junior year abroad. We found the flat, took a photo, then went off in search of yet another bathroom for John! Then we took a walk through the Christ Church meadow, which was full of weeping willows in bloom, and tulips and windflowers in every corner. It was sprinkling just a bit, but the weather made the colors of the flowers stand out even more, and though the four of us were quite tired from all the day’s walking, the meadow was magical

for all of us! Eventually, we went back to our “flat” in Oriel College (a three bedroom apartment with incredibly sloping floors done in “grad school chic”…upon our arrival, John took one look at the stained carpet and said, “I think someone has stayed here before.”) then met the students in the dining hall for a formal served dinner, where Emma and I tried our first “sticky toffee pudding.” After dinner, the students went out for some after hours exploring, but the four of us turned in early!

Day Two in York

Our first day in York began with a trip to York Minster, which is the largest Gothic church in England, and well known for its 128 stained glass windows. We had arranged for a group tour ahead of time, so after a quick breakfast at the hotel, we walked there as a group and were promptly met by one of the sisters at the church. I thought that she was looking at us with a bit of trepidation when we arrived, and seemed a little leery of giving a group tour to such a rowdy bunch (and I don’t think she had even noticed John at that point!), but she proved to be quite informative and equipped with a subtle and refined sense of humor (always appreciated when displayed by someone wearing such sensible shoes…). As she showed us the various stained glass windows, she told us how each window had been removed at the start of World War II, and buried under the city walls for the remainder of the war. It wasn’t until almost 1960 that they were all unearthed and reinstalled. She also explained that the church was originally used for purposes other than religious meetings, and one of the transepts had been especially constructed for hosting public meetings. She added that many of the choir boys used the space to play football, before the wooden pews that are there today were constructed. She also pointed out the ways in which the church and its contents had changed through the years and through various historical events (like the Reformation, where many of the heads and hands of the statues of saints were chopped off to eliminate details like halos and rosary beads, which identified them as saints, or the Victorian era, where a carving of the Virgin Mary breastfeeding Jesus was removed and replaced with one that showed her feeding Jesus with a bottle…)

The tour was excellent, and featured a little bit to interest everyone. Many of the students seemed to enjoy seeing the choir loft and the immense pipe organ, and others were taken with the stories told by the windows, and the details of the windows’ restoration through the years. Emma and John loved the stories of the carvings of animals, especially the one that depicted a monkey sitting atop a queen’s head with a firm grasp on her crown in an attempt to remove it. I was intrigued by the 1616 memorial to Jane Hodson, which was given to the church by her husband Phineas Hodson, in recognition of her as a “strenuous cultivar of piety, a faithful wife and a fruitful mother who raised with great care the children to whom she gave birth, after increasing the lineage of her husband by bearing twenty-four children.” Our tour guide pointed this out with a gleam in her eye, while I, as the only mother in our group, tried to hide my expression of utter horror at the idea of going through labor 24 times. I did notice that the memorial had been dedicated on the occasion of poor Jane’s death…at the age of 38! Certainly understandable…

At the end of our tour, most of our group chose to climb the 275 incredibly narrow and winding steps to the roof of the central tower. Molly and Loretta volunteered to stay back with Emma and John when the tour guide explained that their insurance policy wouldn’t cover children under 8. I pretended not to notice as she snuck a sideways glance at John, who was using the stone kneeling benches along the edge of the cathedral to launch himself into a double axel spin. The rest of us puffed up the steps, then enjoyed a fabulous view of the city of York from the top. At the bottom, our group took a quick tour of the crypt, then split up to find some lunch and explore the city a bit before dinner.

At this point, the four of us split off from the students and stopped in at a café for soup and sandwiches and a much needed shot of caffeine (for the adults, that is…the kids were all set with energy to spare!). Then we walked down the Shambles, which is an impossibly narrow flagstoned street lined with perilously leaning timber-framed houses and shops. We came upon a farmers’ market as well, and the kids each got a chocolate frog, while John was especially delighted to stumble upon a hot dog vendor. He walked slowly as he ate his hot dog, and pretended not to hear Emma’s exclamations about how disgusting it was! After our lunch, we went to Jorvik Viking Museum, which is a new exhibit built over an excavated site of a 10^th century Viking settlement. The museum was clearly meant to appeal to kids and featured a Disneyworld-style ride through animatronic figures in Viking street scenes of thatched roof houses and panoramic views of the recreated city. As we got into the vehicles for the ride, each person was asked to choose a language in which to hear the tour, and one of the options was a young narrator who described the scenes from the perspective of a Viking child—a detail that was especially impressive to the kids. We all learned a bit about the Vikings, though it was mostly just good entertainment!

We then headed back to the hotel for a quick break. John and David played a game of pool with some of the students in the hotel bar, then when the students left for evensong at the cathedral, the four of us walked around the rest of the city walls that we hadn’t yet seen. John had used some of his travel money to buy a sword and shield at the Jorvik gift shop, so he charged ahead of us on the wall, then waited in every turret he came upon until we caught up to him, so that he could jump out and thrust his sword in our general direction—much to Emma’s great disgust. As dinner time neared, we climbed down from the wall and walked towards the Ousegate Bridge. On the way, David attempted to get some cash to cover the students’ lunches for the next few days, and the ATM machine ate his corporate credit card. Since we are putting all of the expenses of the trip on the card, I went into a minor (and admittedly unnecessary) panic as we walked to the restaurant (though I was wondering how we were going to pay the £400 restaurant bill). This caused John to burst into tears in the restaurant, and Emma to whisper in a tempered voice: “Could you both please stop panicking until dinner is over? You’re making it very hard for everyone to enjoy their meal!” David sent some emails on his Blackberry back to Colgate during dinner, and solved the problem, and we seated John at the other table, so he was surrounded on each side by ladies, and he happily chatted with them (and no doubt tried to show off to them as well) all through dinner. We didn’t hear a peep from him for the rest of the night!

Link to more photos

Train trip to York

Today, we began our 12 day journey through England. Part of the trip will be with the Colgate students, and for the other part (in London), we will be on our own. The weekend has been full with laundering, packing, shopping, cleaning, and more packing in preparation for the trip, and since the clocks turned forward for daylight savings on Sunday morning, there was the added pressure of losing an hour. What’s more, when I woke up this morning, I saw that the lead story on the BBC was that the East Coast train line was completely shut down as a result of a signal malfunction in Yorkshire on Saturday, and the rail services through northern England and southern Scotland were all gobbed up as a result. We were scheduled to train from St. Andrews to Edinburgh, then on to York, right through Newcastle and all the backups. When I tried to check on the status of the day’s trains, as was suggested by BBC, I found that no one was publishing anything, and we were advised to “jes turn up” at the station and see what happens. A very Scottish suggestion!

In the end, our trains traveled on “shhh-edule” (as they say here) and we made it to Edinburgh, then transferred to the high speed line towards London with no problem. There was a rowdy group of blokes sitting just ahead of us who must have been headed on a “stag do” in London who were using some very colorful language, but Emma and John were consumed with rifting through the weeks-worth of snacks that we had brought, and fortunately didn’t notice. Plus, their accent was so thick that the kids probably wouldn’t have understood had the words been spoken directly to them! We arrived in York at about 2:00 pm and walked to the Ace Hotel to drop our luggage (thankfully!). The hotel is just inside the 14^th century city walls, near Mickelgate Bar actually a gate…) which marked the beginning of the road to London. York is one of the largest cities in northern England, and was the military capital of Roman Britain. Once the Romans vacated, the Saxons built a city here, but they were in turn defeated by the Vikings, who were in turn moved out by the Normans. In . In other words, lots of history happening here…

The kids are especially impressed with the hotel, which is full of original beams and woodwork, and historic markers on each room that explain what the original owners might have used it for. There’s a ballroom downstairs that has been converted into dormitories, and a parlor that was reserved for the women. One of the rooms on the second floor has a placard outside that recounts an R-rated story about the mistress of the house and a servant, but the kids haven’t stumbled upon that one yet. Our room is on the top floor, and was used as a bedroom by up to nine servants at one time. They are quite impressed with the sleigh beds all lined up in a row, the incredibly high wood-timbered ceilings with an iron chandelier hanging from the center, and the fireplace right in the middle. Of course, they are equally impressed by the pairs of slippers that were left for us in the room, and the hygiene kits which come with toothbrushes, and wee tubes of toothpaste…

Once we were “sorted” at the hotel, we walked to the Yorkshire Museum, which tells the natural and archaeological history of the county, and includes exhibits on the Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Viking aspects of York.

The students all went through the museum on their own, then wandered off to explore some more of the city. The museum was interesting, but I couldn’t get the kids to take too much notice, since they were so happy to be traveling with the students again, and would periodically sidle up to one of them to ask something along the lines of, “So, once? When I was at school? And my friend Everett accidentally tooted?” The students were kind enough to pretend to find it charming. After about an hour in the museum, a small group of us walked over to the ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey, then through the nearby museum gardens and along the city walls. It was a gorgeous day, and the city is filled with one impossibly gorgeous building after another, so overall it made for quite an enjoyable afternoon.

We met back up as a group at the hotel at 6:30, then walked a block to a Turkish restaurant. It was a decent spot, chosen mostly because it was the only place that would return my email about accepting a booking of 20+ people for a Sunday night. Our meals were fine, though not fabulous, but there was a lot of food, so everyone looked pretty happy, and we ended up staying for just over two hours. I thought that some of the students would head out after dinner, so I hustled the kids upstairs while David passed out room keys and discussed tomorrow’s itinerary. When he came up, though, he said that none of them were going out since the hotel had a sauna in the basement! I guess that they must have been a little short of sleep with our early departure and daylight savings time.

Emma's Day Off

Today, Emma's class was scheduled to make a trip to the Fife police station (the "constabulary" here) as part of their continuing unit on the evils of drug use. The unit has been going for months, and involves an almost-weekly visit from a drug enforcement officer to make a presentation to the kids. Since there's not much crime in St. Andrews, I can imagine that these chaps have some free time on their hands, in between calls to the 999 center to report an incident of "pavement fouling" by a neighborhood dog, to make regular visits to the schools. The unit is also put on by an organization called DELTA, which operates workshops throughout the area with a "philosophy of prevention and harm reduction through program that are non-threatening, non-stigmatising, and non-judgemental." At least, that's what the permission slip for the day's events says. Emma begs to differ. The last workshop was held just a few weeks after we arrived, and involved a film of a former drug-user who recounted the time when she was high on meth and became convinced that bugs were crawling all over her, so proceeded to scratch off large portions of her skin. Not exactly the kind of story that Emma considers "non-threatening." Emma apparently ran out of the room in tears, and the school headteacher took her to P1 to help out for the remainder of the afternoon, then telephoned me the next day to ask if Emma had at one point been "especially traumatized by something" to be so sensitive. I wanted to say "yes, actually, during your drug workshop yesterday!" but thought better of it.

Anyway, when the permission slip came home for the event, I assured her that she just wouldn't go to school today, and would miss the whole thing. Unwisely, I tried to make her feel better by announcing that I would take her to the St. Andrews Aquarium instead then out to lunch as a special treat...all of which John overheard. He immediately started to campaign for joining us. I told him that we were going to miss a week of school for our upcoming trip to England so he could not be absent, at which point he muttered under his breath, "I don't see why I have to go to school just because I'm not a girl and not scared of a drug workshop." Then he asked me, "Well, I AM scared of maths...does that mean I can stay home too?" I did have to give him credit for a nice try...

So we took John to the school bus, then headed into town. It was a lovely 16 degrees C (about 64 degrees F) and the daffodils were in full bloom along the Lade Braes. When we got to town, we headed to the library to choose some books for the kids for our upcoming trip to Oxford and London. Then I told Emma that we would just quickly duck into Ness, which has become my favorite store here. Ness is a staple on the "Scottish High Street," or the shopping district ("Main Street" in the U.S. before the advent of suburban malls anchored with a Macys...), and sells kilts and tartans in unusual, bold colors. Their tagline is something like, "Scotitsh design doesn't have to be all shortbread and country houses!" It's a popular store here, but quite small, and when I go in, I'm usually the only person around, and so I spend a few minutes talking with the salesgirl while I browse. So we were quite surprised to see a group of about eight Japanese men standing in a big circle right outside the shop this morning when we arrived. When we entered, we understood why. Inside, a large group of Japanese women had descended upon the store, which was having a "3 for 2" sale on all their tartan items. The women were obviously visiting Scotland, and decided to take home a few souvenirs, and they were all crowding around the register (and the one salesgirl there) asking questions about sizes and prices. The salesgirl was completely overwhelmed, and though she was smiling and handling it very well, was clearly out of her element. Then the men started to call into the store, "5 more minutes!" then "4 1/2 more minutes!" as she was ringing up sale after sale, which clearly made her even more nervous. After the group collected their purchases (which was honestly about one-quarter of the store's entire stock...) and left, she looked at me and Emma, and all three of us just started to laugh! Then Emma and I stayed for a while to help her straighten up the wallets and purses that were now lying in every direction!

After that adventure, we went to Bibi's cafe on North Street for lunch, which is a painfully cute little restaurant. I would say that Emma chose it because it's known for its cupcakes, and I agreed because it's one of the few cafes in town that has more than four seats inside! We called David in his office to come and meet us, and the three of us had panninis and lemonade. My salad was topped with sun-dried tomato, goat cheese and chorizo, and was possibly the most delicious thing I have eaten so far in Scotland. Emma's pannini was made with brie and tomato and "chili jam," which she said was good but a little too sweet. Oddly enough, though, she didn't complain about the inch of icing on her post-lunch cupcake!

After lunch, we went to the St. Andrews aquarium, which is quite nice, especially considering it is located in such a small town. In addition to the tanks of catfish and turtles, there's a big tank of fish that are usually found around a coral reef, and two small sharks. The aquarium also has meerkats (not sure why...) and an outside pool for two seals (Laurel and Hardy). There's currently only one seal inside, however, and a small poster on the wall that explains that last March an especially large storm blew over the sea wall separating the pool from the ocean and took one of the seals back out to sea with it! Having mostly been to aquariums in the midwestern part of the United States where there's no risk of their residents being washed out to sea, I must admit that I was quite surprised by this! We toured the aquarium for a few hours, then walked back towards town, stopping for a stuffed animal and some lip gloss for Emma. What good souvenirs of a day off of school for a tween girl!

Stirling Castle

On Saturday, the four of us ventured to Stirling Castle, which is noted for being one of the largest (and most visited) castles in Scotland. Because it's surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs and is strategically located high up above the area where the Scottish lowlands becomes the Scottish Highlands, it's known for its historically strong defensive position as well. The saying goes, "Hold Stirling Castle, and you hold all of Scotland." Or something like that... Most of the buildings date from the 15th and 16th century, and the castle is where Mary Queen of Scots was crowned in 1543. It features a statue of Robert the Bruce and a palace built by James V.

If this weren't enough reason to visit, there was also a military bagpipe festival going on this weekend, so we figured that it was a perfect day to visit. The castle is about an hour and a half away from St. Andrews, so we packed up the car full of snacks and Nintendo DS chargers, and hit the road after John's rugby training. The kids were a little worn out after a busy week, so they passed the time quietly in the back seat plugged into their various electronic devices, though they did manage cursory "wows" as I pointed out yet another flock of sheep on the snow-covered mountainsides out the car windows. David and I took advantage of the quiet to have a lengthy discussion of whether one should ask "are you ok?" when a companion begins to choke. He maintained that it was not a good idea, of course, and then I think he attempted to test his assertion by handing me an especially juicy Mentos. I, of course, began to choke, then to laugh as he frantically said "are you ok? are you ok?" So there I was, choking, laughing, and still chewing, and realizing that the only way to recover was to drink some water, but worried that I shouldn't add anything else to the mix already going on in my mouth. I swear that I almost died. It was a long, silent ride after that!

Anyway, we arrived at the castle, and noticed that it was a good five degrees colder up in the mountains than it had been by the ocean in sunny St. Andrews. We toured the castle quickly, especially since some of it (including the palace) was still closed for renovations. Emma and I split off from the boys so they could linger in the military museum (full of mementos that neither Emma nor I could take...like a photo of a woman and two small children with a bullet hole

through the middle of it that had been carried in the shirt pocket of a World War 2 soldier killed

from a shot to the chest) and the castle kitchens (complete with a plaster-cast reproduction of a headless goat being roasted on a spit over a reproduction fire in the fireplace). In the museum,

there was a display about the Stirling Castle ghost, and an enlarged photo of a shadowy figure passing through one of the castle closes that had been captured by a tourist photographer in the 1980s. This photo really proved inspirational to John, and he spent the rest of the afternoon wondering aloud if the ghost was currently in the room with us and making spooky faces in Emma's direction. (see photo above....)

When Emma finally reached her boiling point, she and I headed out to the castle walls to watch

the piping competition, which was quite interesting. We stayed for a few different piping regiments, and also ventured into the chapel to see a Scottish sword dance, which is intended to imitate military deeds and martial skills. We were all fairly impressed, especially with the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association, which is quite an impressive outfit! Since we had been touring various military displays in Scotland, and there's always a discussion of bagpipes in war in any display about Scottish military operations, I know quite a bit about them (they were never classified as a weapon of war, for example, contrary to popular belief, but they were used in military operations through World War 1 and 2...there were even bagpipes at the Normandy landings in 1944!). The thing I don't understand, though, is this: who on earth would have been crazy enough to sign up for bagpipe duty in the Scottish military? If you were attacking Scottish troops, who would be the first guy you would want to take out? Could it be the guy right in front with the huge hat and the colorful kilt, making an enormous racket meant to inspire the troops behind him? Likely...

A Visit from the McCabes

This week was a bit busier than usual because David McCabe and Franny Lucey McCabe were visiting from Colgate. They had been in St. Andrews five years ago, so had a list of things they wanted to do from their first time here. At the top of Franny’s list was a visit to Tentsmuir Point Nature Reserve. This reserve is on the southern shore of the Firth of Tay—a large finger of land that juts eastward into the ocean, and is growing larger every year. It’s full of sand dunes and grassy marshes, and though it’s the home of seaducks and seals, it’s such a large plot of land that one has to hike quite far up the shoreline to find any wildlife. We headed up

there on a sunny afterschool afternoon, and once the kids caught site of the dunes and the huge, wide-open beach full of animal tracks, they were content to stay right there, and venture no further north. We were there for almost two hours, and our visit followed the usual pattern: the kids run to the ocean, write their names as large as possible in the sand, debate who stepped on who’s name for a bit, then John starts to chase birds while Emma performs various twirls towards the water, then one of them gets too far out towards the oceanand suddenly has a bootful of cold water, and we all pack it in, head to the car, and have digestives and hot tea!

We also went to Edinburgh with Franny on Friday. We took the train down in the morning, and David and I took the kids to Our Dynamic Earth, which is an earth science center at the foot of Arthur’s Seat and the Royal Mile in the center of the city. It’s a very well done museum, though a visit is highly orchestrated by various tour guides who become part of a “time machine”

storyline and usher guests from one room of the museum to the next in small groups. The first few rooms are separate theaters complete with 360 degree panoramic aerial shots, shaking floors and fog machines that are supposed to make you feel as if your time machine has just flown into the crater of a volcano or around the melting edge of a glacier. John absolutely loved it, but Emma and Franny are just a bit too old to buy into it, and I caught them snickering and rolling their eyes a few times as the tour guide excitedly proclaimed that we were now 15,000 million years back in time. Even David was prepared to challenge the whole theme: when we first entered, he leaned over to the guide and said, “So, don’t you think that if time travel was REALLY ever possible, we would have been visited by someone from the future by now?” The guide quickly dropped his Disney-esque demeanor and admitted, “Yes, probably…” Fortunately, John had moved ahead to the earthquake simulation display and didn’t hear the exchange.

Since this was our second visit to Edinburgh, I felt almost like a local as I guided our group from the train station through the winding “closes” of Old Town and down the Royal Mile toward the Scottish Parliament and Holyrood Palace on the way to the museum. So, I was quite surprised when we first arrived, and the tour guide asked us if this was our first time. When I said “yes” (just that…one word….) she smiled and said, “Oh, well I guess so…I can tell by the accent then!” I was thrown by this, as I have spent a good deal of time thinking about the Scottish accent and analyzing specific consonant sounds that are different from ours. For example, I know that the Scots roll their r, drop their t, and make their d sound almost like a j (at church, the preacher often uses the word “duly,” but in his accent it sounds a lot like my name, which is especially jarring…). But I still can’t figure out how the word “yes” in a Scottish accent is different enough from “yes” in an American accent to identify my nationality upon opening my mouth!

After the museum, we had lunch at a pub on the Royal Mile called the White Horse, which the proprietor insisted was the oldest bar in Edinburgh. I’m not sure about that, but it certainly was one of the smallest, and seemed to be the kind of place that doesn’t worry too much about attracting the steady stream of visitors walking down Canongate on their way from the castle to the palace. We all sat in the back room which was once a stable, according to our waitress, who spent about 20 minutes talking with us about her upcoming wedding and her two year old daughter Scarlett who was at her side—an unusually straight-faced kid with a shock of curly red hair and nothing to say (likely because she had never been able to get a word in amidst her mother’s steady chatter…). The food was great, though—David had the haggis, which he hid from vegetarian Emma behind a large candle in the middle of the table, and I had a mezze plate of hummus, olives and tapenade with pitta bread (they spell it with two ts here but don’t pronounce either, strangely…) After lunch, we walked to New Town, and took the kids to a playground in the Princes Street garden, which is at the foot of Edinburgh castle. We stayed there until John got too hungry to continue, then we walked to the shopping district where we bought him some snacks at a Sainsburys. This worked, and gave us time to walk through the streets of New Town, which are full of high end department stores and pubs, and lined with performers juggling fire and playing Led Zeppelin on acoustic guitar. The shops started to close at six, and our train was scheduled to depart at 6:30, so we walked back to the station and waited. David and David McCabe engaged a local in a conversation about how to pronounce the nearby town “Anstruther,” and then there was an incident involving the train tracks and John’s brand new Scotland rugby ball, which John has forbade me from ever telling. It does end well, though, so we all returned to St. Andrews safe and sound, with John’s rugby ball safely tucked under his arm.

Just when I think all is well...

Having spent two months here in Scotland, I am starting to feel as if I have everything under control, and can manage to get by relatively well without exposing myself as an idiot. Then an afternoon like this afternoon comes along to put me back in my place and make me remember that I’m a foreigner in a foreign land after all! The problem started when I decided that I would display my newly-adopted Britishness by preparing a berry trifle for dessert (as a Brit, I know of course that one doesn’t always have to serve pudding for pudding…just like tea isn’t always served for tea!...and a berry trifle makes for a fine British pudding!). So I go off to the grocery store, happily driving my Vauxhall on the left hand side of the road and listening to my BBC Scotland—I even manage to understand most of it enough to smile at the British humor!

While driving, I notice that the car is making a bit of a rubbing sound during left hand turns. I figure this is probably due to my having hit a curb on the left hand side of the road at some point and pulling loose some kind of plastic piece in the wheel well. So I ignore it for the time being and park the car at the store. I do my grocery shopping relatively successfully (sponge cake is called for in the trifle recipe, but I can’t seem to find it in the store, and hope that the madeira cake that I chose instead will make a decent substitute…) then wheel all the groceries out to the car. I put the trolley in front of the car, then go around to the left side front wheel and start to inspect it. I notice that a plastic piece has indeed pulled away from the body of the car, and start to attempt to squish it back in place carefully. That doesn’t work, so I try to shove it in a bit harder, which still won’t work. Finally, I hold the plastic piece in place and bang on it with the back of my fist, Fonzie style, and indeed that works! The plastic piece snaps back into place with a deafening “clomp.” This of course draws the attention of everyone else in the parking lot, and an older man across from me starts to amble over in my direction.

“Whah been blah dar wee they, na?” he says, as I stand up straight. I try to think fast, going through all the possible sentences that he might have used in an offer of assistance, and considering which of those sentences most closely resembles the sounds which he has just made. I draw a blank, but still thinking fast, decide to thank him for whatever he might have just offered.

“Oh, thanks,” I say, “but I think I got it. I think it’s fixed!”

He continues to stare at me, then points down the row of cars, and I see that while I was working on the car, my trolley has rolled across the parking lot and smashed into a curb with such force that the top bag slid out and overturned, and my collection of groceries is now lying all over the pavement. The madeira cake is squished, the British spring greens are now all sandy, and there is a bulb of swede still slowly rolling towards the street. My eyes probably bugged out at this, and I quickly ran after it. I managed to stop the slowly rolling swede with my foot, then gathered everything else together quickly, and swung the trolley around again back towards the car. Unfortunately, the man was still there.

“Well, ben blah thar se not hadda then, right?” he said.

“Sorry?” I asked him weakly.

“We blabity blah blah harda then,” he said, then started to chuckle. I guessed that he was likely trying to commiserate with me, but didn’t rule out the possibility that he was just outright making fun of me, so I could only manage a polite giggle and a few nods of the head as I quickly packed the groceries in the “boot” of the car and returned the trolley. He continued to stand there and watch me, so I nodded an insincere thanks again on my way back, and quickly got into the car.

I’ll give you one guess which side of the car I got into…

As you can imagine, my new-found friend really loved this! Now he was chuckling for real, as he watched me get out of the car, walk around, and get back into the car on the right hand side. I started the car quickly, put on my seatbelt, gave him a little wave, and pulled right out of the spot a little too quickly, and almost ran right into another car coming down the left-hand side of the aisle. The car honked, and I swore, then swerved over to the other side of the road. I didn’t dare look into the rear view mirror to see how hard he was laughing at me now. And, of course, as I drove away, I realized that I had left my pound coin in the shopping trolley!

Winter Weather Alert

On Friday, the BBC started to report that Scotland was in for a blast of winter weather over the weekend. The weather report on the telly showed a huge spot of white covering the entire northern part of the country and the reporter warned of "significant, heavy snowfall." She quickly followed this by saying that certain areas, especially the Grampians, may get as much as 5 centimeters of snow. This made me smile, of course, because I now know that 5 centimeters is a hair under 2 inches. In upstate New York, a forecast for two inches of snow would prompt people to break out the capri pants and lawn chairs! The forecast proved to be intimidating enough to all residents of the Kingdom of Fife, however, and all of John's various sports practices were cancelled straightaway.

The snow never materialized, of course, though we did get some misty, drizzly rain for most of the weekend. While the cancelled rugby match freed up a good portion of our weekend, we decided to stay close to home in case the roads did get a little slick anyway. And of course, our friends David McCabe and his daughter Franny have just arrived from the States for a week-long visit, and needed a bit of time to adjust to the time change. So, on Friday night we walked into town and had big helpings of noodles at a little noodle bar on cobblestoned Market Street. On Saturday David and David McCabe took the girls in for a bit of shopping and some fudge donuts, and on Sunday the kids played Playmobil while I watched the England v. Scotland rugby match and David and David sat across the dining room table emailing funny Youtube clips to each other. I did take the kids to the leisure center for an hour at the swimming pool, and David and David made it to Anstruther for some fish and chips takeaway for dinner, but otherwise we stayed close to home all weekend.

Earlier in the week, David and I had taken the kids to a playground across the street from our house, where a father and son were playing football. Without saying anything to us, John ran up and joined them, and in 10 minutes was good friends with the boy and begging us to let him go over to their house for a playdate. The father of the boy was American, and said that John should join up with them on Sunday morning for a football clinic at the university. John participates in a clinic on Fridays put on by the Junior Saints program, but this was a professional school that seems to be a bit more rigorous. John was keen to go because the little boy, Declan, was going to be there, and since the rugby tournament in Perth had been cancelled, we agreed to take him. When they arrived, David began an explanation of how John had been invited by a friend to join and that he wanted to try one session to see what it was like, but one of the coaches cut him off mid-sentence and motioned for John to just join in. It's always interesting to see how casual everyone is here about these kinds of things, compared to the States, where a child would have had to have a physical form signed by a doctor and an application form with insurance information and a permission slip signed by both grandparents under supervision of a notary public before being let out on an athletic field!

So, the weekend was a bit of a wash, both in terms of the weather and our energy level. But Emma was so happy that there was someone in the house to play with besides her brother (who has been her only playmate for two months straight now!) that I think she and Franny didn't even notice that we weren't doing too much. The week ahead calls for more rain, unfortunately, but when I went out for a run this morning, it was a fine and dry 40ish degrees (which is good, because after a weekend full of noodles and fried potatoes, I needed to go for a very long run!). So, we have our fingers crossed that the rain (and the snow!) will stay away!

Overheard on the bus...

This week has been a string of blazingly sunny day, though it has been quite cold for Scotland this time of year (about 42 degrees F…I know, boo hoo, right?) and very windy. Of course, since I heard that Hamilton received so much snow on Monday that sidewalks are now closely resembling tunnels, I feel as if I don’t really have the right to complain about the weather. Also, since the sun is coming up at a reasonable time at last, I can finally go for a run before the kids get up and out for school. When I leave the house, it’s always a bit frosty, but since there are very few cars out on the road at 7:00 am (and most importantly, very few pensioners out walking their dog on the Lade Braes at that time in the morning!) it’s a great time to run.

On Monday, when I got back, I saw by email that Colgate was opening late due to an overnight snowfall of 18 inches, so figured that no one would be on email for part of the day and headed into town with David to run some errands. John has worn away most of his sneakers and needed a new pair, and so I bought those, then went to the public library to exchange a few books. I found several, and with the shoes, had way too much to carry home to walk. So, I decided to take the bus, which I haven’t yet had to do, since we have a car here. I was a wee bit early for the bus, so had the opportunity to stand at the stop for a few minutes, and overhear the following conversation between two older people: one man and one woman.

“Hiya, then, whaur’s the missis?”

“Ah, she sent me to toon for ah wee tick o tea when she run oot o it.”

“Right, then, we, en, I ha’ an eetchy hand and went tae get a creem at the droogest.”

“Well, ya owen moonee then ta a body. That’s what an eetchy hand means, ya kin.”

“No, no, I'm not owing anybody...my rents all paid. I’m just givin out the money for to get bay, right?”

“Jings that’s troo...that winna dae at a!”

“Well, it’s a wee bit wendy today, eh? Did ye no’ bring a jumpa wi ye’? Ye no fancy goin’ oot in thes wend witout the proper claes!”

Et cetera. Et cera. Right, then….

Anyway, shopping in St. Andrews is quite fun, I must admit. Because of the students and the golf tourists, the town is a bit more cosmopolitan than the average small Scottish town, and the shop owners have adjusted their merchandise accordingly. The butcher, for example, sells a fair bit of haggis, of course, but also carries a good selection of mortadella for the Continental kids. And the cheese shop has Isle of Mull cheddar alongside the French chevre. There’s a fabulous Italian grocery store on Bell Street that stocks various bottles of truffle oil and bags of dried squid ink fettucine. Even the drugstores stock bars of Toblerone next to all the Cadbury next to the till! There are a few cashmere/shortbread/golf paraphernalia/kilt shops that cater to the tourists in town, but for the most part, one can spend a good part of the morning going from quaint shop to shop, and at least in part feeling as if one is in a much larger European city.

This morning, David and Franny McCabe were set to arrive at the Edinburgh airport. My David is a better driver than I am here, especially on narrow roads, but I’m better with directions, so we decided that I would be the one to go since the road involved lots of major roads that were confusing, but roomier than those in St. Andrews. I was a bit nervous about the trip because it involved driving over the Forth Road Bridge, a huge suspension bridge that crosses the Firth of Forth into Edinburgh, and I’m not a big fan of bridges in general. The good news, however, is that that drive cured me of my fear, because my newfound fear of the multi-lane roundabout (of which there are several between St. Andrews and Edinburgh) is so acute that bridges will bother me no longer from here on out!

Since I went, David was responsible for getting the kids out the door and to the school bus on his own, and when I returned from the airport with the McCabes, he said that the morning went well. Apparently, they spent a good part of it watching the hiphopopotamus vs. rhymenoceros Flight of the Concords video on YouTube, and then he did admit that John left for school in the morning singing, “I’m the motherflippin’…I’m the motherflippin’…” So I have to hope that the people on the bus won’t be able to understand him, I guess!

Dunfermline Abbey and Aberdour Castle

Our streak of sunny weather came to a close on Saturday afternoon, and a band of ominous clouds rolled in just as we rolled out of the driveway for another afternoon of castle touring. We began with a drive of about an hour to the nearby town of Dunfermline in order to tour the abbey and the castle there. Our guidebook warned that the sites were worth a visit despite their being located in “an otherwise unappealing large regional town,” and I would say that’s accurate, though we were quite impressed with our first encounter with a space-age-like “pay loo” in the city center. Dunfermline Abbey is sited on the location of a Benedictine priory founded by Queen Margaret in the 11^th century, and is the burial site of six Scottish kings, including Robert the Bruce who is buried somewhere under the pulpit (though I believe his heart was removed and taken elsewhere during the Crusades, upon his request…before his death, of course!). I hadn’t mentioned this to Emma before the trip because she’s not a big fan of traipsing over the burial ground of dead people in general, so I was a bit dismayed when we first arrived and I noticed that the words “King Robert the Bruce” have been elaborately and largely carved of stone at the top of the Abbey. She stopped in her tracks when she saw it and I was sure she was about to refuse to enter. Instead, she said, “Well, that’s kind of dumb. I guess you can’t hide from the English when your name’s carved into your church like that!” Good point, though I later learned that the name was added in the 19^th century, which is why I suppose the typeface is a bit evocative of the Hollywood sign.

We passed through the Abbey, and it was quite clear that several bodies were just underfoot, so Emma hustled me through pretty quickly. Interestingly, no one really knows exactly where any of the bodies are buried, so the plaques that commemorate each one are pretty generic, and the floor, which is flat marble, doesn’t have any signs of buried bodies below. The stained glass windows are the real attraction here, and one depicts Robert the Bruce standing over what is supposed to be the Devil, but is generally understood to be an Englishman! John followed us out, and quickly found a smooth, gun-shaped stick, so hustled over to an area of the palace ruins next door to find a wall behind which to hide, sniper-style. The ruins themselves were sprawling, so we spent about an hour wandering around and gazing out all the windows at Pittencrief parkbelow (which was land donated by Andrew Carnegie, who was born in Dunfermline). Though there’s not a lot left of the building, the ruins demonstrate that it was immense when it was built in the 16^th century for James VI, and was also often visited by wealthy members of the royal court. We had the whole place to ourselves for most of the time, and were ready to go anyway when another family arrived, and the oldest boy charged forward and said

something that sounded alarmingly like “Outta my way cuz I have diarrhea…” Time to go!

Our next stop was Aberdour, a town on the sea about 20 minutes away and home to Aberdour Castle, which was built in 1342.The castle is known for having hosted Robert the Bruce and for a painted wooden ceiling in a newer section, and also for its terraced gardens. The kids appreciated it mostly because, like other castles, most of it is in ruins, but unlike other castles, a big section

of the ruins appear as if it fell off overnight, rather than over the centuries, and one tower is still intact but laying sideways on top of another section. John “unearthed” this part of the ruins first (since he had charged ahead in order to brandish the smooth, gun-shaped stick that was still with us…), and it literally stopped him in his tracks! Since it’s Scotland, where guardrails and safety rope are not commonly in use, the kids were able to climb right up. After I convinced them to (slowly and carefully!) get down, we wandered around for a bit, but the clouds were thickening and the ruins were pretty creepy as the day darkened. Emma had stopped going into any of the covered rooms, and after a bit more wandering the three of us agreed, especially when the lights went out as we were standing in the kitchens of the castle. Again, time to go!

When we got home, I set about making "tea" in order to warm us all up (we had stopped at the beach in Aberdour on the way home, and still hadn't recovered from the blowing wind!) John took David's computer into the living room and started to make videos (one of his favorite past-times, which is why David's computer has no more memory!). He apparently took inspiration from our spooky castle trip to make up some ghost stories, but they turned out to be so scary that he even freaked himself out! Here's one of the videos we found on the computer later that night!

Farmers' Market in St. Andrews

St. Andrews is in the Kingdom of Fife, which is the chubby finger of land that sticks out between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Tay (as if that makes any sense to anyone not in Fife...). Fife has a farmers’ market that rotates through the various towns along the sea, and which comes to St. Andrews on the first Saturday of every month. So yesterday morning the four of us made it up and out of the house early (mostly because John was up at ten before six anyway…)for a trip to the market. It was our first visit, and though I wanted to visit earlier, I now realize that it was best for us to wait, because we’re now much more accustomed to eating like the Scottish than we were when we first arrived, and therefore found quite a bit at the market that a month ago wouldn’t have sounded so good to us!

Scotland is most famous for only two kinds of food (or three actually, if you consider whisky a food, which most people here do…). Those two foods are haggis and deep fried Mars bars, and I haven’t actually had either yet, though I did take a small bite of some haggis David ordered in our first week here. But beyond that, the Scottish actually eat a lot of meat and fish, and root vegetables like turnips (“neeps”) and potatoes (“tatties”). For meat, there’s a bit of beef, most of it from Aberdeen angus north of us, but most of it is lamb or venison. The fish most often encountered here is wild salmon, which is sometimes smoked, though you can often find smoked herring (called kippers), smoked trout, and smoked haddock, called Arbroath smokies, as well. A chippy will often sell all kinds of fresh fish, battered and deep fried, but if it isn’t fried, the fish is usually served very simply, without a heavy sauce. Scottish cheese is also well known, especially cheese from the Isle of Arran and Isle of Mull, or blue cheese from Lanark. Cheese is often served with oatcakes, and in fact lots of baked goods here are made with oats rather than wheat (apparently the cold wet weather on the north of Scotland is conducive to growing oats), while products made with corn are very rare (except the nachos at the student pubs in town!). They apparently reserve the small amount of corn they import to top their pizza and potatoes. And of course marmalade is everywhere here, as are all kinds of pickled vegetables. So, while the kids are still sticking with peanut butter for lunch, David and I have started to make very Scottish lunches for ourselves. I usually have some smoked salmon or mackerel with capers on an oatcake, some cheese, some silverskin onions and pickled beets. Definitely a very Scottish combination, and certainly one I would never have eaten a few months ago!

The farmers’ market is always easy to spot because of the smoke coming from the fishmonger. He has several huge barrels of smoking coals sitting on the pavement, and over each barrel are several thick wooden planks. Each plank supports several fish tied by their tails which are then suspended over the fire, and the whole thing is covered with thick sheets of oilskin. It makes a terribly smoky mess when someone comes along to order and he pulls back the oilskin, unties a few fish and wraps them in newspaper, and hands them over. But there’s always a line snaking through the middle of the market for them, so we joined in the line and placed our order. He always gives out a bamboo fork with every order, because half of the fish purchased is eaten right there, but we took ours home to have for dinner. And I can’t do smoked fish before coffee anyway! We also got some Arran cheese made with claret that’s so sharp it will make your nose run, and a bagful of fresh scones. John convinced us to get a few medallions of venison (though since Emma’s a vegetarian and David is not eating meat for a while as a birthday present for her, he only had to convince me, and I was easy to sway!), and we bought a dozen eggs too. Since the eggs at the grocery store are frightfully expensive (sometimes over three pounds for a dozen, which is about the equivalent of $5), these looked much better, and there was a line for them as well. John spent some of his allowance on fudge and Emma spent all of hers on strawberry candy, so I didn’t feel bad at all in buying a slice of lavender soap for our bathroom from a woman selling huge wheels of handmade soaps and bouquets of dried herbs. So, we had quite a bagful after just an hour, and were happy to take it all home and start cooking (even if the smokies picked up a bit of the lavender from the soap in the bag, which was a wee bit too bad!)

Crocuses and a Wee Bit of Sunshine

This week, we have been the happy recipients of a gorgeous week of beautiful weather. Every day so far has been full of sunshine, and the crocuses are coming up all along the Lade Braes path from our house into town. I have been to West Sands Beach each morning for a run, and the water is a lovely blue (though the reflection of the sun off the water is bright enough to sear my corneas…). Yesterday morning, my friend Ailsa picked me up for a fun morning of badminton (I do recognize that the word “fun” has never before been matched in a sentence with the word “badminton” by the way…) with a group of women who have children in the various St. Andrews primary schools, and who meet every Thursday in the drafty old town hall in Strathkiness, just down the road a bit. Ailsa introduced me and explained that I was an American, then quickly added, “as I’m sure you can tell by her accent.” I was polite enough not to point out that I was the only one in the room without an accent, actually, thank you! I had never played badminton before, which was quickly obvious to the other women when I kept trying to hit the netty-part of the little bally-thing, then confirmed as I apologized for “hitting the netty-part of the little bally-thing.” “A shuttlecock, you mean,” said a woman named Claire, as she deftly served it back to me. “Yes, shuttlecock,” I agreed as I missed it, noticing that the word sounded much less vulgar in her Scottish accent than in mine.

We played a few rounds, then packed up, and I quickly realized that the whole point of a wee game of badminton is actually to go to one of the women’s houses after the game for a wee chat and a wee coffee. So the nine of us met up again at Sharon’s house, who actually just lives down the road from me. The wee chat, which lasted for almost two hours, was all about the different schools and the method of allocation for rooms at the upcoming overnight school trip for P7 to Disneyland Paris. Apparently, one of the women whose children goes to Lawhead was upset that her “mild-mannered” son had been placed in a room of rowdy boys, and would inevitably be reprimanded many times on the trip as a result. “A cannie mind wit to tell him,” she said,” jes to kip his head doon and ignore the slaters, eh?” Then another woman suggested she speak to the headmistress, to which she said something indecipherable to me but which made all the other women laugh uproariously. I smiled in a way that I hope was sort of knowing, but my heart wasn’t really into it. I was just relieved when they moved on to a discussion of the logistics surrounding an upcoming Zumba fundraiser for the PTA!

Emma has had a bit of a rough week at school because of another kind of allocation: this is the week where the families of kids in P7 chose where to send their students to secondary school. In St. Andrews there are two choices: Madras, which is a state-funded school and therefore “free” (as a parent will allow only after a lengthy discussion of property taxes…) or St. Leonard’s, which is not state-funded and therefore quite expensive. Many of the kids have known for a while where they will attend, especially those with older siblings at one of the schools, but this week, the ones destined for St. Leonard’s begin to discuss the entrance exam. That discussion effectively separates the St. Leonard’s kids from the Madras kids, and since Emma won’t be here in the fall, a few of her friends who are going to St. Leonard’s seemed to file her into the “not going to St. Leonard’s” group and are not as friendly to her as a result. She returned from school on Monday and Tuesday a bit dejected, and said that she didn’t have anyone to sit with at lunch (which to a primary school kid is the social equivalent of having your debit card rejected in a crowded grocery-store checkout line…as I imagine that might feel…if it were to have ever happened to me…which it of course has not…). On Wednesday, she returned home with a birthday party invitation, however, and seemed relieved to have once again found her place. And yesterday, she returned home with more stories of her friends in class, though their names are now Anna and Rebecca instead of Maddy and Poppy. The good news is that she seems to really like her new group of friends, and since there are many more girls going to Madras than to St. Leonard’s, and all of them are going to the birthday party on Sunday, I think she still has a good chance of making some good friends while we are here.

John still has a few complaints about the school as well: on the way to the bus stop in the morning, he regularly points out that a lot of things need to be changed, though he admits that the biggest problem is “its hardness,” and adds “and I guess we can’t change that” in his newly-developed Scottish lilt. He seems happy with the reading, but not as happy with “maths” where they expect him to multiply a bunch of numbers together then divide them back up again. “Of course, I don’t know how to do that,” he says. Though he likes his teacher, he has several complaints about a teacher’s aide named Mrs. Humphrey, and he’s not even very fond of the school’s lollipop man. (A lollipop man in the UK, by the way, is not a man that distributes junk food, as I initially thought. Apparently, that’s what they call crossing guards here, who are armed with a huge UK-style yellow and black stop sign that’s on a long pole.) He also thinks that Greyfriars has no money, or at least not nearly as much as the schools in New York, but I think he believes that mostly because the Greyfriars gymnasium is very small and the computer lab is full of Dells instead of Macs. I think his biggest complaint, though, is that he’s the only boy at his table, which didn’t bother him until his mate Everett whispered one day in his ear, “You do know that all the girls in this class fancy American boys, don’t you?” Now he’s a bit distressed at sitting amongst a group full of girls!