We met our students at 1:00 pm in town, by the St. Andrews Castle. This, and the Cathedral next door, are the two Historic Scotland properties in St. Andrews, and so we started our visit by purchasing student memberships to all of the Historic Scotland properties for each student. This process took a while, so the kids and I distracted Leah by showing her all the William Wallace and Mary Queen of Scots rubber duckies for sale in the gift shop. After the various memberships were processed, our group proceeded, and we let everyone wander around the grounds on their own. There's not a lot left to the castle, but I think the students were still impressed at the various bottle dungeons and mines/countermines that were dug during various battles. As a group, we haven't really started to discuss the architecture of the various types of castles in Scotland, and I don't really anticipate that we will, unless perhaps the tour guide we meet next week in Edinburgh introduces the concepts of the tower castle. For now, we just wanted to give our students something to do on a Saturday, and to begin to learn their way around the town.
After touring the castle ruins, we walked next door and visited the Cathedral. I find these ruins fascinating because there's enough left there to really see what an enormous facility this once was. The ruins are very well signed and marked, and in previous visits I have had a chance to really study them. This visit, though, that was not to be, and since David had to finish processing the memberships with the students in this gift shop, I spent some time following the kids around the ruins, negotiating with them about what they could and couldn't climb. When the students emerged, we climbed St. Rule's tower, which is a 100 foot tower to the side of the ruins that is still intact, and that affords a great view of the whole town. The climb up is pretty tight, and it's 156 steps up, so Leah was struggling a bit. John, out of an equal sense of obligation and frustration at her pace, picked her up about half-way and carried her up. I was impressed, but once she got to the top, she forgot all about his generosity and started to berate him for keeping her too far away from the guardrails. "John," she hissed, "you are making me angry!" The students got a kick out of this, of course, We spent some time at the top taking in the view, then started the descent. I made the mistake of having John and Leah go first, and it took Leah ages to get down the stairs. John was trying to be helpful by going backwards in front of her to keep her from stumbling, but she found this frustrating and just wanted to be left on her own. So, she would take a step down, then push John away and shout, "Sop it, John!", then flap her hands a bit, then take another step, etc. It was a looong descent, for sure.
We walked a bit more around the sea wall with the students, then sent everyone on their way for a few hours of wandering in small groups. It was about 4:00 pm at that time, so the cafes were stuffed full of families and student groups having their "tea"...a fourth meal here that consists of some kind of hot beverage and an array of pastries. In principal, "afternoon tea" is a fantastic idea especially when the weather is overcast and the sun makes an early retreat, but in practice, it's difficult for a family of five to squeeze into one of the few spots left at the cafes, especially when one of us is getting grouchy and in desperate need of a nap (I won't name names there...). So, we ventured home, making a quick stop at the public library to refresh our book supply.
We made a quick dinner for the kids and set them up with a movie, then David and I walked back into town to meet the students for a group dinner at a local restaurant called Forgan's. This dinner was intended to really kick off the study group, and give the students a chance to get to know each other, but since they are a pretty small group they have gotten to know each other pretty well already. The restaurant turned out to be pretty good, and I had pre-arranged a set three-course menu from which the students could order. Forgan's offers traditional Scottish food with a farm-to-table/modern ingredients/modern recipes twist (but then again, what restaurant in St. Andrews isn't doing that these days?), in a setting that marries Scottish farmhouse with Restoration Hardware. I was digging it, and I think the students liked it as well. Many of them chose the haggis starter, though it was prepared as a kind of a round, fried ball served on a smear of neeps and tatties with a watercress garnish, so I'm not sure they quite understand what haggis actually is yet. Those who tried it liked it, I think. The main was a Scottish salmon served with a barley risotto, a beef bourgignon under a thick blanket of filo dough, or a roasted chicken dish served with thick planks of "chips." "Pudding" options were a sticky toffee pudding, a cheesecake, or ice cream. Forgan's had put the menu together for us, so I intended only to have to choose the wines. However, one of our students is French so I decided to delegate that job to him from now on, and I got to sit back and enjoy the meal.
After the meal, the staff came out and moved some of the tables to the side of the room, then rolled up these tapestries that had been dividing each table into small private dining rooms, and the place turned into a music venue. A band came out and started to warm up a bit, and at 10:30 they started to teach the crowd how to "ceilidh." This is a Scottish dance that looks a little like square-dancing-meets-polka, and in every guide book to Scotland I have ever read, it is suggested that one attends a ceilidh at least once while they are here. I wasn't sure how game the students would be for square dancing, but they surprised me and jumped right up. At one point, they were the only dancers and I think I heard one of the band members remark that their interpretation of the ceilidh dance was perhaps the most "creative" she has seen.
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