Our third adventure in Scotland has begun! We arrived at the Edinburgh airport on Friday morning (UK time) of last week, took a cab to our rental house (more on that later!), dropped our bags in the back garden since we were not allowed to enter until noon, and headed to Market Street in St. Andrews for a morning coffee and hot chocolate. We were a bit bleary-eyed and it was drizzling/raining for most of the morning, but it was so lovely to be back in St. Andrews that we didn’t mind at all. We then stopped into a Vodafone to switch our SIM cards to UK phone numbers, which took the rest of our morning—mostly because I wasn’t thinking fast enough yet to provide my birth day into the usual British calendar format (day then month). By the time we were sorted with new numbers, it was noon and we made the short walk back to our house.
Of the three houses in which we have stayed in St. Andrews, this is the closest and most convenient to town: for those of you in the know, it’s on the Kinness Burn where the ducks hang out, just down a steep hill from Queen’s Terrace. It’s also the least charming of the three: aside from some lovely glass doors between the front hall and the living room, it’s a bit worn out and in need of an update throughout. But, it’s very comfortable and once we figured out how to turn on the heat, it was lovely and warm. There’s a large kitchen in the window that overlooks a private terrace with some plantings. And, since nothing is neither precious nor new, we don’t have to worry if, for example, David were to break a glass approximately ten minutes after we arrive, say. A real bonus!
Our first weekend was a predictable one: hire a car to take us to the nearby village of Cupar for a rental car for the term, then on to Dundee for school uniform shopping with Leah. This cab ride was short and we weren’t as tired, and the driver was a rugby player (a winger, too!) which worked out well for everyone in the car. We picked up a little Vauxhall Corsa in Cupar, and used our phone to get us to the uniform shop in Dundee. I should say here that both David and I both love driving in the UK—what was a source of real anxiety in our first few weeks back in 2011 when we first arrived in Scotland has now become one of our favorite parts of being here. I can confidently report that once one learns to drive on the left side of the road, seated on the right side of the car, one has mastered a skill that will last a lifetime. Each time we return, the maiden voyage is a bit easier, and now with updated maps through an iPhone, it’s very simple—even the multilane rotaries aren’t terribly difficult to navigate. In this case, we made it to Dundee without incident and left the Vauxhall in a carpark, then walked to the uniform shop. The process of purchasing a uniform for Leah was rather fun (for me, at least…she abhors shopping for clothes and especially trying on clothes…) though I could not stop using the word “pants” rather than “trousers” to the salesclerk. I’m sure she was rather amused, though she hid it well, because in every way possible we are giving off American vibes wherever we go: our credit cards don’t always work, I can’t yet manage to work out any of the coins smaller than a pound in my purse and have to ask for help, and we are just a little bit too loud when speaking to each other. Hopefully, we can improve upon all three in the coming weeks.
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| Leah is already ahead of me in her knowledge of British coins |
The trip back to St. Andrews from our shopping excursion was lovely: it’s so nice to be back in Scotland where there is so little visual “noise.” No billboards, no dollar stores, no car-centric zoning codes—just lovely, narrow roads edged with stone walls and views of the ocean wherever you turn. The latter was especially of interest to Leah, as she has been asking to go to the beach since we arrived. Saturday afternoon was taken up by our first trip to the grocery store, which was especially lengthy since we both enjoy lingering in the aisles. And, because the sun is still setting at 3:45pm, the day felt like it really got away from us. So, our first beach trip had to wait until Sunday afternoon, and I think Leah felt that it was a real success. She found some driftwood on the East Sands beach that resembles a wand freshly procured from Garrick Ollivander himself, and since it was a Sunday, the beach was full of dogs running loose. We walked from East Sands to Castle Sands along the beach and spotted several sea lions playing in the surf (not at all uncommon in St. Andrews, so we were the only ones on the beach exclaiming over them!), and Leah busied herself with looking for shards of pottery among the rocks (also not at all uncommon in St. Andrews). We stayed until after sunset (again, not hard to do!), then walked into town for some toiletries at Boots and some steak and haggis pies from Fisher and Donaldson for dinner. Incidentally, the ordering of said pies was one of my first moments on this trip of feeling a little bit less obvious as a visitor. The usual queue had formed in the bakery so when the shopkeeper asked what I would like, I was not standing in front of any of the goods on offer, but was still able to order as if I were in the know: “Two steak and haggis pies,” I said, without a whiff of an American-style question mark at the end of the phrase, “and I suppose one fudge donut as well.” She nodded and smiled, and said something along the lines of how one can’t help but to throw that in (I didn’t understand every word but managed to make out a “ya kin” and a “wee” in there somewhere). But, at the end of the transaction, she thanked me with a “See ya next time!” Some might take that as confidence in one’s product, or perhaps even commentary on my weight, but I heard it as neither, and instead felt seen—not as an American in town just to play the Old Course but as someone who knew St. Andrews (just a little bit?)
