Scotland

Some folks at the University of St. Andrews (Wikipedia info: founded in 1410; sometimes ranked as the third best university in the U.K.; in the same 17,000 population city as St. Andrews golf course) recently gave me an opportunity to visit their university to give a talk and, in doing so, visit U.K. for the first time.

I haven’t actively avoided the U.K., but I haven’t felt much of a desire to visit there either. I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps going to a native English speaking country doesn’t give me the same feeling of adventure that going to a place like Germany or Belgium does. Perhaps the behavior of the British tourists in Amsterdam’s city center has given me a negative impression of the U.K. (though I should note that plenty of wonderful Brits that I know have represented their country quite well). Perhaps I perceive it as expensive, and I’m cheap (I note that I’ve also yet to visit Scandinavian countries or Switzerland, so there might be something to this).

Regardless of the reasons why I hadn’t visited the U.K. earlier, this visit ended up being a great experience. St. Andrews was as tiny as you’d expect for a town of 17,000. The woman who ran the bed and breakfast I stayed in had a Scottish accent that, to me, almost seemed like a parody of all the accents I’d heard on television and in movies. She was nice and charming, and she talked with me for almost 30 minutes about her trips to the U.S., including multiple visits to Scottsdale, Arizona of all places (as you might expect for someone from St. Andrews, she and her husband played multiple rounds of golf when they visited Arizona). 

Path leading up toward the St. Andrews Castle

The shores of the North Sea in St. Andrews

St. Andrews Castle

I lucked out with the type of weather that hits a Scottish February once a month during my Saturday morning in St. Andrews. The clouds parted and sunlight beamed down against the grass, the sea, the sand on the beach, and the textured blocks of stone that made up the ancient cathedral and castle. 

St. Andrews Cathedral

St. Andrews from the top of the cathedral

Headstone in St. Andrews cemetery

After spending Friday afternoon and evening and Saturday morning and afternoon in St. Andrews, I stayed in Edinburgh Saturday evening through Monday morning. Edinburgh was beautiful – one of the most beautiful cities I’ve seen – and its architecture remind me of the small older parts of Gent, Brugges, and Leuven in Belgium. Sunday morning started with big fluffy snowflakes, which transitioned to a misty rain before the sun broke through the clouds for an hour or so in the afternoon. The city had much more elevation change than Amsterdam, with snow covered mountains in the distance, the Edinburgh castle/fortress on a large hill in the middle of the city, and the rivers going out to the sea below. 

The renowned Dirty Dick's in Edinburgh

A Punk IPA at the Brewdog tap room

The scene on Saturday evening was comically consistent with some of the less positive stereotypes of British drinking life. After diner on Saturday night, some psychologists and I walked around a section of Edinburgh looking for a quiet place to have a beer and continue chatting. In the thirty minutes of walking from noisy packed bar to noisy packed bar (at 10:00pm), I saw men drinking from flasks on the street, piles of vomit on the ground, men passed out drunk leaning against the walls of buildings, and…ahem…full figured women wearing outfits that included some of the shortest skirts I’ve ever seen in public and tops that barely contained their breasts despite the 35 degree temperatures. When I walked home around midnight, similarly dressed women barely managed to walk without tripping in their high heels.

So, that was a fun, albeit isolated, verification of some stereotypes. Overall, though, this part of Scotland was beautiful, friendly, and a fantastic place to visit.