I'm finally here

I have yet to try haggis or put on a kilt. Though, I did see several kilt-for-hire shops in St Andrews today. Maybe I'll be that obnoxious American who, trying to fit in, goes to class the first week wearing a kilt and blaring the bagpipes. Probably not.

Map of St Andrews

     I arrived at the Edinburgh airport yesterday at quarter past 10am local time from Amsterdam. From there a driver picked us up – much to my chagrin not a personal driver holding a sign with my name on it as the company's email suggested, but a man holding a sign with the company's name instead, waiting for 7 others.
     That was really the only disappointment of the day, though. Transit to St Andrews (a little less than an hour) was an easy and beautiful drive. After a very informal check-in process, I found my room, a single with a double bed (much bigger than any dormitory bed in the States), private bathroom, desk, and a TV in the corner. After settling in, discovering no one else in my flat of 5 rooms and kitchen space that I have yet to find a way into, I walked the 20 minutes down the road to the center (centre) of town and started exploring.

The church older than the USA

     St Andrews is a mix of new and old, it seems. On the way to the centre of town where all the restaurants, bars, academic buildings, grocery stores, and whatever else there is, you pass by a church building that is almost 3 times older than the United States! The university's library, though, was built in the '70s. No one seems to find this odd except for us international students who are unaccustomed to such antiquity, if that is the right word. All the history (including cathedral and castle ruins from the 12th century) is a bit hard to take in. It's very cool stuff, though. Wandering through the cathedral ruins today, I couldn't tell if the other people there were foreigners like me, or if they were Scots.
     At any rate, the locals I've encountered so far are very friendly. In fact, the only difficulty I've had so far is figuring out what they're all saying through those thick accents.

That's all for now. Bye now!