Of Kilts

     This weekend was the black tie DRA Ball. As I live in DRA, I attended. The dance itself wasn't that much fun (even though there was free food and ice cream), but we did all wear kilts – all us men, that is.
     Putting on a kilt is strange, pretty much only for that fact that I kind of felt like I was wearing a dress. To put on a kilt, you have to unclasp both aprons – one under and one over – from their buckles, put the pleats to your back and re-clasp it a little above your belly-button. I made the mistake of not putting on my dress shirt first, so, after donning the kilt for a few seconds, I realized that I had to begin again, this time with my dress shirt on. There is no hope of tucking it in once it's all clasped.
     So, once you have the kilt on, there are a number of small things that need to go into it for it to look formal and black tie worthy. After getting on the kilt itself, you slip on above-knee white socks. On those, just below the knees, you place what are called garter flashes. The ones I had essentially consisted of an elastic band fitted with 2 felt rectangles cut in an inverted 'V' at the ends. Once those are on, you fold the socks over themselves so that only the ends of the garter flashes are showing. Then come the shoes. Though they don't look it, they feel a bit like bowling shoes and have incredible long black laces that, once slid through the eyelets of the shoe, come up at your ankle, twist around for a while and then are tied like a normal shoe on your shin.
     After that, you're pretty much ready to go after you've done a few more, even smaller things. You put on the bow tie (unfortunately a clip-on), the vest, and the jacket. Then, the finishing touch is a small knife called a skean dhu that slips into your right sock on the outside of your leg. This was by far the most fun part of the kilt ensemble. Too bad the knives didn't come out of their sheaths... on second thought, it's probably better that it doesn't.
     After all that, we met at our friend TJ's room and were there until bused to where the ball. The ball was held in a converted barn where you can imagine a prom being held. The music was all right, but the live band stopped at about 11.30 and after that it was just techno.
     All in all, it was a pretty good night, although I didn't enjoy having to dissemble the kilt when I got home as I really wanted to go to bed.

Kilts

Of Loch Ness

     Yesterday, a group of us JSAs and full-time students took a university-sponsored day trip up into the southern Highlands to see, among other things, Loch Ness.
     Our trip began at 8am, but since all of my friends and I live in DRA, we had to wake up significantly earlier as it's about a 20 minute walk into town from here. So, waking up in darkness, the 10 or so of us walked into town and boarded our bus (run by Haggis Tours - 'Wild and Sexy') and commandeered the back of the bus. Everyone on the bus was a St Andrews student, but since the bus fit about 40 people, we made up over a fourth of it and were easily the most obnoxious people there, besides our driver Tony, an Italian Scot very knowledgeable about Scottish history.

Dunkeld Cathedral

     Our first stop was Dunkeld ('Fort Keld'). Dunkeld is the sight of Birnam Wood, made famous by Shakespeare's Scottish play, in which it was told Macbeth that he would be king until the trees of Birnam Wood "remove to Dunsinane." We stayed there for about 30 minutes, got a look at the cathedral and the River Tay and then moved on.
     At this point it was still sunny, but as we drove further north, clouds moved in and our bus was subject to bouts of snow and rain. Despite this and his constant warnings to us that some of the roads we would be taking might be closed, Tony only drove the bus with one hand while he fiddled with the CDs or told us more Scottish lore through the malfunctioning microphone or tried to fix the defroster.
     All was fine in the end, though.

Our Tour Bus

     From Dunkeld we made several stops along the mountain roads to get a look at the views or explore paths leading to rivers and streams that eventually wend their way to one or more of the 30,000 bodies of water in Scotland. It was commented at one point that the water looks like Guinness, which it does. This is because of a root that, with each passing rainfall, leaks into the water and stains it with this very dark brown color that, I think, looks like Guinness.
Eventually, after passing through Birnam Wood, a few towns, and the mountainous highlands, we arrived at Fort Augustus, situated at the southwest end of the famous loch.
     It was beautiful there.
     We purchased our £11 Loch Ness cruise tickets. When we hopped on board the boat, it was overcast. But, as we pulled out into the loch itself, the sun appeared, followed quickly by snow.

A dammed up loch on one of our many stops up

     As soon as we were in the middle of the Loch, an electronic voice began to speak at us, telling us all the facts about the lake, how deep it is at its deepest (over 800 feet – prime depth for a monster, I'd say), how it was formed (by a glacier, one of three lochs formed that way), and various other bits of history, including the caves in which outlaws hid centuries ago. Unfortunately, we saw no monster (our tour was only an hour so we didn't see the whole loch. I think Nessie might have been hiding the the incredibly dark cloud about 100 yards in front of us when we turned back), even when we tried to lure it out with an apple and then a cookie.

A river with some ice flow on one of our stops

The River Tay

Commandos' Memorial

What Loch Ness would have looked like thousands of years ago

A former Benedictine Abbey on Loch Ness

Loch Ness

The Week Rolls On

The healthy tree next to Mary Queen of Scots'

     Things have been going rather well thus far. I am starting to get involved in a few clubs (sporting clubs) and societies (academic clubs) in addition to my classes, including the Rifle Club, the Catholic Society, and the Outdoor Society, to name a few. They have socials and events throughout the week in addition to the regular meetings. In the UK, in fact, no university has scheduled classes on Wednesday afternoons specifically so that clubs and other sport groups can meet.
     However, I did not go to the rifle range today, because a friend's friend is in town from Barcelona for a few days. We walked around the town for a little while before going into St Mary's College and the King James VI Library. This library, though small, is well over 400 hundred years old and is lined with many old, somewhat elegant-looking books. A veritable treasure-trove, in my opinion, if only because it is so old.

Mary Queen of Scots' Tree

    In the courtyard, what I would call St Mary's Quad, are two trees. One of these trees was planted back in the day by Mary Queen of Scots. The tree, equally as poor as the Queen, is withering and has to be supported by several wooden beams.  The other tree, I don't know how long it has been there, is very healthy and green and tall and would be good for climbing if it isn't frowned upon.

     I have yet to explore the city outside of the three main streets and the university buildings but I plan to soon. More exploration this weekend.

Of Ceilidh and Fire Alarms and First Class

This past weekend, St Andrews hosted an event open to all fully matriculated (registered) students called a Ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee). Ceilidh is a traditional Scotch dance, done in both pairs and groups. This dance is very tiring. After multiple dances, I was out of breath and sweating profusely. Now I know why they typically wear kilts at Ceilidhs. None of us were very good (me especially), as we were mostly JSAs (junior semester abroad students) and Americans. Nonetheless, it was incredibly fun. Lots of spinning and running and jumping is involved, each with their own special step which I never quite got. In the end, I just made up my own steps to the sound of the music and smiled like a goon. Of course, by the end we were all parched and so we went to the pub across the street and bought beer for some much-needed hydration. Just kidding. We went to the drinking fountain and got some water. Then we went to the pub across the street.
     Speaking of pubs, my tour guide on Wednesday last told us that St Andrews, of all the places in Europe, has the most pubs and bars per person, at 64 for about 20,000 residents during the school year.

The remains of the cloister of St Andrews Cathedral

     The days after the Ceilidh have gone pretty well, replete with exploring cathedral ruins, piers, and the town in general... At least up to this morning at about 5.30am. At 5.30 am, all of David Russell Apartments had a fire drill. Normally I would understand the need of a fire drill. But 5.30? It couldn't have waited an hour? What's more, the fire alarms are not like the alarms in the States that pulse and incredible shrieking sound. No, the one's in Scotland are a constant shriek about ten times louder than in the US and are situated directly over your bed. I think I might have even screamed myself as it woke me from my slumber it was so loud. At any rate, the wailing stopped after we all shuffled outside to be accounted for and told that it wouldn't happen again this semester. However, as the information sheet on my bulletin boards tells us, the fire equipment in the dorms is tested from '0915 to 1045  each Tuesday.' Today being Tuesday, right at 9.15am the alarm over my head sounded again. I kid you not, when it woke me, my heart pounded so hard that the rest of my bed shook.

Tolkien in the '30s

     Other than that abrupt beginning, the day was great. I had my first class at St Andrews today: JRR Tolkien. About half of us are JSAs, the others full-time St Andrews students, both British and American. It was interesting to observe that most of the JSAs arrived for this first day of class about 15 minutes early while the full-timers, including the professors, got in not 3 minutes before 2pm. This could just be a culture difference. However, I think not, since a lot of the full-timers were American. As I am quickly learning, a lot of the loads of down time St Andrews students have is dedicated to reading and studying. Studying comprises, essentially, the equivalent of a blue collar work week, about 40 hours, give or take how fast you can read and still retain all the information. Maybe I'm just a slacker, but this seems like a total change from the US. However, I really like it. Since we're expected to do a lot fo research on our own and check out books from the library, I am already finding myself checking out books that I otherwise would not pay any attention to. Books full of essays about The Lord of the Rings and the origins of Middle English history and verse (for my Chaucer class tomorrow). All very interesting stuff. Okay, cheers, I should probably get back to reading...
   

Class Schedule

Advising was today and my class schedule was established. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and a class dedicated to JRR Tolkien. I'm told that these two will keep me busy the semester long...

"If in doubt, go to a pub."

Wise words of an English professor to hungry Americans.

First kilt sighting today.

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!