Driving out of Dundee we crossed the Tay Bridge: to the left is the North Sea. Along the docks was the Unicorn, built in 1831, and kept in service as a British battleship for a number of years. "I think with all our defense cuts they might resurrect the Unicorn."
On my muffin wrapper this morning, the "energy" provided was measured in both kcal (what we know as Calories, big-C) and kJ. I have since seen it a few other places, pretty neat.
The cows, as we drove south, began to look leaner, less hairy, and gained a few white spots. Much like how we think of cows: but white on black/brown, not black on white.
As we passed by the Lucas RAF base: "You see the barbed wire here, it's not for Al-Queda, it's for the IRA."
St. Andrews.
This place deserves a blog entry of its own. Alas.
There was a wreck in this area in the 700's? of a vessel carrying relics of St. Andrew towards the North Sea, but they took it as a sign from God that this was where the relics should remain. Golf was not, as it were, invented here but in Leith. It was St Andrews that ratified the rules of the game. To play on the old course one needs a proof of handicap, that you are good enough to play on their course---but not so on the newer courses.
We had half a bucket of balls per two people on the outdoor practice gates, with provided clubs---nine irons?. Walking along the way a Scottish caddy or golfer or someone passed by. "Is this your first time golfing?" he asked. "Have fun with it!" I did, actually. The first few swings I took at a low angle, to get a feel for it, then I tried for the wide swing like you see on TV. I'm not ready for the Women's Open but I improved remarkably over my two dozen balls. Most went dead-straight and a few flew high up into the air.
Actually I was the last one on the tour to put my club down and used some of the extra balls in other buckets.
We had some time to wander around the town. I noted an outcropping of rocks along the beach and scrambled over them to take pictures looking back on the town. A beautiful view. Out there on the rocks I thought of what Dad has always said: "You can't say you've been there unless you've touched it." Usually this refers to a body of water.
Long story short, I went swimming and had to haul myself up the rocks using fistfuls of kelp-like algae. Of course it is a story best told in person, so we will leave it at that here and you can ask me about it later.
I spent the rest of the visit to St. Andrews drying to dry off. I paid 30p to use the public toilet but the hand-dryers were no help, but the man at the desk gave me four maps "for free". Hah.
The next hour on the bus I had the fans full-blast which did help. My boots I left behind, and luckily I was able to convince Mark The Busdriver to open the luggage area and help me fish out my sneakers. He is very nice.
"You know, we do some tours in Edinburgh, so maybe we will see you sometime. Make sure you're staying out of trouble."
We crossed the River Tay into Perth, the original capital of Scotland. Nearby was our next stop, Scone Palace, pronounced "Scoon". The Earl and Countess of Mansfield own it. It was built on the location of an old abbey, then ruined in the Reformation, as many churches and abbeys were---a shame.
Across from the Palace (Mansion, really) was a Masoleum, but in front of that a copy of the Stone of Scone, or the Stone of Destiny, upon which the Scottish kings were crowned. Inside the Scone Palace we received coffee and a biscuit (cookie) and met our tourguide Alistaire MacDonald. He seemed to know everything about the house. Personally I liked him at first and then soon discovered I could not stand him. Part, maybe, was that he was very knowledgable on topics that did not interest me, like the china patterns, but most part I think was that he seemed so full of himself.
Anyway. I did not like the inside of the Scone Palace, but I wasn't expecting to, those ornate places hold next to no interest for me, on the inside. The architecture and the outside yes, but Alistair did not talk very much about the windows and the supports of the building.
After lunch a little tour of the grounds led me to the gardens and a maze, star-shaped. I found it with twelve minutes to go before the coach was set to leave, and I started to enter it, but then I told myself, "You know you're not going to get out in twelve minutes." To which I responded, "yeah. I know." So I didn't go in, but I did hop the fence to take pictures of old farm equipment, painted blue (huh?) and the peacocks, lazing their way about the grounds. There were two pure white peacocks! Not albinos, their eyes were dark, but pure white. Pretty.
Most groceries are called co-operatives.
The Forth Rail Bridge, like the Golden Gate, needs a fresh coat of paint every four years and it takes four years to paint it. Except they've stopped painting it and now it just looks ugly.
In the afternoon we had the chance to wander around the New Town of Edinburgh. Pretty. Princes Street is the shopping area, then George Street (King George) and Queens Street, with Charlotte Square on one end and St. Andrews Square on the other. Very pretty, all that stonework we've come to know and love, but with so many statues--most to Scots I've never even heard of.
At the heart of Princes Street stands a tall monument, the most recognizable thing in New Town, of Sir Walter Scott. And right across a little valley stood the Royal Mile, the Edinburgh Castle standing stately on one end and Holyrood Park looking like a sudden mountain on the other. The Scottish Museum of Art, or along those lines, has its current exhibition on Andy Warhol. The columns out in front are wrapped in gigantic Campbell's Soup cans. (Ian: "Oh, Gods! My father would throw a fit!")
Boarding back on the bus, Ian, Mark, everyone told me how lucky I was to be studying in a city like this.
For dinner we attended a Scottish.. uhh, thing. Culture show, maybe. We were first shuffled into a big room, and packed into seats. Possibly like cattle but I couldn't tell you for sure. We were fed in a three-course meal then the show began. Mostly there was Highland Dancing, intermixed with bagpipes, fiddle, accordian---accordian? Scottish?---and the emcee, a crazy old man. The female singer kept coming out in a different ballgown but no one else changed clothing.
At the very beginning the emcee mentioned countries of audience members. Lithuania, here for a football match, Canada, Hong Kong, Barbados, Syria, Israel. Mostly English-speaking places. "And, oh, yes, I suppose we might have a few from the States?"
"Are there any English in the audience?" One, a grandmother on our tour, a very nice woman.
"Where are you from?"
"Manchester."
"I'm sorry."
The emcee and the one woman--Mary--sang a song together, then next time they were up, he said, "A woman in the audience requested that we sing Loch Lomond (bull, this was scripted), which we will. She also asked if Mary and I were related." A few twitters in the audience. "And we are." A little giggling. "She's my mum!"
Two songs later, the fiddler and the accordianist performed a duet like the Dueling Banjos. A voice shouted from the back "Are y'all related?"
The best part was half-time in the show. The Ceremony of the Haggis. A while back, the Highland culture was being eradicated, part naturally, part as British policy. To keep the tradition alive and to retain it for posterity, Robert Burns "We Scots call him Rabbie Burns. You from Israel know him as Rabbi Burns" wrote a poem, mostly in the Scots-Gaelic speech.
The haggis was brought out, a plump sausage on a silver platter, adorned with dark green tartan and long deer antlers. "For those of you who don't know, this is how you prepare haggis." He pulled the knife from his kilt-sock, wiped it across his shirt, and made cuts in the air to demonstrate. "First, ye cut off the head and the legs, and the tail, and you're left with the torso." After the laughter, he said, "That was a lie. And the horns don't belong either!"
What followed was a recitation of the Burns poem, unfortunately I can't reproduce it here, but the highlight was towards the end, he shifted the microphone between himself and the bagpiper and each spoke an alternate word of the poem.
He stabbed into the haggis, slicing down the axis, then perpendicular cuts across. He mashed the skin from the top into the sausage-like body, then he balanced a scoop atop the blade. "This is how you eat a haggis!" And he licked the knife clean.
We were warned not to sneak off to the bathrooms, for the servers would still find us and give us our haggis. Although in the olden days the meat was all the leftovers---"the squiggly bits"---today's hygenic standards keep the meat to more or less ground lamb. Mixed in with oatmeal, onions, herbs, and spices, mostly pepper. Because the haggis at the front was not big enough to feed everyone in the hall, we got our own portions. From faraway it looked like a brownie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top, but it was a scoop---yes. A scoop---of haggis and a scoop of mash.
The haggis I could eat fine, it was like spicy meatloaf.
The mash I could not eat for the life of me, it was disgusting.
I wonder, though. Real haggis? I feel I've yet to try.
The last song was "The most famous of Robert Burns, I am sure you will all know it, so stand up, join hands, and sing along!"
It was Auld Lang Syne. Sorry, I only know it as the UVA Fight Song, I have never learned the words to Auld Lang Syne, and it was extremely awkward to be holding hands when we should have swayed with our arms about one another's shoulders.
