Wind swept

This morning I was shown something wonderful at the breakfast buffet by mom. Smoked salmon. SMOKED SALMON. I bet I ate $15 worth of the stuff. The melon here is also pretty stinking fantastic. I was proud of dad today. He only ate one bite of the pastry, in addition to a full breakfast of course. Moderation in progress.

The tour of the day was to St. Andrews: the famed golf course, cathedral (or what is left of it), castle, and town where William met Kate. While waiting on our van at the Rabbie's tour center, we chatted it up with a mother-daughter duo from Melbourne. They're in the midst of a whirlwind tour around Scotland, England and Italy. Aussies know how to travel. I suppose when everywhere is 13+ hours it's not a big deal to just keep on traveling.

Side note: The Scottish love their ice cream. Even though it's mid-50's and rainy/windy. I'll pass.

En route to St. Andrews we stopped at the Forth bridges in South Queenferry to admire the engineering feat that was overcompensation for a failed train bridge back in the day. It's been around about 150 years now, and they say it'll easily last another 150. This thing enormous and dwarfs the neighboring bridge that is falling apart, but no worries, they're monitoring the rate that it is deteriorating. Our guide, Sandy, noted this as we drove across the bridge. Excellent.

Celebrating mom and dad's 29th anniversary, I made them take lots of pictures together today. Limpy was amiable but mom fussed quite a bit. Apparently she didn't deem herself cute in the hood. Embrace it, ma. The wind is on nobody's side.

"Act like you like each other"

The next stop after the bridge of death was Anstruther, a cute little fishing village. The winds were so bad that we were hunched over on the march to the bathroom, careful not to fall into the low-tide shipyard. The entire area of Fife, referred to as a kingdom (think region), was very isolated in medieval times. Sandy told us that it was said that one needs "a long spoon to sup with a fifer" implying that they were a very mean folk and rather peculiar. Sandy, a fifer himself, disagreed.

At high tide the water reaches the top of the walls. A bit choppy today on the sea.

 During our wee wee break, dad found a local to make friends with. John told us about his fishing career where in the winter months he fished during the day for prawns, crabs and lobsters because the churning oceans kept the seas cloudy enough for the prawns. The lobsters were shipped to Spain. In the summer time he would fish as night, which was more favorable for the prawns to come close to the surface, sometimes going 14 miles out to get them. The red boat in the photo below was similar to the boat that he had before retiring. When dad asked questions about the town and his fishing, the reply was nearly always "aye", as he raised his stubby cigarette to his yellow-stained once-white beard. He was a friendly man with kind eyes, and happy to answer our incessant questions about the sea and the unrelenting wind- also normal for him.

John assured us this was normal.

John showing dad the tide chart assuring him the ocean didn't disappear forever

This little birdie notified the Sandy of my parent's anniversary, and he celebrated by introducing the bus to a Scottish treat, tablet. Think hybrid of praline, fudge, and confectioner's sugar on speed.

Tablet = instant sugar rush

 Arriving in St. Andrews, we first stopped at the famous beach where "Chariots of Fire" was filmed. Mom reminded us of the movie the entire beach viewing period by singing her best rendition of the song. Lucky for us, we actually could hear it over the wind. See video.

Beautiful sand dunes in St. Andrews

Note the sand zooming across. Very bad for eyes.

Beautiful walkway. Now half is in my shoes.

 Right across from the beach was dad's mecca: the St. Andrews Links. He was like a little kid in a candy store.

You would have thought it was an ice cream shop

Admiring the windswept course

More admiration

From the rooftop gardens

All of us braced against the wind on that famed bridge

Notice the British Open set up behind him!

See that little red building behind dad on the right? That used to be student housing for cheap during the open. Now they're renovating it and selling them as apartments. The cheapest sells for 2M pounds. The most expensive? 7M pounds. Keep in mind the conversion of pounds to dollars is roughly 1 pound = 1.5 dollars. Yikes.What a waste, buy some land for ponies.

A special secret clubhouse

Members only... exclusive!

Of course, on our way out of the course, I found myself a kiwi to talk to. I find them everywhere. The town itself is very cute, a mix of medieval architecture and quaint little houses. There are golf shops on every single corner, straightaway and alleyway. I even noticed one golfer who biked, yes biked, with his golf bags. He needed a "wide load" sticker on the bag.

Loved this doorway!

One of many St. Andrews University buildings. It's probably 400+ years old. NBD.

Around what seemed like every corner, there was another cafe boasting that they were the one cafe that hosted William and Kate on date number one. Suuuure.

From there, we fought tooth and nail through the tornado-quality wind gusts to get to St. Andrews Cathedral. At least bits and pieces of it. In its time, the 1300's, it was quite the sight: very ornate. So much so that Knox followers disliked the place for being too ornate and decided to rip it apart. How kind.

They got their wish. Ornate it is not. It is now parts of a cathedral, with graves scattered about a little pieces of what once was walls, floors or columns.

Standing alongside what would be a church wall

The back part of the church

One of many tombstones

Looking in to the grounds en route to the pier down below

There's the castle!

Lobster traps on the pier

I found a very friendly seagull

View from the pier: canola fields. These were all over the place!

Pier looking back on the cathedral ruins

This was a little out of place... and creepy

It's amazing how much is left

Our windstorm getups

Relief from the wind!

This would have been inside the nave

We grabbed a quick lunch before meeting back in the Rabbie's caravan (the Scottish know how to do oatmeal right). It's tasty.

En route to Edinburgh we stopped in Falkirk, yes the one referenced in "Braveheart", to see the palace. Photos weren't allowed inside, but I can testify it was fascinating. Why no photos? It's privately owned-ish (there are "keepers") and the people there still used parts of it, including the library which has a secret door in the bookcases. The place was a-la 16th century and filled with tapestries, canopy beds with ornate carvings and portraits of kings and queens. There was even a chapel inside that is still used for concerts and services on Sundays. Incredible place. $10 says it's haunted.

Palace exterior

A fun little tidbit I picked up from the tour guide in Falkirk was that here in Scotland, 200 years is nothing to the people. However, it's a lot to us in 'Merica where 50 years is old (sorry parents). Going the other way, we don't think much of driving 200 miles whereas a Scotsman (or woman) would cringe at the thought. She'd hate my commute from Bburg to ATL. 

A neat little Scottish tradition was the painting of doorways when people got married. They would put their names and the year on the entryway and many of the doors in Falkirk are still decorated with them today.

Matt and I should do this.

And on to Portree tomorrow...