Trip to St. Andrews

Today was a whole new adventure! Me and the three American exchange students Kali, Megan and Becca, along with Alan (from Ireland) and Simon (from Northern Ireland?) and Sarah (from Australia) all went to St. Andrews today.  St. Andrews is a smallish city about 20 minutes outside of Dundee; it's named after Andrew, who was apparently one of Christ's twelve disciples.  Well this is what their museum said anyway.  I'm not well versed on the subject though so I can't really confirm or deny that one :).  So we started out at about 9:30 AM and I met Kali and Megan and Becca at their flat across from mine...I ran back though and made a lunch and we ended up meeting up at Bonar Hall (haha). After that we all walked down Perth road to the main bus station.  It was quite a walk but all down hill, so no big deal.  I got some pretty cool pictures along the way.

After we got to the bus station, we just had a short while to wait...the ticket counter was closed and so we just bought our tickets after we got on the bus.  It was 5 pounds for a two way ticket with our student cards.  The bus station charges about 35 cents to use the bathroom!! haha I thought that was crazy! Here are some pictures of the station.

 Can't believe they CHARGE for the bathroom!!!

Here are some videos of the first part of the bus ride as we were crossing the Tay Bridge.

The last picture was taken from aboard the bus.  Here are the pictures of the countryside I got along the way...some of them are blurry but I tried to get good ones!

 Haha well at least some things don't change.

After our short bus ride we got to St. Andrews! Here are the photos from just walking through the town on our way to the cathedral.

 Me and Becca

 Me and Sarah

 Whoo Subway!

 Saw this awesome fountain and we had to get pictures! It's really really old and a centerpiece of the town!

 The Bottle Shop

 This was the inside of the garden through the gates...unfortunately it was locked and we couldn't get in :(

 There were quite a few of these little gardens throughout the town.

 I thought this was super cute! Kid on a leash!

We finally came to the street with St. Andrews Cathedral and after that we crossed the street and walked into the graveyard...totally awesome!  It was beautiful.  We tried to get a mid-air shot jumping in the arch but it didn't really work haha. Anyway here are the pics from that...

 We were trying to get a midair picture :)

After we walked through the cathedral's graveyard we went through a rear gate in the stone and it opened onto this beautiful walkway and all the way down to this pier that we walked onto. I tried to talk a bunch of photos of this too...here they are! The tombstone above says James Patterson like the author-ha I though that was cool...

 I saw this hole and looked inside and found :

I think it was most likely a good luck place that people threw coins!

 I didn't realize it was so zoomed in...

 That's better

 The pier

After we walked the pier we came back through the cathedral; it was quite a walk back up the hill to the cathedral and then quite a walk back through the graveyard!
We walked back through the city and stopped for food at the Grill House.  The food was fairly cheap and good, but the service was terrible.  The manager stopped by and shushed us! It was actually really offensive because the room was loud and it wasn't exactly a classy restaurant.  All of the other patrons were being extremely loud as well.  I felt targeted.  After that I went to pay and the manager was really rude to me when I paid with my card.  I always hand them my card and my drivers license because I don't sign the back of my card.  I find this makes it easier to steal, so I just have them check my ID for my signature.  It is perfectly legal and it gives them more incentive to check the ID. Well the manager gave me a really dirty look and said "well you should know that we don't actually have to accept this if it isn't signed" and I thought it was really poor behavior for a manager! Aside from that though the experience was alright-I know that everyone else in my party was upset about it but we brushed it aside and didn't let it ruin our day! After food we walked to the golf course. The St. Andrews golf course is an international one and supposedly one of the biggest in Scotland-it was really pretty!  Unfortunately my camera died right after we got there :( but hopefully I can post the pictures that the others took once I can get them from them.
Here are the rest of the pics I got from our trip!

 From the restaurant

 hahahaha old people crossing sign!

 This was the wishing tree that was in the museum we stopped at; we all hung wishes :)

The only shot of the golf course I got.

After we let the golf course we just walked back to the bus station and headed home.  We were all pretty tired.  Overall it was a great trip!

The other night, I went to a new restaurant with my friend Sharon.  It's called Ketchup...it was interesting.  The food was decent. They normally have a two for one special on burgers before 5PM but otherwise their burgers are between 8 and 15 pounds (of money not food ha)! So they are pricey and don't come with any sides or drinks.  We just split something because we came after five...it was pretty good :) But they don't have pickles :( I have never heard of a burger place not having pickles.  I am going CRAZY without pickles!!!! But I will just have to survive!

The counter at Ketchup. (their ketchup tastes really weird too lol not like ketchup at all-but still tasty!)On my way to meet my friend before we went to Ketchup I actually found this Strongbow glass on the side of the road and snagged it :)
I picked up a bottle of a popular beer here so celebrate my new find and it will be a fun experience to try a new beer.

Well that's all for now:) more soon! Miss everyone!