"Wait guys. We live in Europe."

There's that moment of realization after you move somewhere, when you realize, "Yup, this is where I live." Yesterday, as Sandy, Amanda, and I were walking through St. Andrews Castle, I said, "Wait guys. We live in Europe." And they both looked at me and said, "Awesome!" Where else in the world can I live where it only takes a 10 minute walk to get to the sea, a 10 minute walk to see old cathedral ruins, a 15 minute walk to see castle ruins, and a 5 minute walk to Starbucks? Oh did I mention I live less than 2 blocks away from Starbucks? It was the first "a-ha" moment of the trip, and I'm sure there'll be plenty more to come.

Below is a picture my friend Sandy took of my dorm, St. Regulus:

Not too shabby, eh? Once I get my room cleaned up and set up I'll post pictures. I don't necessarily have a spectacular view ... it is of a stone wall. But my room faces the side of the town that gets the most sun, which is nice that I get sun when it is out. As one of the little cleaning ladies told me in a sweetly Scottish accent, "Just be grateful you don't have a room on the other side of the hall. They hardly see any sun." It doesn't really bother me though, because our little group from Elon always goes outside together to walk around town and explore, shop and eat, which we've discovered is pretty much all you can do in this town. And play golf, but we haven't gotten there yet.

Yesterday, Sandy, Amanda and I went down to the harbor area that is near the stone pier. This is where I went running on Saturday, and it was one of those "I can't believe I get to do this." We walked all over town, got some ice cream at the parlour on Market Street, had a delicious pasta dinner with the rest of the Elon crew sans Courtney who has been under the weather since getting here, we went to Spencer's room and played Bananagrams, which is like speed Scrabble, where the phrase "Your words are touching my words." was coined, and we went to the Raisin Bar. We were a little late for trivia night, but hearing the proprietor yell obscenities at his patrons who he called "lackluster clientele" among other, more inappropriate things was quite entertaining.

So below are pictures with descriptions below each photo from our little excursion yesterday.

This is the harbor at St. Andrews, coming up from the southern part of town where I live.

This is my friend Sandy and I at the park that sits on the other side of the harbor. That stone structure in the background is the stone pier that just out into the North Sea. Apparently every May, students jump off the pier into the frigid North Sea to get rid of any bad academic luck they may have incurred throughout the year (more on that below).

And this is taken from that stone pier looking back towards the town of St. Andrews. The spires on the left are the ruins of the old cathedral that was built in the 10th century and on the far right almost protruding into the sea is St. Andrews Castle built and maintained by Catholic cardinals to defend the town (if I remember correctly).

This is the cathedral that was originally built at St. Andrews. Most of the graves date back to the 1800s, nothing particularly old, however, the church itself was built in the 10th century as mentioned earlier. Over a century of neglect at some point eventually led to the dilapidated state it is now in.

This photo is for you Jim. St. Andrews Castle short people alert. "Follow the yellow brick road."

This is a photo of myself inside St. Andrews Castle. Behind me is the cathedral and the old stone pier which is off my left shoulder.

Here is that crest of St. Andrews that I wrote about in an earlier post. This is actually the window to the Principal's office (President of the University). Not too shabby.

Now this picture is a very significant one. This is a photo of me, literally tempting academic fate. It was at this spot that 24-year old Patrick Hamilton (initials PH), a student at the University, was burned at the stake on the 15 February 1528. The story goes that Patrick had gone to the continent to study and was greatly influenced by the teachings of Martin Luther. Upon his return, he tried to spread Lutheran ideas to a town that until that point had been firmly under the control of the Catholic cardinals and bishops who had played an integral role in town since its founding in the 10th century. Patrick was tried and condemned of heresy and sentenced to be burnt at the stake. In doing so, Patrick became the first martyr of the Scottish Reformation, turning this mainly Catholic country into a Protestant nation, although there is still a fairly strong Catholic presence here. Now, rumor is that if you step on the PH as a student of the University, you will fail your classes for the semester, the only way to prevent that being to run off the pier into the North Sea and wash away the curse. It's really funny because you see people obviously walking around the PH when they walk down the street. Although our friend Amanda unfortunately already walked across. Guess she'll have to jump in the Sea. I however am very conscious of where the PH is and make a point to widely avoid it. I love that my school has traditions like this, something Elon severely lacks. So if you ever come to St. Andrews, and you walk down North Street, avoid PH at all costs.

Well, I need to get going on fixing up my room so it is actually livable. If you'd like to see more pictures from Scotland, then you can just click the link here. This will take you to the Facebook album they are in. You do NOT need a Facebook account to view these photos. The link is public and you can view all the photos in the album without getting a Facebook account.

Have a lovely day everyone! Also, you may notice that the photos are cut off half way. Once my computer stops freezing when I'm trying to upload pictures, I'll upload the actually file which allows you to see the whole photo on the main page. Until then, just click it and you can see the whole thing. Or go to the Facebook album.