I'll go ahead and say it....my trip to St. Andrews was probably one of the best ideas I've had since I've been here. The moment I stepped off that bus and saw the big white letters marking that I was indeed in the home town of golf, I couldn't believe how lucky I was. For only eleven pounds, I was able to take a quiet, sunny, and relaxing 2 hour bus ride to a freezing cold paradise. I admit I got some shut eye on the bus ride (I had to get up at seven to make the bus I wanted) but the surprising cold sure woke me up. I got there a few hours before my scheduled lunch date, and I had pre-arranged trying to find the Old Course and taking a look around the museum early. The problem was that I never bothered to look up where the course was in relation to the bus stop, the reason being that when I spoke to a friend of mine who had traveled to St. Andrews before, she claimed that "I wouldn't be able to miss it". I don't remember ever being so lost with such a wide grin on my face. The sun was shining and I was in St. Andrews, Scotland. Nothing could go wrong. I walked to the corner, and there, right in front of me was a big sign with an arrow pointing in the direction of "Old Course", so I just followed the street until I got to a round-about. Once again, there was another sign pointing me which way to go. It was as if they knew I was coming. Although, even if they hadn't had a sign, I would have known I was getting close because that whole street corner was covered with golf shops. I went to the nearest one, trying to find a way in. The door on my side of the street appeared boarded up, but it was 10:30 am so I knew they had to be open. I walked around the corner and almost fell over. Right in front of me was what I had been looking for. The cafes and shops went on for a short ways and then opened up to nothing but grass and ocean, and I knew this was where I was meant to go. I then knew what my friend had meant when she said I wouldn't be able to miss it, and right then I thought to myself, "why didn't I come to school HERE?!"
I haven't been so close to the ocean since I left home for Scotland. Edinburgh goes right up to the water, but I've never taken the time to actually go to it, and I hear it isn't that great. So like I said, it was the first time I'd been actually CLOSE to the beach in months. It was clear and cold and exactly what I had been hoping for. The course is RIGHT on the water, and let me point out that seeing this place on television during the British Open is not even CLOSE to the real thing. The grass goes on for miles, and it was so dead and deserted (I think I saw one person running with a bag of clubs across the empty fairway) that I almost couldn't believe I was at the same course where my idols have played, where Tiger Woods proved his domination of the game, and where golf started. If it had been a little warmer, I may have mistaken the place for Heaven.
When I regained my senses, I noticed a rather inconspicuous building hiding behind a hill that I probably would have missed completely if there weren't big letters on the side of it that grabbed me like a fish on a hook, "British Golf Museum". I won't go into much detail here, it would take far too long, but I will say that my golf nerd came out a little bit because I was in the place for three hours. I also got to putt around a little bit using a pure wodden putter and a gutta-percha golf ball from like the 19th century. It was a lot of fun, and I have to say that I got pretty excited and grossed out at the same time when I saw the sweat-lined hat Tiger Woods wore when he won the 2005 British open just behind a thin pane of glass. As I was walking around, I got hit with another wave of amazement at where I was. I wasn't just in a random golf museum. I was in a golf museum in the place where it all started! I couldn't get my head around it. There was this section on the construction of early golf balls in like the 18th and 19th centuries, and a voice that kept repeating a short little bio on it. It got annoying after a while, because it echoed through the whole museum, but at one point it said that the first golf-ball maker lived and worked just a few hundred yards from where I was standing. For any avid golfer or lover of the game, you can imagine how cool that must feel, and that's how I was feeling. I ate it all up, and I was almost sad to leave to go and find my professor for our lunch date at 1:30.
Just a reminder, this is the professor that's friends with people I know and respect from two aspects of my life. Volker Deecke is his name, and he knows my old pastor Lefty from my home town because he was a naturalist on a cruise that Lefty and his wife took. Volker also knows my very favorite professor at Redlands because they both earned their masters degrees from British Columbia. Anyway, it got a little stressful around the time we were aiming to meet up, because even though I found out where I needed to go, he wasn't answering his cell phone. Luckily he called me from his office phone just before he left for our meeting spot, so it all worked out. I think we were equally excited to meet each other, and in my opinion we hit it off right off the bat for no other reason than knowing the same two people, and that was enough. He took me to this nice restaurant and bar where I got a lamb and mint burger and he got a pork burger. Who gets a beef burger in St. Andrews? Not us! We talked for about an hour in the restaurant about how we knew Lefty and Lei Lani (my professor...another weird coinsidence that both their names start with L's, like straight of superman...Lex Luthor, Lois Lane...) and we discussed how I was enjoying Edinburgh and Scotland, what i thought of St. Andrews, and what I was studying. I found out some of his history, how he came to be in Scotland and how he came to do what he does. We discussed a few career paths, the pros and cons of research in this era of ever-improving technology, and what we would do the rest of the day. He bought lunch, and he told me about this bakery down the street with amazing fudge doughnuts, so I bought us a couple of those for dessert as we walked towards the main University of St. Andrews campus. It was small, mostly because it wasn't all in one location. Like Edinburgh and most other British universities I would assume, the buildings were spread out about the city. The size of the school is closer to that of Redlands though, only a few thousand students. Volker showed me the offices where had completed his PhD, and then took me to a small animal museum in the same building. At this point we were in a little bit of a rush because Volker had to get back to work soon, but the museum was covered wall to wall with various animal heads, glass casings with various wonders of taxonomy, even a couple whale skeletons that Volker had to (almost physically) pull me away from.
It was another fifteen minute walk to where his current office is in the Marine Mammal research facility. I've been to the Monterey Bay Research Institute, and this place where Volker worked reminded me a lot of it. Smaller than I had expected, it had a tiny garage with one speed boat in it, but a pretty sizable seal tank that was unfortunately empty for the winter. And best of all, it was right on the water.
Typical of scottish weather, the sky had become clouded over by the time we left the restaurant, began to sprinkle softly on our walk to the research buildings, and it was drizzling steadily around the time Volker had finished showing me his office with his stockpile of various scientific sound recording equipment that went completely over my head, and it was finally time for us to part ways. He gave me a route to take along the coastline that would take me past a cathedral ruin, a castle ruin, and back to the golf course all in a reasonable fourty minutes. It was only about 3:30 but it grew dark quickly. I managed to snap some pictures along the way, and managed to get back to the bus stop before the rain came down much harder. I loved the walk back, mostly because I DIDN'T get to see that much, and it reinforced my plan to go back as soon as I could. One of the best parts of this walk back, and one of the tiny bits that I'll remember most of this trip, was when I had to cross this bridge on my way to the cathedral. It was just a tiny little foot bridge that went over a little winding creek connecting the harbor where the boats were docked, and the rest of the bay. The unique thing about this foot bridge was that was able to part and lift up in order for boats to pass underneath it. I don't know why it caught my attention so much, maybe it was the size of it. I've seen similar bridges on a much larger scale that cars drive over, but never one this small, and it was so cute and funny that I couldn't help laughing out loud when I came near it. Lucky for me, there were a couple of girls around my age walking up to it at the same time, and when I laughed they gave me a couple of strange looks.
It was quite and adventure, all in all, and I can't wait to go back. Hopefully I'll have another chance before I leave in December, but if not, I know I'll be back someday. There's going to be only so much of me rubbing the trip in my Dad's face before he decides we all have to go back so as to shut me up and so that the whole family can see it. Don't get me wrong, I love Edinburgh, I enjoy the big city, and I've had a great time. But St. Andrews is a completely different kind of experience, and I got a feel for just how much living in a small town all my life has affected me. I can really see myself living in a place like that....
...Or maybe it was just because Volker told me that residents and students get big discounts at the golf course!
A beautiful, brisk morning in Edinburgh and obviously still waking up!
There's just something about waking up from a nap on the bus ride to the Scottish sun warming your face.
Volker and I after some excellent small town food!
A parting shot overlooking one end of the Old Course.
