St. Andrews

Yesterday I spent the day in St. Andrews visiting Cat, a friend from Duke. I ingested more sugar (primarily in the form of pastries) than any human being should eat in a year, maybe two. Worth it.

Thanks to a friend who studied at St. Andrews last year, we had a "bucket list" of things to do and started our morning with this amazing hot chocolate topped with whipped cream, marshmallows, and Maltesers (malt balls):

Start of sugar high

Then we headed over to the ruins. We were hoping to climb St. Rule's Tower, but due to serious "mechanical and electrical faults," St. Rule's Tower is closed indefinitely. We don't know what the actual "faults" are, so we asked the lady in the gift shop and she said she didn't know either. There was no visible work going on around it so they're clearly not too concerned about fixing it...

I can't quite figure out how people ever let this fall into ruins!

After exploring the ruins for a bit, we headed down to the pier and walking all the way out:

I could do with a little more blue sky... but this is pretty nonetheless!

We climbed down off the pier and I thought these rocks were pretty cool:

I guess the consequences of growing up with a father who dubbed himself "Rockman" mean that I take pictures of random rocks.

We headed to the ruins of the castle which were literally just ruins--it's the first castle I've been to that you couldn't actually go inside and see the rooms.

See the castle theme in Scotland yet?

St. Andrews made up for not having actual rooms by having a really cool mine shaft that we ventured down:

Lesson learned: I never want to be a miner

After the castle we grabbed some lunch (haggis+naan=yum) and then got some pastries to eat while we walked over to the Old Course. The bakery we went to was a little overwhelming in terms of selection, but I figured I couldn't go wrong with something called the "Chocolate Tower." Best. Decision. Ever. The bakery also has "fudge doughnuts" which Cat let me try... it was amazing. She is bringing me a fudge doughnut next weekend when she comes to Edinburgh--it was that good.

There is custard inside of that. It was incredible.

Next up was the obligatory visit to the Old Course for my dad and brothers, who all got texts informing them of my location and I received 3 jealous responses (just what I was looking for).

The Clubhouse

Swilcan Bridge

18th Hole

All in all it was a fantastic day trip, although I was miserable on the train ride home because I had a huge sugar crash. I arrived back at my flat in a zombie-like state and couldn't wait to get to bed!

Tomorrow morning I head to Dublin for the weekend... first stop, Guinness Storehouse!