traveling with stupid cell phones, and a little about the ruins in St Andrews

Well, I’m here, and I’ve finally gotten enough sleep to force myself to sit down and write something longer than a couple of sentences. My first couple of days have not been exactly particularly blog-worthy, although I have taken some cool pictures—all of which are already up here. So what to talk about? I’m honestly not sure. If this turns out boring, I apologize. Or apologise. I suppose I need to start spelling the British way.

Ahem.

So my flight(s) over here were actually my first time of flying anywhere without an adult-adult; (I don’t consider myself an adult; never have, never will), so I was a bit nervous. Everything went rather smoothly, though, despite the near-incapability of sleep.

I will complain however, that my supposedly-international-capable Verizon phone failed me. Now, I have never had complains about my Verizon service. It has always worked wonderfully at home, as well as at William and Mary (COUGH AT&Ters-who-can-never-get-service COUGH), but when we arrived in Amsterdam, COMPLETE FAIL. No service. At all. Which would’ve been fine, except that my parents are, erm, a bit overprotective. I knew they were going to worry if I couldn’t call them at all in the next 14 hours, (especially since my Mom told me at least ten times in the last five minutes with her to CALL WHEN WE GOT TO AMSTERDAM), so I was frustrated. I had no euros, so using a pay phone was out of the question, and when we arrived in Edinburgh, we had to quickly run to the bathroom before getting in the cab. No time for telephone calls.

Verizon phone on left, Alcatel Orange phone on right.

Come to find out hours later, (after buying a local Orange cell phone so that I would have SOME method of communication and could call Verizon), THEY had made a mistake and put the wrong SIM card number into my phone. Brilliant, guys. Anyway, they finally fixed it (after using several pounds worth of my pay-as-you-go Orange phone), so that now it works okay.

As far as the rest of my journey is concerned, everything was good. We arrived in St Andrews at about noon on Monday the 31^st, and after banging on the big wooden door a few times, wandering around the other side of Sallies, and running into the Warden, who kindly let us in, we hauled our suitcases upstairs (with a little help from the lift—tee hee, love that word) and got into our rooms. They’re actually rather large here, at St Andrews, with plenty of room—bigger than my room in the Units last semester, and certainly prettier (see previous post for pictures). There’s this lovely stone-framed window, which is good, since the sun is hidden enough behind grayish-white clouds all the time. When I’m just sitting there by myself at night, it feels like I’m in some creepy old Scottish manor house, with the wind howling and the bells in St Salvator’s Chapel tolling. Totally eerie slash awesome.

The ruins are pretty eerie slash awesome as well. I haven’t had the chance yet to actually go climb/ walk around them (there’s a fee you have to pay), but I’ve walked by them a lot and taken some photos (again, see previous post). It’s so incredible to think that people lived in them so long ago, and that this is all that’s left, but the stones have stayed intact. A little brief history: the Cathedral was originally built in the mid/late 12^th century, because the existing parish was becoming too small. Parts of it have been destroyed by storms, etc. and rebuilt over the centuries. It was stripped of its altars and icons around 1550, in the midst of the Reformation. At some time around the end of the sixteenth century, though, the central tower fell, along with the north wall (there’s a series of walls that used to/sort-of still surround the Cathedral). After that, it pretty much fell into disrepair, because people started taking chunks of it to build other stuff. It wasn’t until the 1880’s that anyone tried to do anything to preserve its remaining limbs.

The Castle, on the other hand, has existed in some form since the turn of the thirteenth century; it was originally built by Bishop Roger de Beaumont (can you tell he must’ve been from a Norman noble family?) although it’s been destroyed and rebuilt several times, especially as it went back and forth between Scottish and English control during the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 1200’s and 1300’s. James III was born there, and a lot of Protestants were also imprisoned there during the Reformation (it was used as a prison for a while). The Prostestant preacher George Wishart was imprisoned in its sea tower before being burnt at the stake in front of the castle walls in the mid sixteenth century. Afterward, some of his friends actually invaded and took over the castle and murdered the cardinal who had had Wishart killed, and then they formed the first Protestant congregation in Scotland. The whole fiasco was followed by a siege and more fighting, finally culminating in a French fleet coming in and capturing all the rebels, including the famous John Knox (who had joined in as pastor during a period of armistice). Interesting fact that relates to my other school: William of Orange finally abolished the estates that kept up the Castle in 1689, allowing it to fall into disrepair and ruin. Like the Cathedral, it was also torn apart in subsequent centuries to be used in building other things.

All in all, SO COOL. I can’t wait to go out and take more and better pictures in daylight sometime soon. :)

More about the University and its traditions tomorrow!