Scotland is such an overwhelming place in terms of scenery, people and culture. Arriving in Edinburgh Airport I didn’t expect to enter the land of Harry Potter and kitschy old buildings that are just mesmerizing. Follow my logbook about my trip to St. Andrews including a one-day trip to Edinburgh.

Day one: Meeting An Old Friend

As I already explained my journey to St. Andrews, I won’t talk about that anymore. It took me about 5 hours from Vienna to Edinburgh including the layover in Heathrow. When I got off the Airlink shuttle, I was hit by a little something people would call culture shock. How that? Well, people are driving on the wrong side of the road. Drivers don’t care about pedestrians who intend to cross the street (That is very Romain of them) and, oh, did I mention Scottish people do not speak what I call proper English? I mean, yes, they consider it as a strong accent, but if you never heard someone speak Scottish a-n-d you want to have an idea what they are talking about (e.g.: buying tickets for the train, asking for platforms of departing trains), you have to ask them politely to repeat what they just mumbled, crackled and bumbled.

So I finally arrived in St. Andrews, I finally met Julia after not seeing each other in real life for on year and a half (we did see each other in Skype life). Quite awesome.

We had dinner in a French restaurant called Rendez-vous (scandalous) where they actually offer a broad selection of everything Italian (paninis, pizza, pasta & Co). No French escargot for poor Philipp. Bummer. Oh and on top of making fun about the misnaming of their restaurant, we were talking about of our Romain adventure including awesome paninis.

Day Two: The German Test

Sleeping in a bit sounded good to me. It’s not like I was jet-lagged, but going to bed at 10 something (that is 11 !!! for me) helped my recreation. The sleeping bag keeps everything pretty warm during the night. There is one fatal - if I say fatal, I mean it - flaw: If I turn around without loosing the head opening, then it tends to strangle me. I was strangled twice that night - unsuccessfully.

Julia had this oh so important German test we had to cram for several hours. Sarcasm blinker go on and off! We had a brekkie (that’s breakfast in Rachel speak) ish lunch at Northpoint. A great coffee shop. Somewhat cliché, but that’s what pretty much the rest of St. Andrews looks like. As I said, it’s very Harry potter landish, so if you’re into it, go visit Julia. The lawns are surprisingly green, they can be even flashier but it hasn’t rained in a week. You’d think that they pump tons of fertilizers into their lawns, but truth is, they just don’t have to. Yeah, lawns are a mysterious thing, seems like the Lawngod is on their side.

Speaking of the devil God, the Baptists’ church people wanted to buy us into going to church and attend services that are themed with the crucial question “Why virgin birth was necessary.” On top of that, they made an apostrophe mistake, which is an abuse that I couldn’t help but notice. Its a pretty obviou’s o’ne, i’sn’t it’?

Tesko’s Mac and Cheese turned out to be my dinner. Jul had a lasagne. I came to one damn astonishing conclusion: It tastes like crap, but once you finish it, the chemicals in it give you a “psychological high” (as Rachel pointed out) and you want moooore. In the evening we ended up having long talks in the hallway about pretty much everything with some friends of Julia. It wouldn’t have stopped abruptly if it wasn’t for that young lady who wanted to get sleep. I think she was the one that stumped upon our feets getting back from clubbing pubbing, but then just wanted to get some sort of rest.

Day Three: “There Are Like Three Sheep In There”

“There really warm, there are like three sheep in there” — Getting into the castle for students is free if they are wearing those robes that rather look like superhero robes. Putting them on reminded me of me breaking my leg. How that? I dressed up as batman and jumped from the couch and somehow had a challenging landing that made me wind up in the hospital 4 days later. Nice ex course, Philipp.

The castle and the cathedral are quite different from what I saw in Austria. Notice the green green lawn.

Day Four: Edinburgh

Arriving at Edinburgh City center when I was getting on the train for Leuchars I already had an idea of what the city looks like. The city’s castle can be seen from most parts of the city since it is located on a hill. We had lunch in this charity cafe called Forest Cafe. I had some vegan meal and Julia dug in a burrito. The Royal mile led us to the Edinburgh castle that has pretty amazing and valuable exhibitions. The Scotish crown jewels for example. We also went through this War museum (yeah, not so my thing to do) and a prison. This was pretty interesting because you could read the carvings of inmates. After Alcatraz I was so lucky that I got out of this unhappy place, although it was fairly interesting.

After visiting the castle we were wandering through a German Christmas market, had Mulled Wine and got lost in the streets of Edinburgh. Not exactly lost, but deorientated. We ran in circles. Thanks to the very professional tour guide.

I finally got to know the columns I found on the internet. Long story. Don’t ask.

Life sometimes is full of irony. We had dinner at this awesome fancy French cafe, called Moulin Cafe Rouge. Who would have thought 2 years ago, that Philipp and Julia would order in a French café. I put on my French-American-English Accent. Pull-ay grill-eh. That’s what I had for dinner (Poule Grillé on Cesar Salad).

Day Five & Six: Relax and Hang

Here are some nice quotes that crack me up every s-i-n-g-l-e time I read them :)

“Can I have a rubber?” - “Ummmm, sorry, what?” - One awkward moment there.

Rachel: “Ok, we’ll go upstairs and get back to work” - That guy: “Right, let’s go make cards” - The Califoria girl: “Is that a euphemism?” — They might be talking about christmas cards, or who knows…

“Oh, you’re from Australia. Niiiiiice” - “No, I am from Austria. No kangaroos!”

Monday evening we had our “last supper”. We went for a classy choice of meal. Mac and Cheese.

On Tuesday I had to say “See ya, Jul” which sort of sucked. It felt good and hereby I want to thank you (and Rachel) for having me stay in your room. If the Porter is reading this, I didn’t spend the night inside Sally’s* (no pun intended).

* Sally’s is the name of the dormitory where Jul and other St Andrews students are accommodated.

Visit my gallery that houses my impressions and pictures of my first the Sco-ish Experience.