Nice tae meit ye, Scotland!: 20140423 Left-side drive to St. Andrews

Wednesday morning brought us beautiful warm weather for our travel from Edinburgh to St. Andrews. We took a bus to the airport, where we picked up our rental car. Originally I'd thought it would be fun to take the tram to the airport since we'd seen so many of them running back and forth to downtown, but it turns out they're all empty for a reason - the entire system is brand new and is only being tested. So weird to see a full schedule of trams running all day long....empty.

The airport’s billboard marketing campaign is wonderful (and it's driving me crazy that I can't find any images of it on the web). EDI’s control tower is stunningly iconic, and the campaign puts images of the tower in the middle of cities and other destinations all over the world as a way to advertise its non-stop flights.

Allen is doing all the driving. I questioned his choice of a Vauxhall with a manual transmission, but it didn’t take him long for him to master the backwardness of it all. However, for these first few days, we are “both” driving, with me trying to pay as much attention as possible alongside him. We both got a quick and impressive lesson five minutes away from the airport when we made a left turn on a green light, only to then see the Yield sign as traffic zoomed by us from the right. A hard brake and thinking ensued. We are also both grateful for the clear GPS navigation his phone provides, which allows me to tandem-drive with him.

The trip from Edinburgh to St. Andrews is less than two hours, but Allen learned a lot, as our route took us along both the M90 motorway and scenic backcountry roads. It was bright and warm all the way until about ten miles out of St. Andrews, when the microclimate kicked in - chilly and dense fog.

The fog made for a perfect first impression of the St. Andrews abbey...

...which was filled with middle and high schoolers gathered, I surmised, for after-school socializing...

Loved standing along the sea cliff and watching the fulmars come in for landings. They're nesting in the cliff nooks at this time of year.

Stealing from Wikipedia:
1. The town is home to the University of St Andrews, the third oldest university in the English-speaking world and the oldest in Scotland. The University is an integral part of the burgh, and during term time students make up approximately one third of the town's population.

2. There has been an important church in St Andrews since at least the 8th century, and a bishopric since at least the 11th century. The burgh became the ecclesiastical capital of Scotland, a position which was held until the Scottish Reformation. The famous cathedral, the largest in Scotland, now lies in ruins.

3. St Andrews is also known worldwide as the "home of golf". This is in part because the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, founded in 1754, exercises legislative authority over the game worldwide (except in the United States and Mexico), and also because the famous links (acquired by the town in 1894) is the most frequent venue forThe Open Championship, the oldest of golf's four major championships. Visitors travel to St Andrews in great numbers for several courses ranked amongst the finest in the world, as well as for the sandy beaches.

We stumbled right onto the St. Andrews campus and Allen-appropriate department buildings.

We also visited the university's museum, which featured exhibits on some famous alums.

Our bed-and-breakfast, Kinkell House, recommend by Deb Pendleton, Nat's mom, was a few miles from downtown. It's a farm still raising sheep and beef, but its main income comes now from being an event complex, hosting weddings and social gatherings and the like for up to 2,000 people. Nat has been here several times for university social events.