St. Andrews

 

Right, now you're really getting a curve ball from me. Definitely thinking outside the box. Branching out to unknown and uncharted territory. Travel. A review, of a place I've been to. Wow. Yet another first for this blog, possibly the WILDEST ever! Not just any place mind you. This place (as depicted by the usual highly amateurish photos that accompany me going on about being out and about) is St.Andrews, Fife, Scotland. *FREEDOM!* Sorry, couldn't resist.

Racial insensitivity and typing "turrets" aside, I enjoyed my time in St. Andrews. The circumstances of how I came to be there are pretty boring and irrelevant here really, sufficed to say I went there and back in a day, thus consequentially I only spent a matter of an hour or two in the actual town of St. Andrews itself. What's more it was on a normal Wednesday afternoon, nothing particularly unusual was occurring, and the weather was mostly a compendium of wet and windy throughout the day.
I know, gripping stuff. The sure-fire path to a spectacular experience. And yet, despite all the elements, circumstances and constraints that were set upon me, the place still made quite an impression on me regardless. Yes, I was aware of the history, the pedigree (golfing, academic, all that jazz) and the reputation of the place, but none of that was really detrimental; neither building me up to knock me down when I got there, nor do I think blinding be with proud and touristy blinkers. It was just another consistent and integral thread to the tapestry of the place. As I said, I wasn't there long, so if anything I just stuck to the main core of St.Andrews, if such an area exists. Still it charmed me in an unusual way. The architecture, the mix of the well known and the unknown, of originality and mundane, the atmosphere, the archaeology, hospitality, history, people culture; it all felt like it was fed through the feel of the place.

As I say, I wasn't there for very long, and I don't think I truly saw St.Andrew in it's usual state of student, tourist, and golfer saturation (though I did see a healthy smattering of all these elements). However, I would happily live there. I feel that if it felt good to walk around St.Andrews on a cold, grey wet Wednesday afternoon, to see it in it's prime, however and whenever that may be, would be quite something.