Whew!

Alrighty! So this week and next week are more or less the Strathclyde equivalent of Clemson midterms. However, most of my classes just have one big test at the end so right now there are a lot of group projects/reports. For example today in value theories we did a report and I got to be the "American Representative" flown in that day for that speech about the love canal incident (an event which happened in America). I think I nailed it...but, so far the Scottish as a whole are not very entertaining speakers. Of course it beats the one girl from Slovakia or somewhere like that, she reallllllly struggled, the worst part was teams only had to send a few people up to present it wasn't like they needed to send the person up who couldn't communicate very well...I think it might cost them points in the end.
Anyway, enough about class lets talk about the weather. I hear it's like 80 degrees back home and people are getting sun burnt. I want everyone to know that I actually saw the sun today...through the downpour of chilling rain. Actually, I'm really not jealous I don't miss the hot humid sweatyness one bit...yet.
OK so this weekend we (Me, Scott, Mike, Kristen, and Kelsey) went to St. Andrews via bus. It was pretty, but in a calmer way than the other places I've been, on the bright side it's full of history. Oh and the smell of the ocean brought back lots of memories...although some effect is lost here because the sun is not warming the skin. We explored the city and visited the coast then bought tickets to see the ruins of the castle and cathedral. Apparently they built the cathedral poorly and it was plagued with problems (like falling apart). The tickets we bought let us climb to the top of an ancient cathedral tower. Kelsey counted exactly 161 steps on the way back down from the top. I had forgotten what the feeling of dizziness felt like, but I was reminded about half way down that incredibly steep spiral staircase...why does it all turn only one direction?.
The Castle ruins were also very interested. I was highly disappointed, although I expected to be, that they block off all the exciting areas from the public (for example the bottle neck dungeon). This castle did, however, have an underground cave that was dug as a counter mine to stop the enemy from digging under the castle. This too however was walled off at one point (about 150 feet in), but at least I got a taste of caving which has become one of my favorite activities as of late.
We were running low on daylight and we wanted to see the old course during the day so we walked a little less than a mile to the other side of St. Andrews. We had to inquire to find the old course...there is also the new course (which is ironically several hundred years old as well) and one other course the name I have forgotten. After getting pointed in the right direction we walked down a path that jogged along side the old course. As we got really far away from any form of shelter it decided to rain. After being here for a month and a half being wet and cold is just normal so no one complained and we kept on going. We were actually searching for a specific bridge that is often on T.V. when the tours come through the Old course. We finally got out Scott's newly bought post card which featured said bridge and deduced that it had to be back where we came from.
At this point we cut out to the beach for the walk back. This Spot on St. Andrews beach is where they filmed the opening scene of "Chariots of Fire" so naturally we all took turns getting pictures running down the beach.
Anyway, we walked the beach back to the club house and found the bridge, got pictures then finished up by getting dinner in town. I got haggis on a pepperoni pizza which was actually not a bad decision. I did, however, feel for Kristen who bought an entire dinner consisting mostly of haggis. She didn't finish it...I think we all know why. It rained the entire two hour bus ride back, which was actually rather peaceful...I still have not figured out how to sleep in a bus, but it is a goal for the future.
Sunday Mike, Kelsey, Scott and I went to a Presbyterian church called the Tron (Scott's choice...my choice last week, unfortunately, was a self help doctrine teaching charismatic church...neither of us enjoyed it.) the Tron is located in a historic church building and the seating is really cool. We ended up in the horseshoe shaped balcony which is just slightly higher than the preachers pedestal. In standard Presbyterian fashion we sang hymns from a hymnal (most of which strike me as slow and boring, but I think everyone else enjoyed it). I did, however, find the teaching to be founded in scripture which was very pleasant after last week.
That's about it since my last post. Two other boring updates: there is an unfortunate hole in the seat of one of my favorite jeans that I've just noticed, and I did laundry again today.
Oh and finally, I found a Yorkie bar so I bought it and ate half then shared it with the guys. It's pretty much strait milk chocolate, not very exciting for a bar that denies females the right to eat it.