Last day

How is it already our last day?  The time has flown but when I look back at what we've done I'm overwhelmed a little.  We've done a lot.  And yet it doesn't feel like it.  I guess that's a sign of a good trip, when you don't feel exhausted at the end and are itching to get home.  It helps that Nicole is at school and Dom has popped in to take care of the cats with Lia's help.  As usual, we are already thinking about work and what is going to happen when we get home.  I try to stop myself and be here, in the last moments but, it's hard.

Today we drove into St. Andrew's town from our hotel, about 10 minutes away. We missed breakfast so were on the hunt, again, for sausage and/or bacon rolls.  We were looking for these in Edinburgh too and were skunked.  Alas, skunked again.  We walked and walked and googled and looked at menus to finally find a place with takeaway that said "sausage roll".  Score!!  When Walt orders she says, anything on it? and we say, nope, thinking what would you put on it?  Well turns out quite a bit.  Maybe some cheese or tomato or...anything really considering what we got was a roll with two sausages on it. Heated. That's it.  Walt was so pissed and hangry by this point.  I was laughing because it's the first time we have had to deal with food like that.  I told him, don't be mad, these will be the best damn sausage rolls you've ever had.  He wasn't buying it. But guess what? They weren't bad.  They weren't great, but not bad either.  Parking.  Parking is an issue in St. Andrews.  You have to pay to park and it's 1.20 to park for an hour and 2.40 for two hours.  But they only accept cash in the form of coins and don't give change.  We went back to the parking meter 4 separate times today. So annoying and one of the things that had Walt on edge today.  The other?  I made him walk away from golf on, none other than, THE OLD COURSE! THE BIRTHPLACE OF GOLF! THE GOLFERS MECCA!! just so that we could go visit St. Andrew's Castle and then St. Andrew's Cathedral with a stop off at St. Andrew's University and Chapel.  He hated me.  At one point during the audio tour at the castle listening to someone pretend to be an archbishop from the 1300s reenact his time at the castle, I thought he was going to lose it.  His face was pinched, his posture was taut, and he was trying to be so patient wandering around the ruins. God bless this man. I suggested we ditch and he couldn't get out of there fast enough. We really tried to picture this town minus all the buildings with only the castle and the cathedral for hundreds of miles.  In our mind's eye it was impressive.  You can actually picture it while standing on the cliffs between the two massive structures.  The cathedral is impressive, even though it is ruins.  I bet it was knee buckling awesome back in its time to the average pilgrim.  I found the graveyard interesting, Walt found it creepy as anything.

"Isn't this so cool? Look at all these gravestones.  Some of them are so old.  I wonder which one is the oldest? Look this one is from 1812."
"Who cares? This is weird.  People are buried here. This is creepy."
"I know, but they're really old and so weathered. Super cool. Let's just look."
"Not cool Sash, just creepy. Can we go? Why are we walking around here? We are walking on people's graves."
Fine, but I want to climb the tower with sweeping views of the ocean and St. Andrew's town.
"Babe, should we do it?"
Walt...stares off at the ocean ignoring me
"Babe? It looks cool right? We should do it.  I bet the views are amazing."
Walt, staring at nothing....ignores me
"So that's a no?  You're not into it?"
"No Sash, I mean we can if you really want to.  I guess we can walk all the way over to the museum to get our token then walk all the way back. If you really want to."
The museum was seriously like 25 yards away.  *roll eyes*
So we did it! We climbed all 137 steps straight up, huffing and puffing.  When we got to the top I was amazed. Oh my gosh, the ocean, the town, the views!!
30 seconds later Walt goes, "you ready to head down?" NO!
I look and look, take pics, snap the kids, Walt..."so you ready to head down?'
I convince him to take a selfie with me, we read the diagram, I take a few more pics, 2 minutes in, "you ready to head down?"  I'm pretty sure we spent all of 5 minutes up there.  Maybe 7.  But it was amazing and cool to see all of it in front of our eyes, again imaging the place 100s of years ago.  Mind boggling.
After this, after he learned about "historical shit" once again, I promised him we'd head back to the Link's Club House and we would just hang and watch golf.  So that's what we did.  It was actually fun because I love watching golf and all the people playing about as well as I do.  Walt and I realized that you don't need an amazing handicap to play here.  I don't know why I thought you did. Watching people tee off at hole one was hilarious. All these guys with their impressive clubs and outfits, walking up, flexing, doing the routine before teeing off then....shank.  Right into the ditch, or only going 20 yards to the right.  It was embarrassing for them.  And encouraging for me!  So maybe next time.  As I type Walt is researching how to secure a tee time at the old course.  As of today though, I can't imagine playing here.  Not for the difficulty, but for the weather.  When I said yesterday was cold, I was unaware.  TODAY, today was cold. Today was like New York City in February with a down, ankle length coat, kind of cold.  Only add wind and subtract the jacket.  Freezing. I honestly can't imagine living here year round. Walt just kept tripping out on all the girls in skirts or the guys wearing shorts.  We were like, what's wrong with you?  You're not tough!! No one is tougher than the wind and the cold, idiots.  Anyway, we could have headed back to the hotel for an hour before our 6:15 dinner reso at Forgan's but that seemed silly so we squeeked in early, ate too much as usual and headed back to pack. Oh and we used the mussel method of that old dude from the other night.  Did I mention that?  I don't think so so here's how it went. I was facing this table with an older couple.  He ordered the mussels.  We've noticed they don't provide mussel forks, you know the little ones?  This bugged Walt so I was watching this guy to see how he fared.  I'll tell you, he blew my mind.  Now maybe this is a well known thing but not to me.  He chose one mussel from the batch and this was his "utensil" for the rest.  He used it in a pinching method to not only pick a mussel up from the bowl but to reach in and grab the meat. Then he would just barely dip it into some kind of mustard sauce they provided and eat it.  Then he would take his bread, dip a wee corner of it into the broth and eat it.  Repeat.  Grab, pull, dip, eat, dip, eat...again. I watched him for 15 or so minutes just repeat this routine.  He was methodical in his approach to eating mussels so I tried it tonight.  It was actually perfect and even Walt thought so. So there you go, tip for the day.  Tomorrow we have an hour or so drive to Edinburgh airport, quick flight to London, then off to San Diego.  Dom is picking us up and I can't wait to squeeze him AND the cats. Thanks for joining us on our Scottish journey.  Slàinte mhath! *Raise glasses and cheers*

Room view this am

The Strands, basically the cliff street along the ocean

Old course and the Old Course Hotel in the distance

Hole one tee

Bunch of dorks looking good teeing off but sucking

Little bit cold

18the hole.  Know why there are 18 holes on a course? Because that's how many would fit here on the old course and every other course was patterned after this one. 

So I'm basically telling him that he never listens to anything I say.  I told him this was the famous course, the one where the open is played every 5 years and he won't believe me.  He thinks it's not fancy enough or good enough. He asks the starter in the building behind us and guess what? OF COURSE IT IS!!! I do research.  Sheeeeiiiiittt

Smiling after the "conversation"

Doing the walk

I'm not sure if you can see how damn red and cold my fingers are.

This is called a wynd, rhimes with mind, little streets between the houses and main streets.  Darling

Sneaky pics at St. Andrew's church. There was a ceremony happening but the dude let us sneak in.

University of St. Andrews

Castle views

He's asked everyone about surf. He's had responses ranging from basically, "what's that?" to "we don't do that here". Always searching. 

Creepy graveyard

Cathedral ruins

You ready to head down?

So we going to head down now?

This was the tower. We were at the very top.

He wanted a pic, I was freezing. Nice face.

You deserve this Walt!!! Thanks for hanging in there.  No more learning, I promise.

It was that cold

Restaurant entrance

This is the american section at the grocery store.  I'm embarrassed

View from our room tonight. 

Kingarrock

Before I even get started I just want to say, bedding makes the difference. Yes, the Fairmont is a totally chichi hotel and not our style at all. From the bellman who took our bags to the girl at the check-in counter (who was sweet as pie btw), to the over the top waiter at the restaurant....it's everything I hate.  BUT, that being said, the bedding IS IT.  Down comforters and down pillows.  Sounds simple, sounds normal but you try sleeping without them for over a week and you'll realize how much you need it. Well I need it.  I climbed into bed tonight and did a little happy dance and told Walt I am going to sleep like the dead tonight.  Yeeewww So excited. Not that I haven't slept well, especially at Greystones, but I just have a feeling I'm going to REALLY sleep well tonight.  Speaking of Greystones, that place is heaven.  It's one of the most beautiful, serene places I've ever stayed.  The owners were the nicest people and the included breakfast was over the top.  Worth a trip back just to stay there. 

We left there this morning and headed toward St. Andrews.  The plan was to check in to the hotel then drive back to Kingarrock.  We ended up getting waylaid by the sheep.  I was dying to pet the baby lambs.  I kept saying, pull off, pull off here, now here, and he kept ignoring me until finally he did.  I went up to the fence and damned if the little jerks just stared at me then ran away.  They ALL ran away, as in the WHOLE herd of them.  Not sure why I looked so scary but off they went while I begged and pleaded for them to come back so I could steal a baby and take it home with me.  It was disappointing.  The other disappointing situation regarding sheep was that when we finally (more later) arrived at Kingarrock, the guy told us that the sheep keep the rough down and wander around the course all day making sure it's trimmed up. But yesterday, they put the sheep away because they are going to get their "summer haircut" and they'll be back out next week.  Oh of all the luck.  I could have had my crack at them all day.  But better luck for us was that Walt and I were the only two checked in to play golf today.  All day, just us.  No one before, no one after.  This is a golfer's dream. The whole course to ourselves?  Yes please.  Getting to Kingarrock was a little bit of a challenge. Besides having to deal with Walt ignoring the speed limits again, almost rear ending a parked car and running our car up the curb on the left side of the highway at God only knows what speed, GPS sent us to a little neighborhood and said, "you've arrived at your destination" when we pulled up in front of what looked like a retiree community of row houses.  Or according to Walt, "the low income neighborhood".  I'm pretty sure it was just row houses, he doesn't watch enough BBC.  We were so worried about arriving too early at the golf place and it now looked like we were going to be late. I searched their website until I found another address and off we went again.  It was like finding a needle in a haystack. We kept driving around this area and finally found a road that led a parking lot but there was another road and a cottage and no golf in sight.  We finally just parked and decided to head off to find it on foot.  And have I mentioned the weather? Remember yesterday's balmy 70?  Today it was a brisk, windy 55.  Fuh-ree-zing.  At one point I had on my vest and my jacket and gloves and a beanie.  Impossible to golf in all that so I pared it down to a jacket and hat.  Still freezing, like shivering can't feel your hands snot running down your face kinda cold.  Ah, THIS was the weather everyone talks about.  We are finally experiencing it.  It's pretty brutal. Eventually we find the place and we get our intro to hickory golf.  https://www.nts.org.uk/Kingarrock-Hickory-Golf/About/History  If you're really interested.  It's an amazing place with a ton of history and you can tell that the guy who checked us in was passionate about it.  I loved learning about the family and picturing them playing here in their front yard whenever they wanted.  The original rules were posted inside the clubhouse.  The funniest two were that you could have your legal spouse come out with you and SHE could be your caddy.  Men were the only ones allowed to play.  The other funny rule was that you had to "lose" a ball somewhere when you were playing and write a letter to Mr. Sharp, who allowed the public to play his private course, detailing exactly where you "lost" your ball.   And if you lost another ball while playing, you had to detail how and where and why you lost it.  ie "Mr. Sharp, I shanked my drive on hole number two and my ball is in the trees to the right".  I thought that was really funny he required that.  It was basically his tax or fee for playing the course.  Playing with authentic balls and hickory clubs was humbling.  Walt did great though.  Me? Not so much.  I putted well though.  I guess I don't need a Scotty Cameron, I only need a piece of wood with a hunk of metal welded to the end.  Walt really enjoyed his day.  I knew I hit it out of the park with this destination when he told me no less than 40 times how great today was, how much fun he had, how amazing it was playing alone, how gorgeous the scenery was, how great today was, how much fun he had.... I'm so happy he loved it so much.  It really was an experience I'll never forget and we both feel so blessed to have played here.  Again, we were like, "Who are we? How is this our life? How did we get so lucky?"  Just never taking a minute for granted not only to experience this amazing country but to do it together.  Such a great time.  Regardless of the reckless, over the top, annoying, almost can't stand it, driving, it's been great.  So here we are at St. Andrew's.  I'm reminding myself that we are here because we like golf and this is the birthplace of the sport. Tomorrow we will survey the old course, maybe for future play, probably not.  Then a wee walk in town following Rick Steve's guide.  Dinner at Fogart's then pack and get ready to head home.  Just putting that all in there because I'll probably not have much to talk about or the time to do it.  Unless I run into some famous royal family members that go to uni here....fingers crossed. Oh and I forgot to mention when we finished the round, there was ginger beer and shortbread cookies waiting for us as a treat.  Delicious.

Sheep!!

and the views

Highland Cattle.  Look as I zoom in.  They just stared at me.  Angrily