Suz's Intense Vacation

A couple months ago when Miles decided he was going to come visit me while I was here I asked him if he would like to go on a weekend trip somewhere while he was here. His immediate response was St. Andrews. Didn't even have to think about it. A couple times I tried to see, since he had had more time to think about it, if he wanted to go someplace else. His answer was always the same: St. Andrews. Thank goodness it was! We literally had the best time. It is the most beautiful place I have ever been, I loved the town, and there was so much to do! The irony of it was that we were thinking we might end up having to take a day-trip someplace else on Saturday because we would get bored but actually by the morning we left we were wishing we had a few more days to get everything in that we wanted to do! Haha we have already decided we are going back someday.

I had heard from my Aunt Julie via my grandmother that the train ride to Edinburgh from London up the eastern coast of England was the most beautiful train ride ever and she was right! It got progressively more and more beautiful as we went north, but the prettiest part, for me at least, was the section after Edinburgh before we got to our train stop at Leuchars.

Out the window on the train

Then, 5 hours and 40 minutes later, we finally made it to Leuchars!

Yay!

Then disaster struck. Literally seconds after I took this picture my camera decided it was done taking pictures. It had been on the way out this whole summer. Sometimes it wouldn't turn on, a piece of the outer covering fell off without me noticing while we were in Florence, buttons wouldn't work, sometimes it wouldn't focus unless I turned if off and then back on. Well as I was handing it to Miles it turned off and wouldn't turn back on. It would kind of try and the lens would open up halfway and would come out halfway but then would stick and not finish turning on. The screen wouldn't turn on. I tried charging it to no avail. Still the same problem. Well, there was NO way I was going to be in St. Andrews without a camera, so the next morning I woke up and went to get a new one. £150 later, I was ready for action with my brand new Panasonic Lumix. I LOVE my new camera! And lots sturdier than my poor Coolpix.

After that one little hiccup, our trip progressed again smoothly. That day we had decided we were going to walk the Old Course, which is the oldest golf course in the world, where people have been playing golf for 6 centuries! It took us about 3:30 hours but it was totally worth it.

That morning on our way to the golf course!

Right on the beach

Just the St. Andrews clubhouse

Trail to the Old Course!

The Old Course!

My faithful navigator

All the sand traps were super deep

Notice the fairways and the greens look pretty much exactly the same

On the side of the trail. Eaten about 2 seconds after this picture was taken. Photo cred goes to Miles R. Larkin.

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Taller than me

Taller than Miles!!

Swilken Bridge with the Old Course Hotel in the background.


Swilken Bridge and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club/the 18th hole of the Old Course

That basically took all day...So that night we went to go to dinner but ended up walking around the town and saw the castle and the cathedral ruins (which we wanted to go back the next morning and actually walk around in but we didn't have time before we needed to catch the train) St. Andrews University buildings, and went down to the harbor. That was soo just gorgeous and beautiful. That night we couldn't find a pub we wanted to eat at so guess what we had...Italian food! Haha as if I hadn't already eaten enough of that this trip. But it really was so good.

St. Andrews!

What if you went to school here?

More St. Andrews

More school buildings

Who could pay attention in class if this was your view?

The castle ruins

Castle

My fiance is so handsome

Walls to the cathedral grounds

Cathedral ruins

Crab traps at the harbor

Harbor


I love St. Andrews

And we found some people folk dancing. Awesome.

The next morning we had 2 jobs. Take a picture on Swilken Bridge, and go to the beach. Done and done.

Jellyfish!!

Tomorrow, Stonehenge.

Wednesday morning Miles got here! I missed him so much and it's so good to get to see him! Thankfully he was smart and took the tube to get here in time to drop off his stuff and then come to the Tower of London with us. Plus it was lucky because there were 2 extra spots on our private tour part so he got to come with us for that too! The Tower really was so amazing. We got to see all kinds of armor that the kings of England wore. A lot of it was Henry VIII's. It was pretty funny because we got to see the progression in his armor of how fat he eventually got. We also went into 2 private areas, a tower where prisoner's were held attached to the Warden's house which was the second oldest building on site! The other place we went was the gate tower. There was a painting in the gate keeper's room that was painted in the 1300s! It was really cool but we couldn't take pictures so I don't have a picture for you. But the tile that they found on the floor of that room during Henry VIII's time was quote "acid yellow and purple." Wow. But it was really awesome because they only can let a certain number of people in there every few weeks or months because the dampness in our breath will erode away the paint. It was my favorite part of the trip to the tower definitely.

Outside the Tower of London.

Inside the gates

The White Tower. Built by William the Conqueror, maybe in 1066 or close to it?

Henry VIII's armor before he got fat.


The Warden's house.

Oh yeah and that night Miles and I had some amazing fish and chips...

yum :)

So the next day my English class went to Canterbury to see the cathedral there because we just finished reading Muder in the Cathedral about Thomas A. Becket who was the archbishop of Canterbury in 1170 and was murdered by the king and then made a saint. It was incredible! The cathedral was GORGEOUS. In the middle ages there was a giant shrine to St. Thomas in the cathedral that people would travel to from all over England, but when Henry VIII decided he wanted to be head of the church he went around and destroyed a lot of the catholic icons, relics, and even churches. That was was one of the ones he destroyed but he didn't get rid of the cathedral!