Week Two: The Spa, The Law, and Some Other Things I Saw

 PART ONE: Classes

Monday was a full day in St Andrews.  After Latin and Palaeography, I had a few hours of spare reading time before I met with the supervisor of my Directed Study, who assigned me more reading.  Rather than narrowing in on a topic, I'm actually expanding, both geographically and temporally.  So I really hope I find something specific to do by next Monday.

Tuesday's Latin class was followed by my core module which sort of overlapped with the palaeography we've been doing.  So nothing really new there.  After class, we went to the spa at the Old Course Hotel.  During Fresher's Week, people were handing out coupons for a free 2-hr use of the spa facilities: pool, jacuzzi, sauna.  One of my flat mates grabbed one, and the rest of us were convinced there'd be some kind of catch or fee, but nope, absolutely free.  They also had this 8-feet deep tank of cold water that reminded me of the tank they put Luke in after Han rescues him from the snowy wastes of Hoth.  We now interrupt this blog post for a sci-fi joke:  

What's the internal body temperature of a Tauntaun?  

Luke warm.

That afternoon was then spent swimming before a postgraduate history meet and greet in the Undercroft with free wine and crisps.

On Wednesday, I stayed in Dundee and did some reading, both at home and in the nearby Dudhope Park (pictures to the left) which has a castle (top) and a cannon (bottom).

PART TWO: The Ascent

Two things you should know.  

First, 25 September, 1915: The Battle of Loos.   It was a British offensive on the Western Front, lasting well into October before ending in a British defeat.  It was also a battle in which many Black Watch (among several others) lost there lives.  

Secondly, in Dundee is a place called The Law.  It is an extinct volcano which was the sight of early settlement dating back to 1500BC, later Roman settlement (possibly as a lookout of some sort), and now is home to a large war memorial commemorating both World Wars.

Because Thursday was the anniversary of the Battle of Loos, the war memorial was to be lit, and I figured this would be the perfect day to check it out.  It's a relatively short walk from where I live, just up the hill, through Dudhope Park, up another hill, and there you are!  I took over 100 pictures on the walk, so I tried to be selective in posting them below.

1st Flight of stairs

2nd flight of stairs

3rd flight of stairs

PART THREE:  The Top

After three ramp/stair sets in a narrow alley, the path spills out onto a grassy area with a stand of jack pine on the right, and a more varied miniature wood to the left which curls around the North side of the hill.  I was having troubles formatting the photos, so some are out of order, but they're of The Law itself, the surrounding greenery and some of the views from the heights.  Also, if you didn't already know, clicking on a picture will bring it up in full-size in a picture-viewing mode which you can navigate with your arrow-keys.

A view of the monument between some trees.

View from the grassy area (looking South toward the Tay).  I know what you're thinking, and despite the blue in the sky, I assure you, this is still in Scotland!

Cool door on the monument

East-facing view

Northwest-facing view

West-facing view

View of the monument from the grassy hill

South-facing view (the bridge in the top left takes you across the Tay into Fife)

South (and slightly East)-facing view.  Apparently you can see St. Andrews on a clear day, but I think you'd actually have to be higher up due to the way the land curves in on itself.

View of the monument from the final staircase leading up to it

View of Fife (Southward across the Tay) and the rail bridge from beside the monument

The monument, the Tay in the background

The final staircase up the hill to the monument

The top of the monument.  If you look REALLY closely, you can see the flame peaking out of the top

Interesting bricks in the grass

Path through some trees and shrubs

Nice flowers growing out of one of the walls on the path with the stairs

Trees

Trees

Path in the trees

After The Law I had band in the evening which was just as awesome as last week (our first gig is 6 October which is only a little over a week away).  Friday I went to Crail for Old Norse which is an really stunning little town right on the ocean (gotta bring my camera next time).  Our prof hosted us in his study (more of a library) with a lovely bay window overlooking the sea.  We ended up covering more on English philology than any Old Norse, but it's good background info. to have, to understand all the sound changes and more easily associate Old Norse words with modern cognates.  Today and tomorrow will be reading and studying.  Also, my application to be one of the writers for the History Society's Historical Journal was accepted, so I'll be going to an introductory meeting for that on Wednesday.

Classes

I've finished my first week of classes!

We started pretty early on Monday.  We planned to leave at 8:15 so we'd have plenty of time to get to our first class early.  The class started at 9:30 and the longest the bus ride had ever taken up to that point had been a little less than 40 minutes.  We got to the bus on time and everything, but we hadn't really accounted for rush hour, and the bus ride took like an hour and a half.  Add a 5-minute walk and we were almost half an hour late to our first class (great start!).  The only consolation was that one other student was later than us.

That first class was Latin, and the prof is quite a character.  He was born in India, seems kind of like a stuffy old Brit, but wears a kilt everyday, and is actually quite easy-going despite acting so formal all the time.  All the other profs call him by his full name too, so that just adds to his whole unique persona.  He also goes VERY FAST!  The class itself is huge.  It's Latin for all the postgrads and they haven't split it into the varying levels yet, so there are over 30 people in the class.  We had to sit on the floor, but I was right by the radiator so I didn't mind.

After class, we had a short break before Palaeography and Manuscript Studies.  This class is also quite large as it's open to both Mediaeval Studies and Mediaeval History Masters students, so there are just shy of 20 students.  The class seems really cool: we get to work with manuscripts and most of our assignments will be analysing and transcribing texts.  It will be quite difficult however, as very few of the texts are in languages I understand, and each has its own system of abbreviations.

In the afternoon is my directed reading with Alex Woolf who is really awesome and easy to talk history with.  This week he has me reading viking runes.  FUN!  I think the directed reading will be my favourite course because it's so informal and more about how interesting history is than anything else, but it does include a tonne of reading.

Future Mondays will be capped off with seminars, usually from visiting professors, but they haven't started yet.


The next morning we woke up even earlier and left at 7:45.  This was also a mistake.  We somehow must've entered a wormhole on the way to school because we got there in only 20 minutes.  Next week we'll try 8:00.  Tuesday starts with Latin as well, immediately followed by the Mediaeval Studies core module which is looking at the Nibelungenlied this semester.  Our first class was actually pretty disappointing.  We just discussed how 'mediaeval' or 'middle ages' are problematic terms but they serve a purpose anyway.  And there I was expecting to be dumbfounded by our hardcore analysis of the readings we had done.  We've only had the one class though, so I'm sure it'll pick up this week.  And that's it.  Tuesday 13:00 I finish all formal teaching for the week.


On Wednesdays and Fridays I'll have meetings with an Old Norse reading group which seems awesome after our introductory meeting.  Friday sessions are at the prof's house so we can 'feel comfortable around all his books...and his cat'.  On Wednesdays in the future, there will also be Postgrad seminars and pub quizzes afterwards apparently.

Today (Thursday) was spent reading.  As will tomorrow be.  Saturday as well (unless we decide to take a day trip somewhere with our expensive bus passes).  And Sunday will be filled with—you've guessed it—reading!

This evening (in 10 minutes) I'll be heading off to the Music Centre at the University of Dundee, here in town, to see about joining their Big Band.

Update:  I got back from a 2-hour big band practice and it was awesome!  They threw us right into things with about 15 songs with a 10 minute break in the middle.  We're playing a lot hits like Stevie Wonder, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, etc.  I haven't played a single piece on the set list before and I've heard only a little over half of the tunes.  And despite barely playing the last 3 years, I actully kept up pretty well.  They are all really good, and they even have a few singers who join us for some songs.  I'll definitely be going back every Thursday.

BUS 99!

West Sands

West Sands

Just a quick update with a few more pictures.

The Ocean

I rode the 99 down to St Andrews on Wednesday at 10:00 for the first meeting for my programme.  Here we were kindly introduced to a few of the staff and given a layout of modules they thought we might like to take.  We were then given 4 hours to make a decision.  So a bunch of us went to a cafe to mull it over.  —FUN FACT: the Isle of Mull is the second-largest Island of the Inner Hebrides (after Skye)—  By 13:45 we were all waiting outside the office of James Palmer for our one-on-one meetings.  Those were a very long 15 minutes waiting for the Profs to arrive.  And a much longer 40 minutes waiting for my turn.  Luckily, the sample layout of courses given to me was perfect!  I had a few questions that they sorted out right away and I'll be starting Monday at 9:30 with Latin.

I'll be taking my core module both semesters.  It's an in-depth introduction into an interdisciplinary approach to mediaeval history/literature/etc.  We are using a single text, the Middle High German Nibelungenlied (in translation), as a the central focus of this course.

I'll also be taking mediaeval Latin all year, as well as a palaeography course which sounds really cool.

In first semester I'll also be doing a directed reading with Alex Woolf who has done a lot of work with mediaeval Scandinavia.

During the second semester, I'll also be taking Old Norse formally.  I say formally, because I'll also be participating in an informal Old Norse reading group all year.

 But don't worry, the stress of sealing my fate in that meeting was soon forgotten with the help of my flatmates.  We took a nice walk over to East Sands and played in a little park for a while.  Back in Dundee we met with a few other postgrads from our building and got to know each other.

On Tuesday evening, there was a bonfire down on the Castle Sands for the Middle Eastern Society who were handing out free marshmallows and digestive cookies biscuits.

We met some really nice people and left to a pub when it got really crowded as it is quite a small beach.  We went to a pub called The Keys which was voted 'Best Pub in Scotland.'  We were later told from someone who did their undergrad at St Andrews that it's considered one of the 'locals' pubs' and its generally-older patrons usually stand in the doorway glaring at anyone who looks as if they're thinking of entering.  Whoops!  We noticed no glaring.  We even got to talking to an elderly gent who caddies at the Old Course and has met a few celebrities.  He seemed to like us fine, though he kept telling my flatmate to 'get a haircut.'  It wasn't me for once :)


Today was a nice chill day.  We slept in, and three of us stayed in Dundee all day.  And we even had an exciting fire evacuation when someone on the 2nd floor burned their pasta.

Tomorrow we'll head down to St Andrews for coffee in the Undercroft with the History Society, and another bonfire in the evening.

The pics below are of Castle Sands (where we had the bonfire) and the Castle itself which is hard to take a good picture of from the front, as there are buildings right across the street.

Welcome to St Andrews (no period, apostrophe, nor apparent reasoning)

Chkchkchkchkchk...

'Dun dun dun 'dun duuunn duuunn.  Dun dun dun dun dunnn.  Dun dun dun dun duuunn duuunn.  Dun dun dun duunn duunn.

In case you didn't recognise that (why wouldn't you?) that was the Chariots of Fire theme.  And yes, that beach above is where the iconic scene was filmed.  

I had my first day in St Andrews yesterday for some pre-sessional welcome events.  We took the bus from Dundee in the morning and arrived in St. Andrews.  A quick walk takes us right from the bus station to the lovely little building in the picture. ——>

That's the mediaeval history building where I'll probably be spending a lot of my time.  And it's conveniently located across the street from the mediaeval library.

A few of the mediaevalists decided to meet outside this building before going to one of the welcome events and going for coffee afterwards.  

In a building attached to the one with the mediaeval library (no picture) is where a short taught postgraduate welcome event was held.  It was a mix of orientation and icebreakers.  They pretty much just told us a lot of the services the university offers if you're struggling, and reminded us that we'll all be struggling together.  Not the most reassuring speech.

During lunch we talked a bit about the cool things to see in St. Andrews—which sparked our spontaneous journey to the beach (one of three in St Andrews)—and what we had left to do to fully matriculate.  There was a general library tour at 2:00 (which we didn't end up going to yesterday, but there's another today) and we decided to walk around the town before then.  The streets were quite crowded with people still moving in, and on our walk I managed to snap a few pictures  through the throngs of people.

 The part of the town where we'll actually be studying is quite small: it's made up of the east/west-running North Street, Market Street, and South Street.  This makes it quite a feat to get lost.  But there are a lot of buildings in unpredictable layouts and some streets that you think will connect the main streets end abruptly between them.  So although we never got lost, we did have to backtrack a few times to get around buildings.

 Before the library tour, we decided that the few of us without our matric cards (student I.D.) should get theirs, so we made our way a few minutes from the general library to the Gateway building where we were run through a gauntlet of queues to perform visa/passport checks, matriculation, final identification checks, etc.  It took way longer than expected but everyone who was there is now officially matriculated.  Afterwards, we decided to leave the library tour for today and head to a cafe instead.  The cafe in question is quite famous, as Will and Kate met there...
for tea...
once...
and maybe not even then.
It might seem like a bit of a tourist trap, but they actually have really nice coffee/tea/hot chocolate drinks all for the flat rate of £1.50 which is pretty cheap for St Andrews.

We then did a bit of a walkabout between the Student Union building and a couple pubs while we killed the time until 8:00 when there was a postgrad social.  We got there a little after 8:00 to join a giant crowd waiting outside the packed venue.  We then followed said crowd as we were redirected back to the Student Union building where they would offer free wine in recompense for lack of foresight in the number of attendees.  At this point we were a bit queued out and there was a hiking society meeting in a few minutes, so we just went to that instead.  A full 12 hours after we got to campus, we got on the bus to head home to Dundee.

Accompanying placard to the memorial above.

Today my flatmates and I are sleeping in a bit, and going to head down to the Uni for the noon o'clock library tour.  The mediaeval history students have a meeting today (the mediaeval studies meeting is Wednesday) and there's an introductory/information session for those interested in taking Old English this afternoon as well (for both groups).

There are club/society intro sessions all week, as well as nightly bonfires on the beach, so we'll likely head to a few of those as well.

Below are some random pictures from our walk:

Fancy hotel right along one of the smaller golf courses.  This is the side that faces the beach.

Same hotel and a bit of the links (I don't know if this is the real first golf course, but they call it the Old Course, so it might be.  It also looks incredibly plane (if you'll pardon the pun).

This is on the beach (West Sands) looking back towards the town at a nice building.

More buildings and the Old Course from the beach.

Thanks for reading!