DAY 6 – AUGUST 7th – DESTINATION: ST. ANDREWS & EDINBURGH

This morning we said our farewells to Cheryl (our host mom) and Ben (our host brother) as they were the only ones up. It was sad. Oh, and we also said goodbye to Sparky, the “Happiest Dog in Scotland.” ☺ He was too cute as he dashed from one end of the driveway, around a car, through our legs, to the other side. All this, with a perpetual smile on his little canine face. We stopped and got “breakfast”… these little stuffed pastries full of meat (a normal thing in Scotland) and went on our merry way. First we stopped in Dundee to look for a church that um… wasn’t there. ☺ But we did find the cool city of Dundee, and we got to walk into a pretty Episcopal church and take photos of others. As we left, we passed my favorite Scottish creatures… the “hairy coos”… highland cows covered in long fur. Next we traversed over the long “Tran bridge” and reached our next destination, St. Andrews. Oh, St. Andrews…. If only we’d have known how amazing your little city was… THIS was just our cup of tea. Nicknamed the “Medieval Town of Scotland,” every single building of the Cambridge University town (except for it’s Art Building… go figure) was built or at least made to look like the 18th century. From castle and cathedral ruins to parking lots directly next to the sea, it was absolutely stunning! Though it was cold and rainy, Matt and I still chose to explore the streets of this amazing town (or was it a city? I’m told that they get offended here if you call their city a town when it’s not… OOPS!) Apparently, St. Andrews was the religious capital of Scotland, a Christian “Mecca” if you will, to which many believers would travel. St. Andrew himself, chose the X-shaped cross at his crucifixion because he did not feel worthy of dying in the same fashion his Savior did. (The Scottish flag bearing St. Andrews cross means so much more to us now that we know).We unwillingly pulled ourselves away from one of our now favorite places in Scotland and headed to our final resting point, Edinburgh… did I mention we got lost AGAIN? Ok, not lost this time, as I DID have a map, but my GoogleMaps directions did us little good once we reached the city. Oh, I also need to mention that we ended up (by missing one little turn) in the HEART of Centre City with its one way streets, buses and taxis squeezing into tiny places… a place more like New York City than anywhere else I’ve been (and we all KNOW you don’t drive yourself in NYC!!!) Once we made our way out of the chaos, we found our cute little Bed & Breakfast (LOL… the way they give directions here is SO different from what we’re used to… and our little man seemed quite annoyed that we weren’t finding the place after the “detailed” directions he gave us. “Find my silver Toyota” just doesn’t do it for us). Once settled, we roamed the streets nearby for something to eat and came upon a cute little hodge-podge place that served great pizza, fish and chips, and Greek food! We brought it back to our room, and fell asleep watching a movie. ☺ (Did I mention we started what was to be a 3 hour journey and ended it after 9 hours? ☺)