three days at St. Andrews, Scotland

My flight brought me to Glasgow, from there I took the train to Edinburgh and from there to St. Andrews. I was quickly impressed by how friendly people in Scotland are when I struck up a forty minute-long conversation with the first person I asked for directions. He was a middle-aged Scottish man who had been living and working in the Netherlands for the past three years with his large family (I think he had three or four children). We had a discussion about life on the European continent versus life in Great Britain, and we shared a strong preference for the "Anglo-Saxon" social model over the "Franco-German" one. He explained that his family would be moving back to Scotland when it came time for his children to pursue higher education; like me, he did not approve of the education system in many continental countries like Germany and Holland. Among other things, we agreed on our dislike of the early decisions forced on students in these systems -- at a very young age, the quality of teenagers is assessed by the state, and the teenagers make decisions about their careers, all with wide-ranging consequences for the rest of their life. But anyway, you can read more on my opinion about education in Germany towards the middle of the page here.

After catching brief but wonderful glimpses of the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, I arrived in St. Andrews and met up with my cousin Alex Ames, who is a junior here. On the bus ride over, and then at a nearby bar, we were soon sharing gossipy details about different parts of our enormous family.

The town of St. Andrews is beautiful and so is the university. Comparisons to Hogwarts are inevitable and appropriate; there are lots of towers, castles, and ruins -- all in all a very magical place. There is also, of course, a very nice golf course and several very wealthy citizens. For me, maybe the best part about St. Andrews though was that it's right on the ocean. There are seagulls and great big waves crashing against long piers and fishing ships and clean-smelling air.

Alex has two great roommates, Natalie (from England) and Ya'ara Barnoon (from America). Unfortunately, I arrived just in time for exams, and most of the time Alex, Natalie, and Ya'ara had to write papers, but I still had a great time. Alex and Ya'ara are majoring in international studies, apparently one of the strongest departments at St. Andrews, and they were working on interesting papers about very interesting topics. It was great to hear a little about what their studying and what their opinions are.

Alex introduced me to several other interesting people, including one student applying to law school in London who explained a little bit about the very old, complicated, and intruiging way that law is set up in that city. I also got to meet a medical student who grew up in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar and explained a little bit about the history there. There are a lot of interesting people studying at St. Andrews.

There were also some very nice Americans studying there, like Alex's boyfriend Jack and his group of friends, which included a guy named Henry. Most people named Henry are very nice and thoughtful, and this Henry proved no exception. One night, Jack invited us over to play beirut in his apartment (which, by the way, is right on the ocean) and we all got pretty tipsy and had a great time. After the beirut died down and most everyone had left or gone to bed, Jack introduced me to some of his favorite television shows -- The Office and Extras, both originally created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Both series have become cult classics in the United States (the original The Office was already a hit in the U.K.).

Earlier that same evening Natalie, Alex and I had a drink with another Alex -- Alex Huggins, a St. Paul´s alumnus from the year after me. Alex was not the last (or the first) St. Paul's person I bumped into in Europe over the course of my travels, as you will see. But anyway, we sipped on some very good, very expensive beers and talked about Baltimore and his philosophy major, and it was very nice.

But eventually it was time to go. To sum up -- St. Andrews is beautiful, the students are interesting, and everyone is really nice. Not a bad place at all to spend college. The morning of December 4th I boarded a train to England; my next trip would take me to another place of higher education at the other end of Britain -- Oxford University, where Jamie Butler is studying.