Just a typical Sunday in St. Andrews

This morning, we got up and went to chapel at St. Salvatore's. Traditionally (because everything here is a "tradition"), the Sunday before fall term has a special welcoming service followed by the Pier Walk. First, we met some friends, and everyone was dressed up. Undergraduates usually wear their robes to the service, which are red, but postgraduates either wear the robes of their "home" institution or different robes from St. Leonard's (the graduate school). Or no robes at all, which is the case with all the postgrads we went with!

Here is everyone (except Matt, who was playing photographer) outside the chapel. From left, meet Mandy, her husband Scott, Elijah, Yann, and Arleta. We like them.



And here's Matt!



After that, we followed a procession of mostly red robes down to the pier. Remember the pictures we posted from one of our first days here? The ones with all the water and epic views of the castle? Well, those were taken from the same pier, but on a slightly less windy and crowded day.



Matt looks a little nervous here, because the traditional walk back on the pier involves climbing to the upper level and fighting the wind along a much narrower path. Basically, one side drops you to shallow water and the other side drops down to the stone pier. Either way, you don't want to fall. We don't have any pictures of this part, because neither one of us wanted to drop the camera or take any focus away from putting one foot in front of the other while the wind does its best to push you off.



We survived, and from there we headed off to watch a polo match on the West Sands. Of course, it turns out we had to walk the entire length of the Sands to get there (which is pretty far, especially with the wind whipping sand in your face) but it was a pretty spectacular backdrop for our first polo experience.



Here's Yann, looking very posh as he cheers on the polo players.



I was pretty excited to see horses!



We've got a video of some of the action as well, but Matt needs to convert it before we can share it - so maybe next time! Anyways, after the polo match we headed back to town along the golf course, checked out the society fair with all the clubs to join, and now we're back home and in need of a nap!