Hello again everyone!
I’m now in the last stretch of my time at St Andrews and am currently getting ready for my final exam this week, so I thought it’d be fun to take a look back at some of the travelling I’ve been doing this past semester!
My first stop in the mid-semester break was one night in Liverpool, hometown of the Beatles – my 13-year-old brother loves them so I thought it would be the perfect place to pick him up a Beatley birthday gift. I made the essential pilgrimages to Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane, the locations which inspired the songs, and visited The Beatles Story, a museum on Liverpool’s waterfront which takes you through immersive recreations of important places and events in their career.
Next up was London – I really love a good museum (a theme which will run throughout this blog post…) so I made sure to visit the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was my personal favourite. The historical fashion gallery was absolutely amazing, and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone with an interest in design! I also made a stop at the off-the-beaten-path Victor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, which is an artist’s project and was completely esoteric, creepy and atmospheric. I heard of it through the website Atlas Obscura, a directory of unusual sights around the world and a resource I always check before travelling anywhere to find cool places to go that aren’t the usual tourist hotspots. You can also log which ones you’ve visited or would like to visit – proud to say I’m 1st in the world for unusual places visited in Hamilton and 5th for Auckland! I also visited Camden Market while I was in London and picked up some posters for my room back at St Andrews.
After London I joined one of my friends from my poetry course in St Andrews in Amsterdam. We spent the morning sampling different Dutch cheeses and exploring the Vondelpark and antiques shops on Nieuwe Spiegelstraat, which is famous for them. After being slightly disappointed by the Van Gogh Museum being sold out for the day (definitely one to book in advance!) we also visited the Stedelijk Museum of modern art, which had some truly breathtaking works by artists like Picasso, Mondrian, and Matisse which completely made up for it. We also did an evening canal cruise, which was a wonderful end to my time in Amsterdam (for now – I’ll have to go back someday for the Van Gogh Museum).
My final destination during the break was Paris! I took the Eurostar train from Amsterdam, which was a little more expensive than flying but far more comfortable and convenient than a budget airline (that’s foreshadowing for later in the blog post). I’ve been lucky enough to visit before, both with my family and on an exchange in high school, and I stayed with my host family just outside of Paris this time as well, which was absolutely lovely though a real test of my incredibly rusty NCEA Level 3 French. Because I’d already hit most of the big attractions on my past trips (the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Palais Garnier, Sainte-Chapelle, the Panthéon, Versailles, the Notre-Dame before the fire, etcetera – there really is a lot to do in and around Paris) I spent most of my time just exploring Paris’ different arrondissements and areas to soak up the atmosphere. I walked around the Marais, the Quartier Latin (where I spent my life savings at a French pharmacy on skincare – in my defence, my skin has never looked better), and beautiful Montmartre, home of the iconic Basilique du Sacré-Cœur. I also went to the Paris Catacombs, which were completely fascinating, and the Petit Palais museum, which I could hardly believe was free, its collection of art was so amazing. By far the highlight of my time in Paris though – apart from reconnecting with my host family – was being stopped by someone in the street who asked for directions in French. I had no idea how to get to where she wanted to go but the confidence boost of being mistaken for a Parisian local was unmatched.
My next trip was to Dublin for St Patrick’s Day weekend, a truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. My time in Dublin itself was incredible – I visited the Trinity College Dublin campus to see the Book of Kells, an illuminated medieval manuscript, and the library’s Long Room, as well as the National Museum of Ireland’s Archaeology and Natural History galleries. However, my trip was bookended by teachable moments in the form of travel mishaps. First, when I showed up at my accommodation I discovered to my horror that I’d somehow booked a male-only dorm and nowhere else had room over that weekend at such short notice! Luckily someone who’d accidentally booked a female-only dormitory showed up not too long after so I was saved – since it turned out we’d both used the same booking site it could potentially have been a site issue but it was still a powerful reminder to check and double-check the accommodation you’re paying for. Then at the end of my trip my flight (on a certain airline I won’t name but anyone who’s travelled on a student budget in Europe can probably guess) was delayed so much that by the time I got back to Edinburgh all trains and buses to St Andrews had stopped for the night. I was able to get home via a slightly creative route by taking a coach to Dundee and then shelling out for a taxi to my hall in St Andrews, but next time I’d book an earlier flight just to be on the safe side. All that said – I loved Dublin and I feel very lucky to have been able to travel as much as I have with no issues!
After my exam I’m looking forward to participating in the St Andrews end of the academic year traditions – it’ll be a bittersweet goodbye but I’ve already learnt and experienced so much in my time here and I still have almost a month left!