St. Andrews and Dundee and BBQ

Today we went over to St. Andrews (maybe around 20 min?) and walked around the city, down by the rocky shoreline of the old castle, around the town, stopped for snacks and saw the ruins of the old chapel too. Took tons of pictures of the neat doorways and building carvings and windows and such.



I had to pay 30 pence to use the public restroom. That's a thing here, paying to use bathrooms AKA the WC. So far they've been pretty nice though, so I guess it's worth it. I was happy to pay but I couldn't see anyone at the window booth, so I just started going in, and this guy comes bombing out from where ever he was hiding shouting "Pence please!!!!" and I'm like "sure, I didn't see you." snilly. Was very happy to pay him, just had to go!

Afterwards we stopped by a grocery store and picked up things for a birthday BBQ of some of Rynny's co-workers and then took a taxi out to her place. She has two dogs and little backyard, and they had grills for veg & meat and a whole bunch of baked potatoes and grilled corn on the cob and this one nice guy who was part Iranian made all this really nice (nice is a high compliment over here, not a wishy washy thing to say)food, my favorite being this pot of rice that had a crispy bottom of turmeric.

Let's see if I can remember how he told me to make it.

Basmati rice - soak for 20 minutes. Put it in boiling water for 6 minutes. Prepare a pan with vegetable oil and turmeric, and then cook the rice again in that. Sounds easy enough. Might take a try or two to get it just right, but it was yum in any case!

It really cooled off towards the middle/end of the party, so Brooke & I moved the grill to the middle of the group and put more charcoal on. It was a bit smokey at first, but the Canadian guy - (Mike? Mark? too many new people!)got the flames going and that helped a lot. It's neat hanging out with new people and hearing all the accents and talking about our trip and what they do and such. Everyone seemed really nice, and it was fun to be outside, even if it got cold and there wasn't really anywhere to actually sit down. We all just ended up huddling closer as the night wore on, both to get closer to the fire and each other for warmth. Luckily two people had cars, so the people without were able to split between them and we didn't have to catch a cab home.

We've been watching a crazy British show called "Green Wing" on DVD. The closest thing I can compare it to is Scrubs, but it's totally wacked, highly stylized speed-up/slow-down of the action, distinctive music, and the people are crazy and silly, and it just cracks me up hardcore. Rynny mentioned it being just a bit "Dali-esque" and I can totally see what he means. I wonder if it's at all easy to find in the states? Last night we also watched a bit of Blackadder, with Hugh Laurie before he was the sex symbol Dr House, and was just a silly young goofball. Very funny, and I know that one is at the Library because my dad had recommended it before.

Alrighty, way past time for bed. I seem to have a hard time getting to bed over here still...