A Foul Foul Beast

I woke up yesterday morning thinking I must be sick I felt so cold. Despite getting dressed and turning up the heat, I still felt cold. When I walked outside, which did not seem too cold, I felt chilled. I was wearing a wool coat, a wool ski sweater, a tee shirt, jeans, knee socks, and leather shoes. Later I found out it was negative one degree celsius and everyone was just as cold as I was.

The weather has been a tumultous beast this week. On Friday, several friends from California were visiting and as we walked into town, we encountered rain, sleet, hail, and snow. Then there was the wind. The BBC had predicted it would be around 40mph, but considering the sheer force I would have believed it was stronger. Lena commented that even the hurricane winds she experienced in Florida weren't this strong.

We went down to the beach and saw the waves washing over the top of the stone pier. We could barely climb the path back up the hill to the cathedral ruins.

This past week I've encountered snow three of the four days. Yesterday it did not snow in St. Andrews, but I had to go on a field trip to the Grassic Gibbon Centre in Aberdeenshire and along the way, the bus had to drive through an actual snow storm. In the safety of the Gibbon Centre we watched the snow pour down, tea in hand, wondering where our crazy Scottish professor would take us next. Luckily, our next jaunt to the old Norman church ended before the next wave of snow came down. By the time we reached St. Andrews, we were back in the land of sun and gale force wind.
Strangely enough on Saturday I got sunburned while we walked around the fishing town of Anstruther. It was snowing lightly and I was only outside for several hours. However, this only proves that I am fully adapting to Scottish culture, or have enough Northern European blood in me to fully weather the climate like a native.