INTRO

Dad visits the UK

In the middle of March, Dad trekked from Boston to St Andrews, with a stop in Dublin (where they serve Guiness at 4am!). On the day of his arrival, I took him to Cromars Fish n Chips, voted best in Scotland in 2013 and 2018¹ and was locally famous for serving Justin Bieber this fall.² The next day, we did the St Andrews day-tour-extraordinaire: trekked the Fife Coastal path to Kinkell Byre to see the highland cows, hit the Cheesy Toasty Shack along East Sands (did not get attacked by rabid seagulls), toured the University of St Andrews grounds, walked the three main streets, ogled at the Old Course, and hit some golf balls at the Links Range which borders the Old Course. We wrapped the night with good food at Zizzi and a golf simulator booking for post grad friends to drop by and hang out!

We set out on an early morning drive to Manchester. Dad skillfully steered us through the Lake District – A592 route past Ullswater lake, through Kirkstone pass. We made a coffee stop in the quaint Ambleside town and drove through Windermere where the World of Beatrix Potter is location. Across the lake is Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey where Potter lived.

“Not for the faint-hearted, this route tackles the highest mountain pass in the Lake District, the mighty Kirkstone Pass, also known as ‘The Struggle’. This scenic journey is a great way to reach the eastern Lake District while avoiding the busier, less exciting A66, and is popular with cyclists and motorcyclists.”³

We dropped our belongings off at the hotel, took a quick snooze, called home, and prepared ourselves for the long-awaited event of the year, the Gorillaz concert! We took the tram to the Co-op Live venue, which is located right across the street from Manchester City’s home, Etihad Stadium. We fueled ourselves with steak pies and Guiness.

Co-op Live runs off 100% renewable energy, collects rainwater, and uses locally sourced food.⁴

A bit of family lore – during my parents’ honeymoon in Italy in a random laundromat, my parents first discovered the Gorillaz via the wonderfully bizarre 19-2000 music video;⁵ I trace my love for the Gorillaz back to one of my first episodic memories. Picture this: I’m three sitting in the front seat of my Dad’s blue diesel truck on the way to preschool. Crossing the Rockland St bridge over the commuter rail train tracks, windows down, Feel Good Inc. bumps through the speakers. My love for their music prevailed. In 2019, on a crisp October Monday night, my dad took me to their Now Now Tour at TD Garden. I still feel the bass and instrumental/vocal intensity from their opening song M1A1 and hear the deep, reverberating live laugh from Feel Good Inc.

Fast forward to 2026, Dad and I made the pilgrimage to Manchester to see Gorillaz’s The Mountain Tour. Even for a casual listener, it’s impossible to not enjoy a Gorillaz concert. A rockstar ensemble, the live music and vocals, trippy visualizations, iconic music video clips, guitar riffs, interludes, crowd energy, my goodness! Even if you aren’t super familiar with a song, the audio-visual experience commandeers your attention. This album heavily features a wide array of languages and instruments: sitar, bansuri, sarod, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, and more. What a concert.

Favorite Songs of the Night: The Happy Dictator, trans, 19-2000, Delirium (ft the most insane live guitar riff I’ve ever seen & its not featured on the recorded track!), Stylo, Dirty Harry, The Shadowy Light, Feel Good Inc, Clint Eastwood. Full setlist here.

The next day on our way back north, we took a detour to check out Liverpool. The Liverpool Cathedral towered and loomed over nearby buildings. We walked around seeing the liverpool waterfront, Liver Building, Royal Albert Dock, and Museum of Liverpool (a squad of Irish Step Dancers performed in the lobby!).

Enjoyed learning about Liverpool as a dominant port city and hub for shipping. We met the fun Liverpool symbol/mascot/creature-thing, the Superlambanana⁶ (cross between lamb and a banana), makes a nod to the city’s maritime trading history and conversation about genetic engineering.⁷

We capped off Dad’s wonderful visit with Indian/Thai food (of course, Kingfisher pints) and St Andrews’ famous gelato spot, Jannettas.

Ice Hockey Adventures

Coinciding with the women’s BUIHA (British Universities Ice Hockey Association) nationals tournament was the International All Stars versus Great Britain All Stars matchup in Sheffield, England. The six hour drive down required a pitstop in Leeds. Why? Because one of the UK’s two Chick fil A locations is located there. With thirty minutes to spare before closing, I ordered a spicy chicken sandwich, waffle fries, and an oreo milkshake. I attempted to buy 20 sauce packets, but the employees were very rigid in their no-sauce-selling stance. A generous employee gave me an extra six for the road after I pleaded.

Chicken sandwich and milkshake were excellent, but the waffle fries tasted weird. Rapeseed oil is not a good substitution for whatever american ingredients are used.

All day Friday included practices, team debriefs, jersey allocation, headshots, and media at IceSheffield. They even had snacks provided in the locker and conference rooms! In the evening, Courtney and I found a lovely italian restaurant (gotta carb load) and walked around the city center.

The next morning, a brisk walk to wake up the legs led me to a food hall with vendors from around the world. Everything from nail salons to haberdashery to butchers and grocers. We checked out of the hotel and headed to the ice rink early. On the way, Courtney and I went on the grand Crookes tour: Crookes Valley Road Park budding with cherry blossoms, Lisboa, a delicious Portuguese bakery, University of Sheffield, and quaint townhouses. Did you know Def Leppard members hailed from there? Good news for Courtney and I, on one of the ice pads, they had free skate with music, complimentary rentals, and disco lights all day!

I am so grateful to all of the coaches and staff for their work this weekend. From organizing practices, creating slide decks, communicating with comms for livestream/music/lights, and setting up the locker room, they helped us at each step of the way. It was an experience that felt special, curated, and noteworthy. Not to mention there were a couple hundred spectators. I felt like a legit athlete! Before puck drop, we warmed up, had our named announced while skating onto the ice in a spotlight, and lined up for the national anthem (which sounds weirdly like My Country, ‘Tis of Thee… once you hear it you can’t unhear it). Given that the UK squad members had been at many camps together and were competing for spots on the national team, our 4-1 loss felt like a great showing, regardless. I am so grateful to have played in this All Stars game!

Just two weeks after all stars was the St Andrews Typhoons’ Jonny Wookey Memorial game. Created by his friends to honor the Typhoons-founder who tragically passed away before his graduation from St Andrews, the games founding ethos is to bring friends and family together to enjoy the sport of ice hockey. Through flyer pedaling on the street and ticket handouts outside the union, we bussed about 600 fans from St Andrews to Fife Ice Arena. Total numbers exceeded that because many people bought tickets at the door and Edinburgh brought a small fan section!

We should’ve known that the game would be ruckus starting when the rink told us that they accidentally booked the refs for 9pm instead of 7:30pm. We learned this information after the 20 minute warmup, pyrotechnics, national anthem (performed by bag pipes, of course), Jonny Wookey tribute video, and starting lineup announcements over the jumbo tron. The game featured huge hits against the glass and more fights and penalties than 5 on 5 hockey. For many of my friends, this was their first ice hockey match, and they certainly got their money’s worth for entertainment value. At the second intermission, one of our captains got wheeled off to the hospital while a defender wrapped a bloody hand. In the third period with 6 minutes to go, the Edinburgh goalie got ejected for punching someone, the team did not have a dressed backup, causing a 15 minute break so that the goalie could change out of his gear and give it to another player. The game devolved so much that in the final period, the refs called off the entire game with 2 minutes left on the clock. I’ve never seen a game cut short before. The final score was egregious, but there were big smiles through the handshake line on both teams, and we celebrated thoroughly at The Rule. 

It was a big weekend for sports – the day after Wookey, the Bobbies (minus David and plus Courtney) trekked to Edinburgh for the Women’s Six Nations Rugby Game – Scotland vs England. Jacqueline and James hosted us for soup and drinks before walking to Murrayfield. This was the first year that the women have played in the big stadium, and the event, with 30489 attendees, was the largest women’s sporting event in Scotland’s history! England is so dominant in Women’s rugby, so Scotland, despite being a decent national team, stood no chance. Despite the absolute thrashing, Scotland losing 84-7, the atmosphere in the stadium was electric. 

Lydia, Lucas, and I had the pleasure of visiting Peacehill Farm.⁸ Mary and Peter warmly welcomed us to their home for a farm tour and tea. They run a family farm on the River Tay. Peter walked us through the Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plant facility – they recycle sugar beet, potatoes, manure, and other AD crops. In total, the plant generates 5MW of renewable energy (predominantly biomethane) which is exported to the Scotland’s National Grid. 

Peter showed us ‘the lagoon,’ a vat of home produced fertilizer used on the crops just down the hill from the refrigerated warehouses. We learned about farming co-ops, crop rotation, and their family history on the farm. He spoiled us by taking us to see their highland cows- the youngest was just a week old! 

Credit to Lucas San Miguel for these pictures. They are wayyy higher quality than anything my dear iphone could take.

Feeling fomo about not seeing the Netherlands’ tulip fields? Don’t fret! Just outside Edinburgh you can visit Craigies Farm! They have rows of tulip beds, little lambs, adorable props, a small cafe, and dutch pancakes. 

Life in St Andrews

A big Happy Birthday to Lydia B! We enjoyed olives, champagne, another boisterous night at the Golf Simulator, and pub-hopping. Lucas managed to source a gluten free Colin the Caterpillar, which I’ve learned is a classic British chocolate swiss roll cake of sorts.

Lydia B, Gillian, Phillip, and I celebrated Passover together w JSOC…. in the back rooms of a church (options are limited up here..). We managed to source the only kosher wine in all of Fife and enjoyed a chaotic student-led seder.

Courtney invited many of us to join her in her annual St Patricks Day breakfast festivities. She cooked pancakes (americans, they were crépes by our standards), bacon, and prepared fruit, mimosas, and a whole array of pancake toppings. Happy green day.

Due to staff shortages, St Andrews moved Deans Court residents to St Salvator’s for daily dinners. Originally, all of our meals were going to be moved off-site, but several emails citing the housing/accomodation bylaws and requests for full refunds during the time of lacking food service urged admin to make changes. The current arrangement is breakfast and lunch at deans and dinner at St Salvators. Before the move, Deans hosted semi-formals every Friday. Without our own venue, this is less possible, so the powers-that-be gave us wonderful consolidations: enough wine, canapes, champagne, and soda for 60 people. We’re living lavish! 

The Asian Mart on market street has become a fan favorite this semester. Last entry, I wrote about Lucas’s wonderful Lunar New Year Dumpling tutorial extraordinnaire. Since then, we enjoyed leftover dumplings and began cooking them over weekends. I also found tapioca pearls at the Asian Mart, which I’ve been cooking and putting in everything. The texture is so fun!

Another birthday shoutout – happy birthday David and Hanno! We’ve been putting the T2 Social Golf Simulators to use this semester.

In academic news, classes ended at the end of April. Very underwhelming last day of classes, and weird knowing that I don’t have any foreseeable plans to return to the classroom soon. I have one more stats assignment to hand in by the end of the month, so I am spending most of the time on my dissertation, other passion projects, and travel. Unlike many of my peers who created online surveys and have asynchronous data collection, my dissertation data collection process requires a one-hour in-person guided experiment per participant, not including scoring and data synthesis. I’m really grateful for the opportunity to do an experiment, live, in-person because I’ve learned so much more about the research process – from ethics approval to clarifying experiment instructions to answering participant questions about methods and implications. I trust this experience will aid me in writing my dissertation over the summer. 

1. https://cromars.uk/ ↩︎
2. https://www.itv.com/news/2025-10-07/justin-biebers-shock-visit-to-local-chippy-during-scottish-golf-trip ↩︎
3. https://www.sallyscottages.co.uk/guides/7-scenic-drives-lake-district ↩︎
4. https://www.cooplive.com/sustainability-jzd ↩︎
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXR-bCF5dbM ↩︎
6. https://www.utilitygift.co.uk/blog/what-is-the-superlambana/ ↩︎
7. https://wearehomesforstudents.com/blog/story-behind-liverpools-superlambanana ↩︎
8. https://www.scottishlandandestates.co.uk/helping-it-happen/case-studies/peacehill-farm ↩︎