Curiosity

Curiosity: the best place in St. Andrews to sell your old useless stuff and buy new useless stuff.

St. Andrews can be a very "touristy" place, especially on weekends. People come with their families and dogs from local towns and walk South Street and Market Street, two of the three busiest roads (the third being North Street, however this is mostly university buildings). The three roads all meet at the end, at the St. Andrews Cathedral ruins. Along the way, there are a number of stores to visit. There are a lot of sandwich shops and coffee shops, places to pop in for a quick meal to "take away" and eat as you shop. There are a number of clothing stores and bookstores as well. However my favorite so far is a shop called "Curiosity". Curious? Yeah, me too.

This store is seriously like an enormous eye-spy book

Curiosity begs for you to come in and look. Even from the sidewalk, it's just so... Curious. Everything about it. The sign claims "Unusual items purchased for cash" in bright yellows and reds. There are tables set up outside with vintage comics for sale and old guitars, but there is still the typical spinner rack with St. Andrews postcards - a staple of the town's shops. The front window is a cornucopia of random items - an old scuba diver's helmet, taxidermied animals, old black and white photographs. However depending on what day you show up, you might see something completely different than the last time you went. Every time I go into Curiosity, it's curiously different... The shop is constantly buying and selling new things, rearranging the landscape of the shop.

I wonder if she bought one of those tacky ties?

Curiosity is like a feast for your eyes. There is a wall lined with clocks, filing cabinets covered with an assortment of magnets and filled with the same vintage comic books. This shop is knick-knack heaven: Buddhas, elephants, toy cars, pipes, incense holders, ceramic cats, fake plastic vegetables, teacups, thimbles, and teddy bears (to list a small taste of what lies in the little wooden cubicles).

This guy was the original owner. Waste not...

Curiosity is a cramped little store: too small to begin with and then filled to the brim with what can only be described as outstandingly useless crap. Crap that I'd buy in a heartbeat. It's kind of like a huge yard sale where everyone of St. Andrews tries and sells their old things. Or like a physical eBay. And the genius behind this shop is that, because it is always changing, it is never dull and the customers will always come back. (Additionally: I can't believe I made it through this entire post without saying something about cats...)

Did you know that when a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds?

Cheers!