Inevitable Change in Perspective

Six Days, that is how long I have been here in the country of Scotland & yet I already feel like my entire way of thinking is different! This is the hard part to explain, because how does one explain their old / new perspective on things? But I will do my best & just cross my fingers & hope that many of you are just able to get a glimpse of it all. Because I think it is all just so AMAZING! (In six days! Imagine in 4 months! I believe my priorities are going to be different, my outlook on my life & everyone around me… just EVERYTHING! It is IMPOSSIBLE to come home from something like this the same person. So, I’m having a great time experiencing all I can! Because slowly… 4 months DOES NOT seem enough. But it is all I have (: So… lets get this started!!)

First off, on Friday I witnessed my first Rugby match. We were meant to attend a “ceilidh”, which is basically a gathering with traditional Scottish dancing (Yes, Kilts & All) & traditional Scottish food is served. I must admit that the initial draw was the promise of “haggas” which is a traditional meal of (brace yourself… Sit down & remove all food from your immediate vision) Sheeps innards. Yes, I know. Pretty epic right? Well, we thought.. if we are in Scotland then we must at least TRY this SO traditional meal. Yet, we were early to the union and got suuucked in by the burly men on the screen gathering into a pile & not moving an inch, & the atmosphere it created amongst all the natives.

So, instead of haggas (which I learned later, they had actually NOT provided, so we must order some at a later date) we witnessed our very first RUGBY match! We sat down with SO much expectation & excitement to FINALLY witness a game that looked to us like a mix of soccer & brutal football within a country that could explain it to us! Yet, after nearly 2hours of staring at the screen attempting so desperately to decipher why these steroid induced looking men were piling up & just unsuccessfully pushing, bleeding & slobbering.. we are ashamed to say that we left not understanding the sport ANY more than when we had first sat down. We basically decided that ANY sport looks completely ridiculous, I mean just I magine what (American) Football looks like to the Scotts! I asked one & they said it was “Complete Rubish”, so… there you go.

After our near disaster with rugby, we met up with my friend Josh who I had met last summer through my friend Ashlie. He lives about 2hours out of St. Andrews in Glasgow & came down for the weekend to show us around & simply try teach us a little bit about “true Scotland”. Because, regrettably we have come to find out that St. A is referred to as “The bubble”, meaning that nearly 30% of the students are American & the rest other internationals. Very few Scotsmen actually study/ live here. So, that’s regrettable, but I guess this is the perfect place in Scotland to see other people from all around the world! Because I have definitely already met people from nearly every corner! I will just have to travel a outside of this little town to get my REAL taste of Scottish men & their THICK brogue! (aka, Scottish accent).

The rest of the weekend was filled with walking around town, hanging out, & learning about these two Scottish friends of ours: Josh & Louis. What we learned ALONE could take up nearly 10pages of this blog, so I will try to summarize & give you the better bits. Saturday night Louis (A chef from Glasgow) cooked us this AMAZING Italian dinner in this little traditional Scottish house. If you have not scavenged erin’s facebook for pictures of this tiny traditional house, YOU MUST! Here, Scotland has never even HEARD of central heating, which is ironic because they are pretty much cold all year. Josh & Louis couldn’t even understand the concept… because in every house, room, building, nook, they have radiators. Which has proven problematic in my dorm room. Yes, the view of my dorm room is GORGEOUS! I mean, people who go here do not understand how my roommate & I were so lucky. Outside my window, & right across the street is the beach / North Sea (I believe). It is breathtaking! I can see hills on one side, the ocean on the other & part of the VERY popular St. Andrews golf course. (We walked the course this weekend & I feel as though, as my roommate has put it, “I feel as though the golf course is wasted on me”. Which means, sooo many people have told me how jealous they are & how much of a DREAM it would be to walk the original golf course! && I mean ORIGINAL! Because, as many of you know, golf was invented here at St. Andrews (Gentleman Only Women Forbidden = GOLF). So I can also see from my window, the back of the building facing the golf course, that held the rooms that the rules of golf were invented. LITERALLY thought up, in that building, outside my room. It’s mind blowing… & yet I feel as though TRUE golfers would appreciate this amazingness, a lot more sincerely than I do. But what can you do?

Back to the tiny house, well as we ate dinner, we sat in front of this TRUE coal burning fire & just talked. This mere talk has proven the most eye opening thing I have had, I may say… in my entire life. To get two people from a COMPLETELY different culture, and to just chat with them about EVERYTHING is more eye opening and… perspective changing than I would have imagined one silly little fireside chat would be. I guess this all just keeps surprising me. We talked about politics (We’ve basically got everthing backwards), Rihanna (they LOVE her, & would kiss the ground she walks on), dating / relationships (their culture is SOO different than ours! It BLEW my mind… I can detail later) and SO MUCH MORE! Basically, after this night I came out re-thinking America’s / Americans priorities. I am not going to preach, but there are NO guns in Scotland. NONE. I am not exaggerating. The police here, no guns. Citizens? It’s illegal & you will get put into jail. It just made me laugh, as I told Josh that you can walk into a Meijer, grab a steak & a rifle all in the same trip, only aisles away. I am not criticizing American’s right to own a gun (well.. not criticizing MUCH) but one simple fact like that, changes EVERYTHING! Theyre like, so anyone who owns a gun can just press a button & have someone killed? Once again… well… yeah.

The guys could also not comprehend the fact that we don’t have universal health insurance. Once again, not preaching, but he asked me “wait, wait, so if someone with no insurance walked into a hospital & found out that they had cancer that will kill them, they would just let that person die?” & I was embarrassed to say “…well… yes.”. This all just makes you, as an American, rethink our priorities! They don’t understand how we can argue about three little words on our money (in god we trust) & yet half the country be SO against pure health care for everyone! Gosh… I’ll stop with this, but you get the point. Basically its as if they hold up a mirror to your America & you can finally see what not only they see when they look at it, but what is REALLY going on.

Even dancing! Here, we have learned that you DO NOT grind on another person. A male WILL NOT walk up to you on the dance floor & burst your personal little bubble. They see that as disgusting & absolutely ridiculous. So, it gets you thinking… WHY is it socially acceptable at home? Just crazy stuff.

To lighten things up a bit, not only did we learn about an entirely new perspective, we were also blessed enough to spend an entire weekend immersed in pure Scottish slang J Yes, Stacey & Marty, this is a shoutout to you. Oddly enough, I may sound like a poser, but these guys say the things SO much that I have now begun to adopt a few words (as shown above). For example, & to start our easy, they say “absolutely ridiculous” repeatedly! (Must add the Scottish accent) Note: I have come to find that Scottish & the English seem to get more proper (also a word they repeatedly say) than American’s, even their slang. I feel as though my English will be significantly more proper when I get home! Odd, for how much the Scottish mutter, mumble & blend their words. Onto more fun ones, the guys constantly say “we have to make moves”, or “we’re making some moves” for “we have to start doing things/get busy”. That is one of my favorites; the other is “too much”. Ie: that party last night was too much! Absolutely too much. ß FAVORITE slang thus far. A girl here = a bird. To talk a lot, is to “talk a lot of rubbish”. A boy acting ridiculous or gay is a “fanny” & someone acting crazy is “acting absolutely mental”. It is just a completely new thing to hear these things in person & within context! (More to be added as I remember them, sometimes I literally just want to write these downs right after they happen… which I probably should).

The rest of the weekend consisted of more walking around being shown the proper way around the city & visiting the shore & first St. Andrews golf course. I am proud to say that I ate my FIRST fish and chips at a chippie (place that sells these two items) at the “Jigger in” which is right on the original golf course (: despite rumors, they DO have regular ketchup here, but the mayonnaise is definitely a little odder than I expected. Refusign to eat the fries the way the Scotts suggested (Dousing it in vinegar & salt) we had a very good meal with our ONE HUGE piece of fried fish. Yes, they pretty much took the fish & dunked it in a deep fryer. Awesome. Which brings me to another interesting fact I learned, Scotland is the SECOND fattest country in the world (behind America of course). Therefore they find the need to deepfry EVERYTHING. I am told that you can find a mars bar deepfried, pizza deepfried, & even a hamburger deepfried (sadly & discustingly, the list goes on). May have to pass on those, but atleast I now know they are available to me. I could prob use some eventually, because I find myself NEVER eating. I am not exaggerating (I am sorry to say this dad) but I am either walking around and merely forget or simply miss the ridiculously short dining hours (15 minutes long). Add that to the walking I do, I am also proud to say that once I DO make a meal, I basically eat anything there & enjoy it. No matter how odd it may look or taste like. (:

Lastly (until I remember what I have forgotten), Classes started today! Erin & I have 3hours of classes on mon & one hour on wed. That’s it. We were surprised by this (as expressed in an earlier post) but found out today that it is because not only does European/GB universities prefer independent study & work, we have nearly 30books to read for each class. So we are now grateful for all the time allotted to read those. I just need to kick my procrastination habit out the window & Read on the coastline of Scotland, and the like. But Stacey would love to hear that my first teacher is SO Scottish! Its like, the exact Scottish professor you’d imagine. Get a mental image: white hair, mustache, tweed jacket & (oh yes, he did) plaid-very-scottish-looking tie. It was awesome! Regrettably, the class is mostly Americans (I mean, it IS a great idea for abroad students to study Scottish fiction in SCOTLAND!) but at least my 2^nd class is a little bit better. My second class is also taught by a Scottishman, but a much friendlier, skinny guy. That class consists basically of international students (ie: America, Italy, England, germant etc) & a Scott or two. Both classes seem interesting, but I am afraid they are just going to turn into the same sort of classes I deal with at home. Atleast I have a lot of time to read & travel!

Future plannings:

A) I sound like a frog. A literal frog. Not only is this embarrassing to the already judgemental international students, but it hurts. As I mentioned, rooms are only heated with radiators, which we have come to find, is not as efficient as central heating. So yes, I have been basically sick since day 2 & has been gradually getting worse every night. I have therefore decided to invest in a common Scottland household product: the electric blanket. HERE, they are built straight into the bed mattress top. WHY didn’t we utilize this? I mean, ATLEAST those in Alaska or something! I wonder if sarah palin knows about this master piece… Well, she didn’t know about Russia so I doubt this has hit her desk yet. Moving on, basically this will become my most valuable asset in Scottland. Thank you Argos! (ß store within the city)

B) Note to self; MUST invest in willies! (aka, rain boots). They will ALSO be life altering here! Today it poured, snowed & then was fine. You can never tell.

C) We plan on visiting GLASGOW! Which is one of the biggest cities in Scotland & where Josh & Louis live. Therefore we will get the insiders view! From what they explain of it, it is a different WORLD! I MUST BLOG ABOUT GLASGOW! I do not have time to elaborate right now, but the stories are… well you just need to read it.

I am running out of time & feel very proud of myself for blogging as much as I did. I will resume from here tomorrow. Since I have no class tomorrow, it’s my catchup & buy books day, so may not be much to blog (beside the awesome word someone will inevitably use & teach me in the bookstore etc!)

But for those of you at home, I am having an AMAZING TIME! I am feeling as though I fit here, and that 4 months is not enough for me to see it all. I love home, but I am scared that after all this, after all this travelling, talking & meeting people/cultures, how can I go home? How can I go back to the same thing & the monotony? I am not insulting you dad, I love home! But places like these are so worldly, that things I have worried about at home seem so trivial, so unimportant. I guess I will cross that bridge when I get there (:

For a little honesty though, the rainy days are the hardest. Those days that are pouring & knock you over with wind just don’t make you want to go outside & fight that. So you decide to stay in with little to do & you just end up thinking about home, and family. I love it here, but I do miss you all at home. I wish you could all just experience this with me. I believe everyone should! But most of my family actually is! I learned today that mary is coming out! & then Dad & probably mom! Then marty & ashlie! I am going to be bombarded with home! I still cant believe the efforts these people are making to come see me & be apart of my trip! They will never want to leave. WE DON’T HAVE TO! We can all make one little sheep herding village, make our own hagas, and make moves!