A Dummy’s Guide to Scotland
(as told by Sarah)
(from a tiny blip of a college campus in the middle of nowhere)

So here is the blog I promised you all. Yes, it’s probably a bit (a lot) overdue in the minds of some of my readers, but, I think, appropriately timed, more or less, for what I need to say in it. I’m feeling a bit melancholy right now, but I’m sure it will pass. Soon, I hope.
Well, the title says it all, so I will disregard the normal opening paragraph, the way I typically disregard the normal closing paragraph when I’m too lazy to write one, and jump right in.

The weather: It’s as changing and bipolar as Ohio’s weather, but, it seems, with a less radical range. Yesterday morning, for example, I was able to go out in just my hoodie, but by evening I had to wear my coat over it and I was still shivering. The day before that it was quite rainy but warm enough that I took a walk with my umbrella. The day before that it was just barely warm enough for the sprinkling rain to turn to snow.
Overall I think I shouldn’t complain about the weather, because it was cool and beautiful for my first few days here, compared to the snow storm (which led to torrential flooding) that was raping Ohio when I left. Sometimes it will be terribly windy for days at a time, but for the most part it seems quite promising. I’m hoping it gets warmer quick, because I’m sick of having to wear my hoodie everywhere.

The land: is beautiful. As I mentioned before, I was worried that the grass would still be brown so early in the year, but when I got here I discovered that these fears were unfounded. It is quite green here, with hills that remind me a bit of Amish Country, although they are substantially less… energetic than Amish Country’s hills, preferring to roll and wave rather than hop around with odd angles and such.

I really want to see the Highlands before I go – in all of the pictures I’ve seen, they have the aura of a wise and aged grandparent that can both take care of you and provide a challenge that will help you grow. I feel both comforted and intimated by what I see.
That sounds silly, yeah, but think about it the next time you see a picture of the Highlands. You may not think I’m so crazy then.

The food: I haven’t had much outside the school’s food, which is largely sub-par. There have been a few things that were delicious – the “southern fried” chicken, the beef stew, and an Aberdeen dish that was like beef stew but made with the texture of mashed potatoes – but it’s almost like everything has been dusted with the same odd tangy aroma or flavor that I can’t quite get past, like the smell of an old person's house. I definitely feel, if the canteen food is any indication, that American food is much more flavorful. Of course, it would be unfair to make that assumption based strictly on the canteen food; after all, what if someone came to the States and judged American food based on what our cafeteria serves?
I have been forced to relax my rules about how deeply incompatible foods are allowed to become involved with one another, as it often seems that the servers in the cafeteria are actively encouraging my food to fornicate right there on my plate, resulting in mutant cross-bred food particles that cause my palate to react convulsively. Occasionally, if I’m especially wary of fornicating foods, I’ll ask for a separate plate for my French fries (I mean chips) so that they don’t become ensoggened (I just made up that word… I think it’s cute) by baked bean juices or stir fry sauce. Allistair quite quickly took to teasing me about this. His first explanation was “Oh, she’s an American”, but I quickly corrected him. “Oh, heck, that has nothing to do with it. People back home make fun of me too,” I said.
I have recently discovered something terrible. Upon experiencing what the southern yokel would call a “hankerin’” for tacos, I did a search for local Taco Bells… and… there are none. In all of Scotland. Scotland has NO TACO BELLS. In the States we have at least one in EVERY REASONABLY SIZED TOWN. (We are also pretty much the most obese country in the world, so just what does that tell you?) England has 2, but they’re both down south. 340 miles away. Also no Long John Silver’s, but I can live with that since I’m in the Land of Fish and Chips. For all I know theirs are way better than LJS anyway. And no Dunkin’ Donuts, either. They do have Krispy Kremes, but they are all situated in England as well, in a little clot across the Irish Sea from Dublin.
They have something in the cafeteria that comes in a little packet, called, simply, “brown sauce”, that I’ve been using for my French fries (I mean chips). It tastes a little like barbeque sauce, with a bit more of a vinegar-y flavor. There are also these little dessert treats that consist of milk chocolate over a graham cracker crust with marshmallows on top. It is soooooooo gooooood. Don’t forget about my disappointing experience with the “barbeque chicken” at the mall. And there is a beverage called “Irn Bru” that is apparently popular with young people here. It looks like orange soda but I have yet to try it, as I was fortified with a wariness against the stuff by Niall, my Heritage Studies teacher. Also, this paragraph has apparently become a catch-all for the various foods that don’t fit in the “can’t touch on my plate” or “served in the canteen” or “restaurants they don’t have here” categories.
I have not yet tried haggis, although there have been variations on it available in the canteen.

The fashion: Seems to be somewhat similar to what it is in the States, but there is far less variety. However, since I know next to nothing about fashion I couldn’t say for sure. It seems that the H&M styles are fashionable for girls, as are those ugly fluffy boots that girls in the States wear. In a school of horse girls I see a LOT of boots, ranging from downright ugly to uniquely cute, and there are some that look both practical on the yard and fashionable off.
That’s about all I can say about fashion, except for this: they really like their necklaces long. And they have more feather jewelry here. I have a pair of feather earrings (two actually, though one pair has disappeared), and I’ve always thought there was something really cute about feather jewelry. They have a much better selection here than at home, although I probably won’t buy any because I wouldn’t be able to pack them without squishing them and messing up their prettiness. Plus I don’t need them and I have to exercise control over my purchases.

The roads: They are frightening. They’re very narrow, at least in this part of the country. There are places on the country roads where they have stone bridges that are only wide enough for one vehicle and are armed with traffic lights so that only one vehicle is on each at any given time. There are roundabouts out the wazoo, although Claire (that’s right – I have a Claire here as well as at home) told me that this specific region is rather eccentric in its number of roundabouts; apparently they’re not so prolific in other parts of Scotland. I think I mentioned that there are a lot of them here, and that they each have special names, but I also want to say that there is an extreme amount of variation between them. Some of them just look like little concrete slabs 10 or 15 feet wide, while others are 25 or 30 feet wide and boast a tiny ecosystem complete with trees and rocks and, in at least one case, a random stone monument, like a tiny landlocked Easter Island of sorts.

There are, however, lots of twisty, turny and loopity roads, and I have discovered that I get easily confused due to my ingrained, and decidedly American, understanding of how roads work. This might seem obvious, given the differences that I’ve mentioned, but I’m talking about something far more subtle. For example, when I was riding the minibus with John last Tuesday and he was preparing to make a right-hand turn into the WalMart parking lot, I instinctively thought “check the lane next to me before I turn to make sure no one’s coming up beside me on the right”. Then I remembered that there wouldn’t be anyone coming up on the right, because the right lane next to us was for oncoming traffic, not turn-only traffic, like it would be in the states. Also, depending on which direction my vehicle is turning, I would automatically scan both ways for a left turn, but focus on my left side when making a right turn because I don’t have to cross a lane to make a right-hand turn. Here, of course, it’s the other way around. And for those of you who were unsure: yes, they do drive on the “wrong” side of the road over here, and all of the cars are made with the driver positioned on the right-hand side of the car rather than the left. Speaking of…

The cars: It’s quite an odd thing, although I haven’t driven any cars or been in the passenger seat of a regular car. I will say, however, that the cars here all have a singular look about them. They are much rounder, more compact and more “efficient”-looking than American cars, and although there is, I discovered this morning, a Ford Escort in the college parking lot (really bizarre to see my dad’s car but in mirror-image), most of the models I see are unfamiliar to me. I recognize Ford, Toyota, Honda, etc., but there are makes and models here that I’ve never seen before. One of the cars at the college is this cute little blue thing, and it’s so compact that it only has one windshield wiper in the front window. It also looks WAY too tiny to be a four-door, yet it is (although it has virtually no trunk, or “boot”). I've seen a few pickup trucks, and every time they make me smile, because they seem so out of place here.

The music: Hard to say. The only music I’ve heard thusfar is that which spews forth from the radios of my flatmate and the ASDA minibus. I can tell you this, though: from what I’ve heard, young people here listen to the same crap that young people at home listen to. Flatmate’s radio was blaring for half the day last weekend, in the kitchen, with no one around to hear it but me, in my room with the door closed. When I walked into the hall it was so loud that it was like stepping into a nightclub. My point, though, is that I had to listen to it for a few hours straight, and from what I noticed, it was the same 15 or so American hip-hop songs played over and over and over and over and over again. *shudder*
As I have mentioned, I have not heard a single bagpipe since I got here, except for those of Gaelic Storm and Slainte Mhath that have come from the speakers of my own laptop. I don’t know yet what post-pubescent people generally listen to.

The buildings: All look very similar. I know that this is likely another cultural thing, like the fact that many of the cars look the same or that many Americans think that all Asians look alike. A vast (VAST) percentage of the buildings (aside from some of the barns and shopping centers) are made of stone. Take a look at any picture of Edinburgh and you can kind of get the idea. There is stone freaking everywhere. As Bud might say, “They’ve got stone comin’ outta their ying-ying!” It is difficult to tell the difference between a church, a house, a post office, a hotel and a pub if there is no sign to help you out, and sometimes the signs are just as confusing when you’re looking at them through the eyes of a foreigner – I know, for example, what to expect when I see an “FYE” sign, but what the heck is “BHS”? As a horse person, “BHS” stands for “British Horse Society”, but what does it mean in a shopping mall? These are things that the average native Scot knows instinctively, the way I know what “FYE” is. But to me it’s very confusing.
Despite never being absolutely sure whether the shop I’m about to step into is going to try to sell me a god or a candy bar, I find the buildings here to be beautiful. Even the ugly ones. They’re not ugly – they’re quaint. Old-worldly. Traditional.

When I went shopping on High Street in Linlithgow on Saturday for my birthday outing, there were gated and sometimes arched doorways open in the buildings or between them, often with short stone staircases leading up to what looked like residences. Quaint. Old-worldly. Traditional. A bit fantastic. Here’s an example of what I mean, although in this case there are no adorable stone steps and it leads to a restaurant, not a home:After taking this pic I walked into the little alley and took a close-up of the restaurant. Isn't it cute?

The people: Most of the adults I’ve met have been quite nice. Most of the young people I’ve met have been… less so.
I want to say that the older students in my Heritage Studies class are easy to get along with, and after spending so much time with the teenagers that live on campus, I swear I can feel a palpable difference in the maturity level when I enter that classroom. The kids here, on the other hand (I am hesitant to say this, but it’s my honest observation), are kind of rude, and I find it difficult to imagine that they’re going to grow up to be the helpful and mature adults that I see around me. I don’t think I’ve had a single young person open a door for me, and have heard very little gratitude, and seen very little acknowledgement, even, when I do it for others. Many of them don’t make room on the sidewalk or the staircase when I’m walking toward them. Beyond taking up their trays, they don’t clean up after themselves in the canteen unless ordered to do so, nor do they seem to acknowledge the effort of the cafeteria workers or the cleaning ladies. They’re rude to each other, too, so it’s not like I and the college staff get special treatment in that department.
And don’t get me started on my flatmate’s kitchen cleanliness (or lack thereof) or the fact that she’s not done a single thing to make me feel welcome since I got here. Last week I found a skillet in a drawer that had not been washed or even scraped before it was put away. I am not joking.
Allistair told me once that I need to cut them some slack – that they are free from their parents for the first time and it is only natural for them to be a little wild. I have decided that stretching your legs and experimenting with drugs and alcohol, if they really feel it is necessary, should not affect the manners they exhibit toward other students and the college staff.
I don’t know if this is a cultural difference or not. I suspect that it is, and I don’t know how that makes me feel.
Speaking of disconcertingly ambiguous feelings, I took a walk before dinner tonight, and I got to thinking, and I don’t know if I like the ideas I came up with. I have decided that I really feel distanced from a lot of the other students here. Furthermore, I discovered that I am uncomfortable with not knowing how many of my feelings of outcasted-ness are due to natural “American in another country” culture shock, and how much of it is due to being surrounded so often by people who are 5, 6, 7 or in some cases even 8 years younger than me. And I don’t know whether this discomfort is due simply to the seemingly alien nature of the average teenager (it seemed largely alien even when I was a teenager myself) or if it’s due to the fact that, holy shite, when I’m standing with a group of these kids… I am the adult. I am the responsible one. I’m not saying that I think they're all to suddenly look up with wide, expectant eyes and wait for me to spout out my sage wisdom or anything like that. It’s just the thought that I’m the oldest person in this group. Theoretically I am the example-setter here, though I doubt their odds of paying attention to my “example” are any better than the odds that they would actually push their chairs in when they’re done eating (seriously, they need to take a class with Nancy). I am the most experienced one, and should be expected to act like it if it is asked of me.
Except that I’m not sure if I could.
And while I’m worried about it… is this a reflection on my readiness to join the real world? Like, after graduation? I don’t feel any more adult now than I did three years ago when I graduated from LCCC. How can I expect the world to take me seriously? Will it, even if I feel like it shouldn’t? Is real life just about pretending that you know what you’re about and the world accepting you as a competent individual? Is there ANY adult out there that actually feels like he or she has earned adulthood? Or all we all just insecure young adults sporting various stages of wear?

I think that being philosophical about my place in the universe is a great way to end a blog.
What do you say?
♥
SM