After spending a week here, the University of Edinburgh already feels like home! Although I can’t yet give people directions, I’m so comfortable in the city. The University of Edinburgh has done a great job setting up events for the international students. As I mentioned, the first night we were all here they did an event called “Taste of Scotland” where we all tried haggis and listened to bagpipes. The pub culture is a very big thing here, so a lot of the RA programs involve pub crawls and pub trivia which were all really fun. They also put on event called a Ceilidh, which is a traditional Scottish event that involves dancing. As for the academic side of things, we had numerous meetings with our colleges and were assigned a personal tutor. Overall, the university is doing a great job making sure all the international students get adjusted.
The city of Edinburgh, as a whole, is also amazing. Much like Boston, it’s such a diverse and interesting place. However, there are some interesting differences between here and back home. Here’s a list of things I’ve noticed over the last week!
Trying to cross the street is impossible. I knew before coming over that Scotland drives on the opposite side of the street from the States, but I under estimated how hard it would be to cross the street because of this. It’s so ingrained in me to look left and then right, instead of right and then left, and there have been a few close calls.
Exit signs are different. Here they are green and show a little person running towards a door.
‘Cheers’ is used everywhere and for everything. It’s an all-encompassing word that means hello, goodbye, thank you, you’re welcome, have a good day, etc. When in doubt say ‘cheers.’
Eggs aren’t refrigerated. The first couple days I was here I just thought Scotland didn’t sell eggs in grocery stores because I was looking for them in the fridge/freezer section. Turns out, they keep them in the canned foods section.
Boston is a really young city in comparison to Edinburgh. Some of the castles here are from the 12th century which is unreal. The history here is so rich, and the museums and galleries are unlike any others. The whole city surrounds the Edinburgh castle, a view you really can’t beat.
This experience is already amazing, and I can’t see where the rest of this semester takes me.
