Chapter 1: Review

So I'm sitting here in the university library waiting for Di to finish up with her auditions for the Canterbury tales, and I figured I'd use the time to share some lessons I've learned from my experiences so far. I desperately need to update the blog about the bajillions of things that happened during Freshers Week, but these tidbits don't really have a place in that post, so I'm sticking them here. So ... yeah, more info on the past week to come (since I'm sure everyone is waiting with baited breath) plus pictures! However, for the moment, I leave you with this:

1. As an American in the UK, you must be careful to refer to pants as "trousers," or else risk complimenting someone on their underwear.

2. British keyboards have some small differences that are just bothersome enough to slow down my typing. For example, the "@" symbol and the quotation marks are switched, leading me to frequently type my email address as cited material. The shift key is smaller, the enter key farther to the left and bigger, and both the $ and the £ symbols appear.

3. Napkins refers explicitly to sanitary napkins, while you use servilletes (or something like that) at meals. Haven't actually come across this confusion yet, but I was warned about it.

4. I have yet to see true "skim" milk -- only "skimmed" aka 1%.

5. I also cannot find Sour Patch products, which is depressing. Thank god I have the crispy M&Ms to tide me over.

6. 70s-style concrete buildings remain ugly, regardless of their country of origin.


The rest of my lessons are mainly about how I love Victorian architecture, and just old stuff in general. Everything here has such history, most of which I will only learn the littlest bit about. There's a lot to see, and not a lot of time to see it, and that's before I even leave Glasgow.

Oh, also -- I really hate when the American students try to put on British accents while talking to natives. Seriously, you're not fooling anyone.