Christie Ko left Boston to spend a year in Scotland, where she is working on a postgraduate degree in literature and post-modernity at the University of Edinburgh (ed.ac.uk). She has learned to love haggis and Scottish folk music, while pining for organic vegetables and seeing the sun on a regular basis.
DECIPHERING DRUNKEN SCOTTISH:
The Scottish accent is a little difficult to follow. Drunken Scottish is even worse. But after a month I was pretty comfortable with it. I'm keeping my American accent, but picking up some British vocabulary; I detest people who've been in the country a week but are already putting on an accent - too pretentious for me.
HAGGIS, MY HAGGIS:
I don't want to know what's in it. I think it has to do with intestines all mashed up. All I know is that it appears on my plate when I order a full English breakfast at certain pubs, as a meatloaf-like block. It's grainy and dark, and as long as people don't tell me what's in it, I'm good with eating it.
A DRAM OF IRN-BRU?:
Technically it's a soda. I've never tasted it because I heard a story about an Irn-Bru carpet stain. Apparently the carpet cleaner said it's no use trying to scrub it out because Irn-Bru doesn't stain things, it dyes them. Second, it's a sickly rust color. I'm sure my imagination is worse than the reality, but I'm still not about to try it. I could just see my organs turning orange.
BUCK SHOT:
It's expensive to travel around with the dollar doing so poorly against the pound. They do have cheap flights to certain destinations but it's the hotels and food that really eat at your wallet.
READING AND MORE READING:
Edinburgh, I was told before I came, is one of the best research cities in the world. But personally I don't feel the research facilities are better here than in Boston. It's a different style of teaching and learning, focused more on independent work than lectures. The bulk of my work is massive amounts of reading, which I don't mind, but I don't feel I get the kind of in-depth analysis on any of the individual works because of the amount I read each week.
BIG BROTHER AND SANDY BELLS:
People here love Big Brother. It's kind of embarrassing to watch these D-list celebrities debase themselves. Scottish folk music is pretty awesome though. The Sandy Bells pub has live music every night edinburghfestivals.com/cityguide. There is a YouTube video of a jam session at the pub at youtube.com/watch?v=V9c-Qstp1c8.
