Experiences in Scotland

Second week of the class is over with now and only two days remain. It has been an enjoyable and totally worthwhile experience to be able to learn all of this extra knowledge that I would otherwise go without. I know that I have mentioned this before, but the need for general education teachers to get knowledge and experience about special education needs is so incredibly important. I feel that when I start to teach and have my own classroom, I will be much more aware of all of my students needs, how to help them, and who/where to turn to for help. I am very excited to continue the instruction back home in the States and I will definitely continue with the certification.

Scotland overall has been a good adjustment for me. The city life is a bit much to get used to for everyone, but I feel very safe here and I have enjoyed all of the walks that I have been able to do while exploring the town. The people are very nice and helpful and always want to engaged in conversation with you. We stopped at the Mercat Bookshop on Union Street in downtown Aberdeen and the owner of the store (a younger elderly man) struck up a conversation with us and told us a lot of information about himself and the town/surrounding areas. He was so kind and got us maps and booklets of information to spread amongst our group. The shop that he owns collects donations of books and is a completely voluntary organization. He said that they basically work for nothing. He used to work for Seagrams exploring the world and doing company business--he made a lot of money that way but he is quite happy now just running the bookshop and taking vacations with his family. He was delighted to help us and give us as much information as possible. Something that I was thinking about as we were listening to him was, "Would this be the same hospitality shown to foreigners in the United States?" If I was from another country and walked into a downtown shop in any other US city, would they greet me with the same welcoming gesture that this man did? Is it because we don't have a huge communication barrier that this is easier to do here? I feel that, in the US, we have such a wide diversity level that we would probably assume that someone is from the same city, but is just speaking a different language (Hmong, Spanish) unless of course it's a different accent of English.

Having gone to several big European cities before, the certain smell that those cities have (dirty, pee, trash) is not something that surprises me much--but does still gross me out. However, the newest shocker came while walking downtown and passing a public urinal. This was literally a plasitc outhouse type of structure, but the doors were lacking. Guys could literally walk up to this thing, unzip their pants, and pee right there in the open of a busy city street. Luckily, it's like they are peeing into the middle of it and it has six inch dividers on either side of the "stalls" but still EW GROSS! Us girls were completely repulsed and offended because we felt this was incredibly sexist as well as unclean and disgusting. It is however a funny joke now--just goes to show how non-prude-ish European society is compared to American society.