Fanny packs.

Yesterday was the EDGE Highland Games. A bus drove all 144 of us to Balloch, a really beautiful scene of Scottish highlands: rolling hills, ponds of water, open green fields, big trees, and lots of sheep poop.



A few of us took the opportunity to sneak up the tower of the castle and climb onto the roof; it was definitely worth playing hooky for! Ravi and I even had a small bhangra dance class after the games ended; it's really funny to see what their conception of "Indian dance" is (think yoga poses).

Some of it was really fun -- I learned how to shoot a bow and arrow, I chased a pack of ducks around an obstacle course, I laser-shot at flying discs, and I tossed a huge log ("caber"). Some of it was not so fun, like when the "toss the haggis" game turned bad when one of the haggis burst open upon landing. I also learned a new meaning of an American term. Here's a conversation that ensued with two Scottish kids:

Me: I wonder how distinctive we sound with our American accents.
Other Columbia Kid: All we need now are fanny packs, and we'd look like tourists.
*Scottish kids burst out laughing*
Me: What's so funny?
Scottish kid: You said what?
Other Columbia Kid: We'd look like tourists with fanny packs...
*Scottish kids burst out laughing again*
Scottish Kid 1: Do you know what a fanny is?
Me: Your butt?
Scottish Kid 2: No.

And I'll leave the rest for you to deduce. A fanny pack is a bit of a misnomer since American's don't actually wear them at their fannys (by the American definition); they wear them in the front. We learned that they call it "bum bags" over here, which is also a misnomer. Our name would be more appropriate by their definition...

The dryers here don't really dry. It's an international problem among universities, I guess.

What's odd over here is that the major supermarkets -- Tesco, ASDA (a part of Wal-Mart), Sainsbury's, etc. -- are all also financial firms. That's right, the same place where you get your apple juice and cereal is also the place where you get your car insurance and home mortgage. Hungry? Why not protect your assets while you're at it?

This week at work, we were assigned our homespaces (offices) and we visited our clients. Of our cohort, we were the unluckiest group in terms of homespace. Our homespace is about the size of my dorm room here, with one table and six computers crammed in, which offer restricted access to most websites (no gmail!). That's okay though, because our projects are still pretty cool, and our team works well together.

There's a decent Indian food presence in the fast food and the frozen food sectors here. I've tried the frozen chicken makhani and chicken korma here, and it's pretty good. Still, it doesn't really compare to my mom's food. (Hi Mama!)

Okay children, good night.

The Glasgow Smile

It's been a week since I first came to Scotland!

A lot of the other students in our cohort were surprised that the American kids weren't that dominating or obnoxious, and that we were friendly. Messing with their preconceptions is always fun. Today, a few of us convinced a high school student that in America, water is rationed as a public good, and that American kids are indoctrinated from a very young age that "The government is always right."

Payday was on Friday. They pay the American kids in cash. Woohoo! That's such bad accounting practice. Claire Eckstein would not be happy. SDA would not approve.

Glasgow has this really cool mall slash entertainment center called XSCAPE. Inside is a rock climbing course, an indoor ski slope, an arcade, a movie theater, a roller coaster, bowling, mini golf, fancy restaurants, and shopping venues. It's pretty sweet; I wish the U.S. had something like that. I went rock climbing (my first time!), which was a lot of fun. I definitely want to go in the city sometime.

I learned of this thing called the "Glasgow smile" the other day. Wikipedia defines it as "the practice of cutting a victim's face from the edges of the mouth to the ears: the cut - or its scars - form an 'extension' of what resembles a smile." Anyways, needless to say, we were all pretty scared, but we've been assured that we're in a pretty safe area, and we have little to worry about. Still, some Scottish guys can be aggressive. A few of us were playing frisbee in the park and were joined by some Scottish kids. One of them accidentally threw the frisbee into a guy walking in a group beside us, who proceeded to kick the frisbee. The Scottish guy who mis-threw the frisbee went up and started bumping chests with the other dude, and eventually a few fists were thrown. Silly children.

Time for the lesson of the day.

BRIEF LANGUAGE LESSON: SCOTTISH 101

Glasgow smile = something you don't want to get
NED = Non-Educated Delinquent (think: hicks)
haver = talking rubbish
rubbish = trash
haggis = traditional Scottish meal
em = um
blutered = drunk
tartan = criss-cross pattern found on kilts
second name = last name
aye = yes

The University kids are really chill, and are good hosts too. They give us all the inside info -- what to buy, where to eat, where to go out, etc. -- and even invite us over to their places. I'm in a group with two other Uni (yes, they abbreviate it here) kids, two high school kids, and a Columbia girl, Sue. We work pretty well together, which is good.

Our adviser from Columbia was really nice, and she treated us all to really really good Indian food the other day at this place called Ashoka! The Indian waiter was acting really pushy and was trying to hustle some more money out of us by ordering us extra food before we requested it. Gosh, I miss my mom's home-cooked food.

Tonight I'm going to go to a pub to watch the soccer -- woops, I mean "football" -- match. Soccer is pretty fun to watch, it's a shame that the U.S. is not big on international sports.

Stay safe, children!

Hello, Scotland

I've decided to keep a blog about my adventures in Scotland. Hopefully I'll update it every once in a while, but if I don't, please be sure to bug me to do so!

For those of you who don't know, I'm in Scotland with 15 other Columbia kids for EDGE, an 8-week entrepreneurship and consulting program. The program is run under Scottish Enterprises, and we team up with University students in China, Canada, and Glasgow, as well as a bunch of local high schoolers. There are three cohorts, and we're in the University of Glasgow cohort, so we basically don't interact with the other international students.

My journey to Scotland was a bit painful; the whole trip took about 25 hours, from the time I left my house to the time I got to my dorm in Glasgow. Friends, it should only take that long to go to India, not the United Kingdom. Anyways, after sitting next to a man who took up a third of my seat as well as the entirety of his, I reached London with just 70 minutes before my next flight. By the time I got through immigration procedures, my flight had already took off.

Woops.

Luckily they put me on the next flight without much hassle, but the caveat was that I was stuck in the London Gatwick airport for an additional 8 hours. I borrowed some dude's cellphone to tell the Scotland people I was coming late, but then I realized that I should probably inform my parents as well. First, I checked out the telephone booth, which charged 4 pounds per minute.

BRIEF MATH LESSON:

4 pounds/minute X 2.1 USD/pound X 3 minutes (GOOD LUCK explaining to your Indian parents why you're stuck in a foreign airport in less than 120 seconds.) = $25.20

$25.20!? I could buy 6 happy meals with that kind of money. Who in their right mind would pay $25.20 to make their parents nervous and panicked? Anyways, I found an e-mail station and just e-mailed my parents. Problem solved, all for just 1 pound.

Speaking of 1 pound, there's this wonderful little supermarket (if you can even call it that) which sells gourmet frozen foods (spicy fried chicken anyone?) for only pound per box. What a steal! Ironically enough, the place is called Iceland...though it does sell fancy foods that aren't frozen, such as cheap wine, teacakes, and stale meat.

The gym here sucks. But the rooms are nice; we even have individual bathrooms, and showers which flood the bathroom (it's desi style baby! about half a foot between the shower and toilet, and no distinct areas for each) while the curtain sticks to you -- ever wonder how many other people it has clung on to? hahah

Today our EDGE training started. It was pretty routine, although my one complaint was that the icebreakers didn't really help us to get to know each other, it only pointed out the vastness of EDGE participants. For you Lions -- you know how Columbia keeps tooting its diversity horn? Diversity initiatives. Diverse campus. Diverse student body. When the Columbia kids walked into the seminar with the other participants in our cohort, we did a double take: what's this? They're all white! Okay, give or take two or three kids, we added the only form of diversity there was to that room.

Moral of the story: appreciate diversity while it lasts. Because reality is nothing like what's inside Columbia's gates.