Snow, Haggis and me

It was mainly thanks to my friends and roommates that I have tried much of British culture and primarily food – my most courageous inter-cultural feat to date was the typical Scottish dish, haggis - sheep chitlins cooked in a sheep’s stomach. Although the combination scares virtually everyone but Scots, I resolved to try the meal on Burns’ Night and, believe it or not, to finish it. Then again, you can also get other than British food here – there is a “Polish shop” (as I refer to it for myself) in Dundee that also sells Czech treats. As a result, I have already savored Kofola, Tatranka, and Student’s Seal Chocolate here, far away from home; aside from sweets, I even found potato dumpling dough and immediately cooked some dumplings.

As far as the academic aspects go, I have no reason not to be satisfied – I have made major progress in Spanish thanks to an intensive course, and I hope to achieve the top level in the next two years. I have also honed my essay writing to near perfection, and writing a thousand words of an academic text in a matter of an afternoon is a matter of medium difficulty for me (but the grade may be a different thing altogether).

Similarly, I can consider myself well-versed in traveling – my trip home last December when all the airports in the U.K. collapsed several times was truly an instructive lesson. Buses being unreliable, I decided to go to Edinburgh, which is a one-hour trip, one day in advance, and I spent a night at the airport there. But it didn’t help because it started snowing two hours before my flight’s scheduled take-off, the airport closed, and I had to wait for another flight for five days. Happily, my airline provided a hotel room for me free of charge, but the 30 sleepless hours, spent part traveling and part waiting at the airport, were very tiring and most unnecessary in the end. 

Yet, after almost half a year, I daresay that I am making the best use of my studies in Dundee and enjoying them to the full, as this is one of the most profound experiences that will influence my academic and, more importantly, my personal life.