Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!

2007-04-28T21:30:00.001Z

Moving from the US to Scotland was a bigger shock than I thought it would be. It's difficult not to think one is going on a permanent European holiday, then the real world sets in....

All the unexpected surprises

2006-11-01T20:50:00.001Z

At work....
As I was a clerical worker for the first few years I lived here, I found a few unexpected differences, such as......

sizes of paper - not in inches due to nearly everything being metric
punctuation - different names such as period is a full stop and parentheses are called brackets and brackets are called square brackets
full stops (periods) and commas are used much less often, for instance this would be correct - Dr A J Smith
the letter 'h' if often pronounced 'haitch', 'z' is 'zed', and in Scotland 'j' is often 'jiy'
date formats took a lot of getting used to - date/m/year - hearing someone say the 21st of the 11th used to short circuit my American brain!

Shopping....
Most shops don't stay open late. There are no baggers in grocery stores and remembering that I needed to do my own bagging took getting used to. One thing I found to be a pleasant surprise is that the tax on goods is already added, so if you buy something with a price tag of £9.99, it is exactly £9.99.
Food....
Some foods have different names. Besides French fries being called chips, and potato chips being called crisps, eggplant is called aubergine and zucchini is called courgette.
I love fish and chips and milky tea and curries, so I don't complain. I used to miss good Mexican food but am now used to not having any. I still wish I could order some good southern sweet iced tea when in a restaurant.
I thought Americans were bad with junk food until I saw food combinations like lasagna with chips, macaroni cheese and chips, chip butties (a sandwich made with chips on white buttered bread)...
Driving....
Of course, you change to driving on the left side (which doesn't take long). Roundabouts took me quite a while to get used to but once figured out I saw how much more efficiently traffic flows with them. Road signs and laws are much different to the US. There is approximately a 50% failure rate of road tests here.
New accents, new words, new spellings....
There are more accents than one could possibly imagine. Lowland Scots have a language/dialect (depending on your source) called Lallans which is used often where I live. I never knew English could be so colourful!
Misc....

no ice in my drinks?? Got used to that after a while
metric system - celsius instead of fahrenheit - food weights in grams or liters
post codes instead of numerical zip codes
phone numbers with varying number of numbers and so many area codes
electricity - 220 instead of 110
no screens on windows
no built in closets
no electrical outlets allowed in bathrooms

A few of the blunders I've made....

Referring to my behind as my fanny (means female bits)
Asking someone if they wanted a 'ride' (does not generally involve a car)
Using the term pants when meaning trousers (pants are underwear)
Pronouncing towns and words in a totally undecipherable way

A few of the words & pronunciations which have embedded themselves in my vocabulary:

lovely - used often
nice - when referring to food
go for messages - going shopping
twenty - instead of twunnie
garij - garage
boot - trunk
nae bother, hen - no problem (you're welcome) to a woman
knackered - very tired
mingin' - stinks!
loo - toilet - for bathroom (restroom is not understood at all)
polis - police
yobs - neds - unruly, troublemaking kids

culture shock

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!

All the unexpected surprises