I would like to start off by saying that Glasgow is neither the biggest nor the smallest city in the world, and any normal person with a sense of direction could get the hang of it pretty quickly. Sadly, (pathetically, really) I am not one of those people.
As part of International Student Orientation Week, I forked over ten pounds and signed myself up for a tour of Inveraray Town and Castle, scheduled for this morning. Instead, still being completely disoriented after a week here, I found myself in the middle of City Centre on a drizzly early morning. (You can look up what I missed out on; I can't bear it.)
Last night, after getting needlessly lost for an hour going to a flat viewing, I attended a social event for international, study abroad, and Erasmus students. I met up with my Spanish friend Belen, with whom I am currently hosteling, and made some new friends from Germany, France, Brazil, and Spain. What amazed me is that you could pretty much walk up to anyone there and find that they spoke near perfect English. Now, they are studying in Scotland, so you might think I shouldn't be so surprised, but there are plenty of people in the States who don't speak a word of English. Everyone I talked to explained that English is really important if you want to get ahead career-wise, and most of them had been learning it since primary school.
I am truly thankful that I am fluent in what is becoming a common language, and that I am also fluent in another, so I don't feel so terribly uneducated. (Really makes me hurt for those French classes I never took, though.) As for my native tongue, ever since I started hanging out with Belen and her fellow Spaniard Laura, I have been forced to speak/ text/ email in nothing but Spanish, so no one back home needs to worry that I'll forget it anytime soon. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in our conversations that when I turn my head and hear a Scottish accent, I'm almost taken aback and remember where I am.
Yesterday I had lunch with Belen at an Italian restaurant, where they were playing Gloria Estefan, and I was served by an Asian waitress. In my first three days or so here, I made friends with people from Nigeria, Greece, and Italy. I am currently at a hostel, so I need not go on. The point is that even though the United States, Miami in particular, is so culturally diverse, I have personally experienced more here in one week than in twenty four years back home. Of course, being an international student puts one in a great position to actually interact with people from all over the world, not just pass them on the street.
Not to get too "who am I? where do I belong?" but I do get curious about the way I'm perceived. When I speak English, I am sure my accent is American, but a lot of people look at me and think I am Spanish, including a Spanish waiter who went so far as to pinpoint the city I looked like I was from. A German boy I was talking to had never heard the term Hispanic, which I don't like that much, but to call myself Latina sounds too much like I'm JLo or something.
Giovanna, an Italian girl, told me that it's easy to point out the Americans, by their "American in Europe look." When I told her that was embarrassing, she assured me that there was also a "European in America" look which, when I pictured it, made me laugh.
I met a Chinese girl who, while making asking me for directions, told me out of nowhere I was beautiful. When I returned the compliment, she told me that I was beautiful and she was ugly, which kind of bummed me out. At orientation a French girl named Helenn was fascinated by me: the fact that I was from Miami ("So cool!"), that I was doing an environmental program ("Wow! Even cooler!"), and that I was drinking red wine ("You're the coolest girl in the UK!").
I guess as long as I'm the coolest girl in the UK, I don't really need to know where I'm going, or where I look like I came from.
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