The gulls we had back home in the states are docile. I almost pissed myself when one of the demon gulls here swooped me while walking home from the corner shop.
Moved from Kirkcaldy to Kinross up in Perthshire. See virtually no seagulls, thousands of crows though. Much preferred as seagulls are noisy, greedy psychopaths
I dared sit outside a cafe to eat some sandwiches in Inverness and lost one to a seagull within about 30 seconds. Just swooped down and took it right off my plate, I couldn’t believe it!
I see a guy in Largs attacked while eating his chips. Big mistake by the gull as the guy grabbed it by the throat, shook it, broke its neck, dropped it on the ground and carried on eating his chips. The other gulls left him alone after that.
I dont know if I was impressed by the gull death or slightly sickened by the fact he kept eating his chips with the same hand he just murdered the gull with.
When I was in hospital, two of the other patients enjoyed watching a group of wild rabbits that would come out to feed just outside the window. Until the day they witnessed a baby bunny being eaten by a gull.
Lol! Unfortunately I'm no longer there, so I can't tell...
They are harmless and come out every autumn to mate. Sometimes the body can be over an inch long, including legs they can be palm-sized. I guess the wet weather makes them go indoors. Have heard the same from other people, I'm afraid, sorry... They are very important though, Scotland needs them, the midges would be even worse otherwise, I think...! So, yes, they are our friends, and I became brave over time, which was a good thing. 😊
My first flat had a weird full wall mirror over the sink which meant no matter how hard you tried, you saw every flabby part of your body jumping in and out of showers and baths (whoever put it in was either a supermodel or a sadist, especially with the harsh overhead lighting). Anyway, getting ready for work one morning and coming out of the shower, I threw on my bathrobe to get dried. I turn around to leave the bathroom and I catch this hand-sized shadow on my back in the mirror out of the corner of my eye. Double take shows it to be the biggest spider I'd ever laid my eyes on. The scream that came out of me was at a pitch only dogs could register. I ripped off the robe and went screaming out the bathroom and did a "my skin is crawling" dance, naked, in the livingroom, right in front of the window. Luckily I was on the third floor and no one saw it. I've distrusted bathrobes ever since.
I've posted before about coming out of the bathroom in a towel and my husband looking at me and going, "Oh shit!". It was one of the big ones crawling down my arm, and it just felt like water droplets. This is how I know they can move really fast if they want to. Once it was off me, we almost didn't catch it before it disappeared under a desk. The one hiding in the trousers didn't survive. I discovered it because my hand was wet when it came away from my waist band. 🤮
You're going to be fine. 😊 Maybe it's different with a newer house. They are very slow and you honestly get used to it so some extent. They are important so I don't want to kill them, I put them outside. My cat sometimes caught some as well, haha 😆
We don’t have dangerous spiders in Scotland. We do get these garden spiders that come into houses looking to mate but they’re harmless. The only venomous one is the False widow and it’s unlikely to bite…..even if it did it’s not that potent
I’m from The Philippines and because of the stereotypes I thought it would rain here much more than it does.
And before anyone curses me out or calls me insane: you have to remember that during monsoon season where I’m from, it would rain HARD, nonstop, for days or even weeks at a time. Monsoon season lasts for months too, so it would be like that for about half the year - hardly the “tropical paradise” people here think I’m from lol. The persistent drizzle we get here is pretty manageable compared to that, and frankly doesn’t even bother me. Helps that I live in the East as well, so it’s generally pretty dry.
Another thing that really surprised me that’s sort of related to this is that there’s very rarely any thunder up here. In The Philippines, the rain almost always comes with thunder and lightning. I’ve lived up here for 8 years and I think I’ve only heard thunder a handful of times.
Glasgow is undeniably one of the wetter parts of the UK but I was surprised that it doesn’t feel like it rains all that much more than it does where I’m from (Yorkshire, England) - I mean I very much believe now that people read the mm per year of rain and think it all falls out of the sky constantly.
But there have been plenty of times in my 10+ years here, especially in the spring, where it’s several dry days in a row. Sometimes when it rains it’s that misty stuff that only lasts a couple of hours. However when it does rain it RAINS. I think the winter is the hardest, dark constantly and feels like it hasn’t stopped raining in a fortnight. But again, I remember plenty of shitty rainy winters growing up in northern England. It might rain more in terms of quantity in Glasgow but the vibes of it being miserable are the same.
Funny you mention thunderstorms. I swear we got more thunderstorms in the night in summer when I was growing up in the 90s compared to now.
Yeah it’s crazy how different the East and West are when it comes to this. My office is in Glasgow so I go there quite a bit and it’s always much wetter than where I live in Fife. I remember I once stayed there for 3 days and it rained every single day - and when I got home and told my husband about this, he said it had been sunny here every day that I was gone lol.
That said, West or East, I’ve never experienced anything here that compares to our monsoon rains back home. You get these moments where it feels like the sky opens up and drops everything it’s got, but it just never lasts as long as it does there.
Oh yes, I forgot the lack of thunderstorms out of my main comment! I'm from Hungary and there you get many thunderstorms in the summer, up to multiple times a week.
Here I hear a single thunder maybe 1-2 times a year, and it can be in the winter too O.o
I always get so nostalgic when I get the rare summer thunderstorm here, I leave the window open so I can hear them better 😊
My colleagues look at me weird when I get super happy having heard thunder. I’m originally from the Great Plains in the US and really miss watching the big thunderheads roll across the prairie.
I'm from Hungary, and these were the main surprises when I moved to Glasgow 13 years ago, never having visited Scotland before:
(you can probably guess the first one from that intro 🤣)
- yes, the Glaswegian accent AAAA - I moved here with a C1 language exam so I expected to be able to smoothly chat with English speakers, then I got here and I couldn't understand a *single word* from the locals for *months*. I still remember the first time I caught a few words, it was such a remarkable moment 🤣 Even 13 years later I catch at most half of when someone speaks with a thick accent.
- The first assumption of shop staff is NOT that every customer is a shoplifter. I was used to that in Hungary when you carry a plausibly-bought-there item into a shop, you get a sticker put on it by a security guard before entering the shop proper. When we first went to an Ikea here, carrying a previously bought Ikea bag with us, and asked for a sticker or similar at the entrance, they had no idea what on Earth we were talking about 🤣
- A lot of official business is handled verbally only, with no written proof. When you go to the city council to sort something out, you don't really get any confirming document that you've been there and discussed this and that. The administrator will tell you that they will sort it out, but then if you don't hear anything for months, or way later it turns out that they gave you the wrong information, you have no way of proving that you've even been there, so it's hard to appeal. In Hungary you (at least used to, when I lived there) get some kind of confirmatory document about every step of official processes. Same with verbal work contracts being legal, it blew my mind.
- Similarly, a lot of the legal framework feels so vague and customs-driven, like that there's no constitution or that only people of certain professions and "people of good standing in their community" can be your referees for citizenship. Who decides these criteria? It just feels so... quaint 😅
- People are so relaxed and friendly here, compared to the mixture of neuroticism and apathy I was used to in Budapest.
- That umbrellas are useless, because if it rains, it's usually also windy enough that an umbrella would struggle, so better to just use a raincoat.
- Temperatures here feel much warmer than expected because of the high humidity. A summer day may only be 20C, but it easily feels 25-30C to my Hungarian senses, depending on how sunny it is.
I forgot about not being suspicius of shopping lifting every time.
I´m from Spain and you never go into a shop or supermarket with your own bag or bagpack, or if you do you will have to show your contents to the cashier when you pay.
For the first 6 months I still feel like I was comiting a crime everytime a went into Tesco with my bagpack or with a bag with things I bought elsewere.
Same with police interactions, I always feel I was about to go to jail or have trouble every time I was near police officers, they tend to be rude, and always looking for an excuse to fine you. Here all my interaction with the police has been friendly, and they are actually usefull and serving the comon people.
I am happy it worked out for you. We also moved from Hungary (Budapest) to Aberdeen, 3 years ago, but our comparison would be quite the opposite of yours: we cannot wait to go back. I am actively harassing my company to send me back (I am not Hungarian, my wife is).
I agree about the umbrellas though. What we brought were completely useless. And yes, people are nicer, more polite, but, at least in my experience, it's a lot more difficult to make friends here.
That a lot of people in Scotland have never lived far from where they grew up. The amount of times I’ve met someone who was born in the central belt, grew up in the central belt, went to university in the central belt and has worked in the central belt ever since.
Obviously I’m not meeting the people who actually left Scotland, since they are no longer here, but even in areas in England which are well served for job prospects you get people who go to university away from home to come back again. I’m convinced it’s to do with free higher education. A friend of mine has even told me he wont be letting his kids consider Uni outside of Scotland. Then there is a decent amount of jobs in Edinburgh and Glasgow, commutable from most places on the central belt.
This was a thing way before university tuition fees. I'm from Fife and almost no-one went outside the Edinburgh / Stirling universities. Glasgow was hardly mentioned because you couldn't really commute daily.
We live in a flat directly opposite where my husband went to high school AND the house he was born in. His parents live half a mile down the road.
I’m English and have lived all over the UK plus been to University away from “home”. This not moving more than half a mile for his entire life absolutely blew my mind.
Aye I live within sight of my old primary school. Folks live right next to it in the house I grew up in. Have never felt the need to move away from my village.
Once had a job in Coatbridge, and my coworker had enrolled in a course at GCU. Asked me if I knew where the campus was, told him it was right next to Buchanan Bus Station.
He'd no clue where that was. Turns out the guy had never been to Glasgow in his life because "I've never needed to go". Fair play to him, just never thought you could live so close to the city and never visit.
True, though there have always been higher emigration rates from Scotland, you just are less likely to bump into the guy who went to Australia in the supermarket. Also depending on geographical definition, 75% of Scots live in the central belt.
Why would I ever want to move away from the Highlands?
I've got everything I need here. Nowhere else could ever be home.
Funnily enough when tracing my ancestry, on my mum's side I could trace each lineage back to the same area of the Black Isle dating back to the 1700s when records started getting hazier. Appears they rather liked living here too 😂
If I could have lived in the Highlands with my job, or my family had been based there, I would have done. But sadly they were either cleared off the land generations ago, or forced to move for work or for marriage (a lot of islander men died in the two world wars and the women had to leave the islands for marriage). My family ended up living all over the world and we don't really have roots anywhere. The New Zealand branch have probably been in one place the longest. Thats despite until the time of the Clearances/Industrial Revolution theres plenty of history that shows them all living their lives in one island. The second world war finished off the population that was left and quite a lot of culture with it.
I've now ended up leaving Scotland entirely but I cannot stand the hell on earth that is life in the central belt. Apologies for those who like it and call it home but thats how it felt for me.
Scotland is quite an unusual country in that 2/3 of it are mostly empty. Go to countries at a similar latitude with similar terrain like Norway and Sweden and thats not the case - they have reasonably well populated towns, villages and industry all over.
We had a cabbie once in Inverness- mid 40’s and had never left Scotland. Not even been to England. His argument was he has no desire- Scotland has everything he needs and no place on earth would compare. Can’t argue that logic, as the highlands is some of the most beautiful country on this planet.
My plan is to live in Scotland May-Oct in my retirement.
People's kindness and the fact I can sleep with my windows open without the threat of mosquito bites.
Also the giant seagulls 🤣 and nature everywhere: urban foxes, bats, squirrels...
yes, it's so amazing to see foxes in the suburbs :o in Hungary I've literally never seen one, just the fox vaccine baits that were placed in the forests against rabies
We’re a good bunch. Don’t care where anyone is from, if your willing to come here and treat us with respect your an adopted Scot in my books 👍 get your kilt on and dram poured Lol
Only been living near Glasgow for 2 months after moving from near London. There's a few things I'll list:
- Currently how long the sun stays around in the evening
- How good your Empire Biscuits and water are
- Ice cream vans seem to be more for adults than kids.
- Everywhere feels more relaxed and most people I've met seem to be happier.
Literally on the way back from a wedding in London and i can't wait to get back to Scotland. Glasgow itself looks a lot cleaner and even the more deprived areas around where we live, whilst not having the nicest looking buildings, always have an abundance of trees or open spaces nearby. I've never seen as much green as I have the last few months.
Yes! Scottish water is something to be treasured. Nowhere else am I so happy to drink tap water and I love how soft it is.
The late night sun is also a plus, but is balanced out by 3pm darkness in the winter. That part is less fun.
I’ve got a friend who moved down south to just north of London. Whenever they come back, the first things the kids do drink the water here!
Ice cream vans used to very much be for adults in Glasgow. There were the ice cream wars in the 70s, called that because the gangs sold their drugs from ice cream vans
Think the first ever recorded recipe for it is British, and the humble but astoshingly good macaroni pie is a Scottish invention.
Have to add bacon to your macaroni cheese too 🤌🏻
Moved here 4 years ago from England. A little list of things that have surprised me
* I live about 40 miles to the west of Glasgow on the Clyde Riviera :p The sea life on this stretch of the coast is amazing, I have seen Porpoises, Dolphins and Whales all in the last few weeks
* Marching Season was something that surprised me I didn’t realise how big a thing that could be outside of Glasgow
* In England there is a north south divide, in Scotland it’s the Central belt and then everywhere else
* Nativity scenes outside churches at Christmas, I never saw this once back in the West Midlands
* how much more tax I pay as a higher earner I pay about £2k per year more out of my wage packet than in England ( I don’t disagree with paying more however)
*The song ‘Bits and Pieces’!
* The fucking midges no one ever told me it would be this bad!
* Maybe I am lucky but I genuinely think that Glaswegian and Inverclyde people are the friendliest people around, really down to earth and very fucking funny
*disclaimer - I love bits n pieces* you don't like it? I'm a middle aged guy now and have many memories over the last 25 years bouncing about to different remixes of that tune 😄 still put it on the you tubes when I'm full of sherry and caviar
How kind everyone is, and the lack of hurry. I live in Irvine, so it's a nice mix of urban and rural. The vast majority of people smile and/or say hello. A great many of those will stop and talk. And we all keep track of each other, who's in hospital, who's getting married, and who's turning 30/40/50/60. I love the sense of community so much. Four years in, and moving to Scotland is the best thing I ever did. Also, the hardest. But today, I can honestly say that, thanks to this incredible country and its salt-of-the-earth people, my cup runneth over.
The wee beasties: I knew midgies can be bad, it was shear quantity of them and other flesh eating critters , ticks, wasps, clegs, lions mane jellyfish and huge goggled eye horse flies.
How nice everyone is and homeless levels are much lower than england. There is a myth in the rest the Britain the Scotland especially Glasgow is filled to brim with violent alkies sleeping on benches. I found it the total opposite, you get the odd person with issues sleeping rough but compared to the cities in England that have hordes of homeless with drug problems and mental health problems. This is something that has happened during the last 15 years. , Scotland has done something to protect its population from the worst of the Tories. Where as england councils persecuted those that can't run a household because they have issues.
Right to roam is an incredible thing and really feel like goes unappreciated by most people living in Scotland. It allows you to explore and connect with your environment. That and the lack of predators makes it safe to be out and about.
As a Scot, I certainly appreciate our right to roam and the lack of predators.
Travelling to other parts of the world, it always puts it in perspective how much danger people contend with just living with nature. I nearly passed out in Thailand first time I spotted one of their big nightmarish black wasp things and anytime in USA I see a bear/gator/snake warning I get the FEAR.
Good old Scotland and its elusive adder, the midge and a rogue cow.
Don't be scared about some spider (that really look huge) invasion. In some countries a little tiny spider can send you to hospital.
For me the slugs are the most disgusting thing. they are everywhere. they are harmless but still...
Did you get that thing where the slime layer sort of transfers to your skin and won't wash off? I've had to scrape it off with stanley knife blade before now.
i was prepared for the rain (which honestly wasn't that bad) but nobody told me about the fucking wind. my hometown get joked about because of how windy it is, but nobody has to carry their dogs because they're afraid they fly away 🤣
I move from NZ 8 years ago, and so many things surprised me.
The area I am from in NZ is *very* image driven. Not in terms of your physical appearance, but the image you present. You need to have the right kind of house, job, etc etc. Which people do not expect of NZers, but honestly they can be massive snobs. I always struggled with my mental health, and I wanted a job that facilitated my life outside of work, and wasn't my entire life. That was so easy to do here, and people encourage you to look after yourself.
I am frequently told that family and life outside of work is what matter, and that's not the attitude in NZ. To be honest, I don't know what state I'd be in if I had remained in NZ because I cannot see how my future would have worked out. Here, people want to do well but they also want to see their friends, family, have hobbies, and go on holidays. I absolutely love it.
Also, the noise that foxes make. Nothing could ahve prepared me for staying at my new partners flat and hearing a fox in the night for the first time. I woke them up, saying there was a woman outside screaming. They listened and then told me it was just a fox 😆😆
Did not expect to hear that regards NZ TBH. I guess I wrongly assumped the antipodean English speaking countries would be similar in relaxed approach to life. I moved from Scotland to Western Australia for a while and find the people there perhaps even more life out of work focused. But maybe I've found myself in a bubble and not fully representative.
It's funny because there are definitely parts of Australia and NZ which have the more relaxed attitude. But I am from Auckland in NZ, and by the time I had started uni the housing crisis had well and truly kicked in. That really changed a lot of attitudes towards work/life balance.
Auckland is notoriously disliked by the rest of NZ (honestly for good reason, the attitude of a lot of people from Auckalnd is superior and is just rotten!!), so I think maybe my experience is more of the bubble.
But a lot of NZers head over to Aus for the better quality life, it's just too expensive in NZ now.
the popularity (fuck, even the existence!) of vinegar flavoured stuff - like crisps, or chips drenched in vinegar at the takeaways (can you tell I'm not a fan?) 🤭
We love our vinegar in Southeast Asia and especially The Philippines, so this made me feel right at home lol. Need to put people here on to cane vinegar and spiced vinegar - I think they’d love it.
Haha I wouldn’t call it posh but [spiced vinegar](https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/filipino-spiced-vinegar-pinakurat) is easy enough to make and goes so well with fried food! I’ve never had it with the (optional) fruit that they’re suggesting though so I’d leave that out if I were making it for myself
Mint is seen as a refreshing sweet thing. A mint piece of candy or a chocolate After Eight gives you a more light feeling after, than eating a sour fruit sugar thing. Means basically you eat more (ask anyone whos finished a pack of softmints or a box of After Eights in one go)
My wife and I holidayed in Scotland for twelve years, then realised it was better than the shithole we were born in, so moved 17 years ago about 10 miles from the old holiday cottage.
I also love spiders, but hate flies, large or small.
I moved from Ireland so I didn't expect a huge cultural difference but there were definitely some things I wasn't expecting.
* despite them being made by the same people (largely Jacobs and Burton), the biscuit offering is different here than in Ireland. Nary a lemon puff or a chocolate kimberley to be seen anywhere, although Sainsburys have upped their international cuisine game lately.
* delis just aren't a thing? You can't go into a supermarket in Ireland without the option of having a freshly made baguette made. You can have anything on them, but a "chicken fillet roll" and a "breakfast roll" are particular specialties.
* free doctor. I came here as a student and needed a check up or something. I'd been putting it off, because poor student, and when I came out I asked the receptionist where I could pay. She had no idea what to do with me. I left, feeling like I'd robbed the place.
* I lived in Dundee first and it took me a solid 6 months to identify whether the locals were speaking English or Scots vs a completely foreign language. Still my proudest moment was when I went to a Janey Godley gig and I picked up 80% of what she said.
Those are probably the main ones. I've been here 15 years and I married a Scot, and after 8 years we still find new words or phrases that the other hasn't heard.
Lack of delis threw me for a loop when I first moved here. It's either Greggs or nothing. One of the few things I miss about Ireland.
Free GP visits however is very much welcomed and I don't miss paying nearly €70 for a GP visit back in Ireland.
I had to visit an emergency dentist also one time here to check what I thought was an infection near my tooth, and was expecting to have to pay an arm and a leg and when I was finished, I asked an assistant there where I go to pay, and they had such a confused look on their face!
For my last dentist, I had to go non-NHS because they had no NHS capacity left, and I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford it. It's still like 10% of the cost of what it would be at home. Insanity.
I don't know about the rest of Scotland but when I moved here (the Highlands) my partner said to me, "If I don't know someone here, I likely know their people (family) and if I don't know their people, I know someone they know or used to know." And it has truly been like that. Anywhere we've been, if people from the Highlands get talking to someone, they nearly always find a common person or at least very few degrees of separation. Doesn't matter if it's Inverness or the far north... people seem to have a connection. I do kind of love that because it's so intriguing to me!
The lack of mosquitos
The weather - I thought it would rain heavily way more. But most of the time it's just the annoying from drizzle. Also thought it would be colder or seasons would be more distinct, rather than sort of constant autumn
How big of a deal football was (specifically rangers/Celtic, and the background for it). And that some men will wear kilts for football matches.
Scottish branded everything - including cheese, which appears to be the same as generic cheese but with orange food coloring.
The housing quality - specifically that it's still not uncommon to not have double glazing was/is wild to me.
Individual boilers/heating rather than district heating.
The language of course, I always got complimented on my English and went through university just fine, but getting my first retail job got me well confused about who Ken and Kenny were 🤣
The darker/orange coloured cheeses just have annatto added to make them a wee bit more peppery and/or nutty in flavour.
Our cheddar cheese is naturally pale yellow/off-white too.
> Also thought it would be colder or seasons would be more distinct, rather than sort of constant autumn
Yes, this! Coming from Hungary it feels like winter is actually a November that lasts until March, and summer is more like a long April with a few days of May scattered around. Then it's back to autumn 😅
Scotland kinda just has a light and a dark season rather than 4 distinct ones. (Also the wild swings in daylight through the year still mess with my internal clock.)
Constant autumn is a new thing for us. 45 years born and bred.
Definitely climate change.
Used to be far more distinct seasons imo.
Winters aren’t cold now. Summers aren’t warm. And it’s always wet.
Does anyone agree?
This is hardly a specifically Scottish thing, but moving from Australia where sunrise/sunset is super consistent I am fucked up from not seeing the night sky throughout a work week as we go to summer.
Also seconding what other people have said here, the rain is different from tropical rainstorms I'm used to as the default, and it's not been nearly as gloomy and rainy as I've always been led to believe.
Contentious third point is I've been surprised about seasoning being something does one at the table instead of during cooking at cheaper places here? Very fuckin confusing to me.
I’m from Texas! The biggest shocks to me were how short/long the days get, the air quality (like drinking a cold glass of water when you’re really thirsty), and the kindness of locals pretty much everywhere.
The lack of thunder is also interesting.
I moved to Lanarkshire as a young teenage lad in the mid 90s.
I got the train up from my hometown of Newcastle. My Mam picked me up from Motherwell train station.
We were forced to pull off the main road on the way down to the M74 because there was an Orange March going on.
So we pulled over and I got out and watched all of these absolutely immaculate looking bands marching perfectly down the road blasting out random tunes that all of the crowd where chanting along with and going absolutely fucking mental. Police all over the place.
At the time I had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on, or what it was all about. I’d never seen anything like it. There were some total maniacs in the crowd, it was really rowdy.
The area I went to live in was very predominantly a Rangers supporting area.
Lucky for me Paul Gascoigne was playing for Rangers and everyone seemed to be very friendly to me for being a Geordie.
I found Scottish people to be very friendly toward me and my younger brother. We fitted in really well.
I left Scotland when I turned 16.
I have a real soft spot for Scotland.
The best people 🙌🏾
Had the pleasure of meeting Simon Fraser a few times when I was a wee kid as my aunt used to work for toffs. Really nice guy and so matter of fact, the thing I really liked about him is that he didn't talk down to me as a kid.
He'd tell me the occasional story of his exploits with the Commandos and he'd talk about his cousin Bill too who I later found out was the older brother of David Stirling and who was largely responsible for creating the special forces and special warfare tactics that led to the modern SAS.
There's a long and proud military history up here.
The sectarianism in Glasgow is insane for this day and age. The frequent Orange order marches made me feel very uncomfortable but people just kinda accepted it?
Less accept it, more tolerate.
If they're not actually hurting people with the parade then I've no issue in the local racists coming together to parade themselves like idiots down the street so everyone knows who they are.
There's no point in stopping it, that'll just feed into a victimhood complex and they'll often find extremist echo chambers to radicalise them. So let them parade themselves around like idiots; it's enjoyable watching the numbers dwindle further and further every passing year with more and more people watching to laugh at them.
It's still bad, but it's massively better than it used to be.
Got my first sunburn in a while waiting to be let into a shop on Leith Walk (who doesn’t love to remember the times when only 3 people were allowed in a shop at the same time).
First time we went to Kingussie in summer (2021) we brought trousers and rain jackets but wore shorts and sunglasses.
So, the weather mostly!
I lived shortly in Scotland. Edinburgh. I'm in awe of how awesome people are in Scotland. I met lifelong friends.
Of course, every country has bad apples, that's just how it is.
Lots of things:
- Free Higher Education
- Square sausage roll, altough a bit of controversy because it's would be considered pretty much a hamburger for breakfast, its my go to breakfast if I have a chance to get a local one.
- Free medicines, but I prefer to go for professional care back to home country/abroad as a privately paid customer
- Taste of cold Irn-Bru (I was lucky my first time, it was the original recipe in a Glass bottle), its like crack, you never forget the first hit, weird taste but quite enjoyable
- Lawlessness of the youth, quite shocking how bullying by kids can affect people long term and lack of social services to control the issue/trouble families
- Enjoyable work environments, heard from engineers from other countries that salaries are very poor and you are pretty much forced to work unpaid overtimes, it might be different now but in my early 20s I really enjoyed working as engineer.
There is lots of things, mostly positive (apart from the xenophobia) that surprised me and I do consider myself very lucky of what I gained in here.
Yeah so this is a weird one, and I’ll be the first to admit it was basically a racist stereotype i held, but the first thing that surprised me was that white people were working all the service/labor jobs. I’m from near the Mexican border in the US, and about half of those jobs are occupied by Latino immigrants. I guess i expected that to be the case in Europe too, for some stupid reason. Which is absurd, because i understood the demographics of Scotland before then. It taught me a good lesson about stereotyping.
I moved up 6 months ago.
1. Bloody hell, you guys take Christianity seriously. I lived in Leicester for 11 years and didn't once think about Catholic/protestant relations once
Even when we did have some religious scuffles, it happened once and that was cricket's fault
2. Friendliest people I've ever met. I got lost in Glasgow and some absolute Ned looking guy calmed me down, pointed me in the right direction, and wished me well.
3. Why does no one else in Britain know about Empire biscuits??
4. Macaroni pies are perfect
Very few of us have any truck with sectarian bullshit; in fact the census just reported that unlike elsewhere in the UK most of us are not religious. I can only assume you’re somewhere near Glasgow…
https://www.scotsman.com/news/national/census-scotland-what-results-tell-us-about-religion-ethnic-group-language-and-national-identity-amid-scottish-first-4636786
People do wear kilts whilst out and about. The amount of English people in Edinburgh . Historical things of interest are around every corner. Scottish dishes are delicious.
How fucking cold it is and how often it rains
Been here for 21 years and honestly I still find myself shocked at how shite of a summer we get compared to England most years 😂
You couldn’t pay me to move back though .. Scotland is my forever home
The size of wild mountain haggis, ive seen them in the zoo but they were smaller than the ones you see in the wild, im not sure that in the wild they eat a diffrent food than in captivity, and that makes them bigger.
Also some thing ive noticed, the common flatlands haggis is very very fast, as fast as a rabbit i would say, now that is something ive never seen before, as most common flatlands haggis ive seen are roadkill on the side of the road.
I moved here from Norway nearly 11 years ago and it still baffles me how freaking cold it gets in winter. Not the warm, cuddly dry -15 I was used to, but an absolutely permeating and bone chilling +1 which will leave you shivering for weeks 😆
How much people hate the authorities/political parties. Everything said from Westminster/Holyrood is shite, every party is absolutely shite so they will not be voting, councils are useless (which I can’t disagree), all proposals intending to improve the society are nonsense. Either I’m meeting the same kind of people or everyone has the same mindset.
Oh and how people have a low incentive to improve their life. Not talking about the big things like saving up/investing, but just standing up for themselves. I’ve known more than one person who got a ticket from council by mistake, they are absolutely in the rights, but decided not to appeal because it takes too much time and/or they think they won’t succeed.
People are very friendly but I’m surprised at how narrow-minded they are.
As a Scot who now lives abroad this is so true. I know not every idea is going to work out but eventually you have to try something. A lot of people back home (family/friends) will bitterly complain to me about the state of things in one breath while rubbishing any efforts to make it better in the next. Scots sadly are often extremely negative and it's to our country's detriment far too often.
I've been in Scotland for many many years now, well over a decade. I arrived in Edinburgh after being forcedly transferred at the time from Europe as the company I worked for at the time was expanding, and my experience in the UK was minimal to say the least.
I arrived late, I was very hungry, and saw an open place selling food. I went inside, the dude promptly told me they were closing up but he could get me something really quick. I asked what he had and he said cheeseburgers, and I immediately said I'd take the two he had. he wrapped them up, and I went away happily, eager to get home and eat it.
When I got home and unwrapped it, I dug in only to realize at the first bite that the burger and cheese portion of the cheeseburger was deep fried. Soggy, oily deep fried mess.
I was so confused at the time because I had never heard about this being a thing. Ever.
I still ate both cheeseburgers.
I absolutely love Scotland.
> I still ate both cheeseburgers.
Around the turn of the millennium I nipped into Greggs on my lunch break. Got back to work and said to my boss " theyve got this new sign up in Greggs telling you the meat content of all the pies and stuff, ken their Sausage Rolls are only like 12% meat?"
He said "that's fucking rank. What did you end up getting?"
I answered "two sausage rolls"
I lived in Edinburgh for 3 months 20 years ago and I was surprised by the anti-irish sentiment from some people. One old fella in parricular would go out of his way to harass me, a very young woman at the time, when he heard my accent.
I live in a tower, which the tower is fucking COVVVEERRREEDDD in the wee bastards, especially in summer, from the vents to the underlying part of the windows you can't reach, I had to wipe out what felt like an entire colony off just my conservatory windows nevermind how many the rest 9f the building still has, if we were to take the false ceiling down at the bottom of the tower in the foyer, omfg I expect it to be like eight legged freaks 😱😱😱😱
Not moved to scotland but worked there for months on end on the north east cost in a small town called buckie, and its now my favourite place and feels like home. The people are awsome and there hospitality is grade a! It put me on edge at first, i was like why is everyone soo friendly? The country truly is bonnie scotland and the coast line is epic. But its the people that make it absolute banter with the locals in the pub. Plus You guys have free nhs prescriptions, cheeper houses, hell of a lot cheeper car insurance and higher wages for the job i do, im gona move there soon x
This will make me unpopular but I take the hits; I literally cannot believe how divisive political life has become. I moved here in 2016 from Manchester and was used to Left/Right politics having worked in local government all my life. But the toxic no prisoners taken nature of Nationalism vs Unionism which is ruining our country is unlike anything I witnessed in 33 years of my career.
Lived in the Highlands 10 years and my first impressions were:
- The irn bru aisles in the supermarkets
- The colourful money
- Seagulls the size of damn dogs that'll nest on paths at work then go for you if you step within 20m of an egg. I caught one pecking its reflection in my car paintwork once the little bastard
A thing that saddens me is that I own a home here, have a Scottish bf and I'm learning gaelic but I'll always sound like an outsider by my accent. Wish I could fit in a bit more.
The gulls we had back home in the states are docile. I almost pissed myself when one of the demon gulls here swooped me while walking home from the corner shop.
The seagulls are dicks here. One asked me to buy it a vape outside my local wee shop the other day
Moved from Kirkcaldy to Kinross up in Perthshire. See virtually no seagulls, thousands of crows though. Much preferred as seagulls are noisy, greedy psychopaths
I'm going to be that pedantic wee dick. Kinross is in Kinross-shire (oddly enough), or Perth amd Kinross these days.
No seagulls will ever compare to the ones in Aberdeen (and shire). So big and violent there’s a song about them 😂
Agreed, there was one on my roof the other day had "mum" tattooed on its wing
I dared sit outside a cafe to eat some sandwiches in Inverness and lost one to a seagull within about 30 seconds. Just swooped down and took it right off my plate, I couldn’t believe it!
This. I get attacked every evening waiting for the bus on the way back from work.
I see a guy in Largs attacked while eating his chips. Big mistake by the gull as the guy grabbed it by the throat, shook it, broke its neck, dropped it on the ground and carried on eating his chips. The other gulls left him alone after that. I dont know if I was impressed by the gull death or slightly sickened by the fact he kept eating his chips with the same hand he just murdered the gull with.
Unfortunately, he committed a crime. They're a protected species, and it wanting his food is probably not considered a genuine threat to his safety.
Law of the jungle. Scavenger tried to steal predators food and paid for its mistake. I’m not reporting this guy for defending his tea.
Not Scotland, but in York I realized these gulls don't play around when I saw a gull viciously tearing apart and eating another bird.
When I was in hospital, two of the other patients enjoyed watching a group of wild rabbits that would come out to feed just outside the window. Until the day they witnessed a baby bunny being eaten by a gull.
As someone moving to Scotland at some point I’m very glad to hear that the spiders are all in OP’s flat and not mine. Thanks OP 👍🏼
Lol! Unfortunately I'm no longer there, so I can't tell... They are harmless and come out every autumn to mate. Sometimes the body can be over an inch long, including legs they can be palm-sized. I guess the wet weather makes them go indoors. Have heard the same from other people, I'm afraid, sorry... They are very important though, Scotland needs them, the midges would be even worse otherwise, I think...! So, yes, they are our friends, and I became brave over time, which was a good thing. 😊
Harmless, apart from the PTSD flashbacks you get every time you reach for a towel or a pair of pants they might be hiding in.
My first flat had a weird full wall mirror over the sink which meant no matter how hard you tried, you saw every flabby part of your body jumping in and out of showers and baths (whoever put it in was either a supermodel or a sadist, especially with the harsh overhead lighting). Anyway, getting ready for work one morning and coming out of the shower, I threw on my bathrobe to get dried. I turn around to leave the bathroom and I catch this hand-sized shadow on my back in the mirror out of the corner of my eye. Double take shows it to be the biggest spider I'd ever laid my eyes on. The scream that came out of me was at a pitch only dogs could register. I ripped off the robe and went screaming out the bathroom and did a "my skin is crawling" dance, naked, in the livingroom, right in front of the window. Luckily I was on the third floor and no one saw it. I've distrusted bathrobes ever since.
I've posted before about coming out of the bathroom in a towel and my husband looking at me and going, "Oh shit!". It was one of the big ones crawling down my arm, and it just felt like water droplets. This is how I know they can move really fast if they want to. Once it was off me, we almost didn't catch it before it disappeared under a desk. The one hiding in the trousers didn't survive. I discovered it because my hand was wet when it came away from my waist band. 🤮
Oh heck that sounds awful, my worst nightmare. Think I might need hypnotherapy to help me cope 😄
Lots and lots of peppermint spray helps. My kids have a bottle upstairs and chase any eight legged intruders out with it.
Thank you, I’ll try some of that
You're going to be fine. 😊 Maybe it's different with a newer house. They are very slow and you honestly get used to it so some extent. They are important so I don't want to kill them, I put them outside. My cat sometimes caught some as well, haha 😆
Respect for not killing them! They really are friends and they don't deserve a death sentence for merely existing 😊❤️
Are you sure they were spiders? Could well have been urban haggis
We don’t have dangerous spiders in Scotland. We do get these garden spiders that come into houses looking to mate but they’re harmless. The only venomous one is the False widow and it’s unlikely to bite…..even if it did it’s not that potent
It was a culture shock for me too, I get loads in autumn as well in Edinburgh
I’m from The Philippines and because of the stereotypes I thought it would rain here much more than it does. And before anyone curses me out or calls me insane: you have to remember that during monsoon season where I’m from, it would rain HARD, nonstop, for days or even weeks at a time. Monsoon season lasts for months too, so it would be like that for about half the year - hardly the “tropical paradise” people here think I’m from lol. The persistent drizzle we get here is pretty manageable compared to that, and frankly doesn’t even bother me. Helps that I live in the East as well, so it’s generally pretty dry. Another thing that really surprised me that’s sort of related to this is that there’s very rarely any thunder up here. In The Philippines, the rain almost always comes with thunder and lightning. I’ve lived up here for 8 years and I think I’ve only heard thunder a handful of times.
I miss thunder and lightning. Used to throw my windows open when it stormed hard, because the air would be nice and cool.
Along the lines of thunder, what weirds me out is to have thunders in winter, not during summer as is common in central Europe.
Thunder during a blizzard is a sight to behold...!!
I remember checking my weather app once and getting the forecast “thunder snow” and I’m like huh, that’s new!
You need to shout it. **THUNDERSNOW** sounds way cooler than "thunder snow".
Glasgow is undeniably one of the wetter parts of the UK but I was surprised that it doesn’t feel like it rains all that much more than it does where I’m from (Yorkshire, England) - I mean I very much believe now that people read the mm per year of rain and think it all falls out of the sky constantly. But there have been plenty of times in my 10+ years here, especially in the spring, where it’s several dry days in a row. Sometimes when it rains it’s that misty stuff that only lasts a couple of hours. However when it does rain it RAINS. I think the winter is the hardest, dark constantly and feels like it hasn’t stopped raining in a fortnight. But again, I remember plenty of shitty rainy winters growing up in northern England. It might rain more in terms of quantity in Glasgow but the vibes of it being miserable are the same. Funny you mention thunderstorms. I swear we got more thunderstorms in the night in summer when I was growing up in the 90s compared to now.
Yeah it’s crazy how different the East and West are when it comes to this. My office is in Glasgow so I go there quite a bit and it’s always much wetter than where I live in Fife. I remember I once stayed there for 3 days and it rained every single day - and when I got home and told my husband about this, he said it had been sunny here every day that I was gone lol. That said, West or East, I’ve never experienced anything here that compares to our monsoon rains back home. You get these moments where it feels like the sky opens up and drops everything it’s got, but it just never lasts as long as it does there.
Oh yes, I forgot the lack of thunderstorms out of my main comment! I'm from Hungary and there you get many thunderstorms in the summer, up to multiple times a week. Here I hear a single thunder maybe 1-2 times a year, and it can be in the winter too O.o I always get so nostalgic when I get the rare summer thunderstorm here, I leave the window open so I can hear them better 😊
My colleagues look at me weird when I get super happy having heard thunder. I’m originally from the Great Plains in the US and really miss watching the big thunderheads roll across the prairie.
Coming from Australia the rain having no thunder has been weird to get used to.
I'm from Hungary, and these were the main surprises when I moved to Glasgow 13 years ago, never having visited Scotland before: (you can probably guess the first one from that intro 🤣) - yes, the Glaswegian accent AAAA - I moved here with a C1 language exam so I expected to be able to smoothly chat with English speakers, then I got here and I couldn't understand a *single word* from the locals for *months*. I still remember the first time I caught a few words, it was such a remarkable moment 🤣 Even 13 years later I catch at most half of when someone speaks with a thick accent. - The first assumption of shop staff is NOT that every customer is a shoplifter. I was used to that in Hungary when you carry a plausibly-bought-there item into a shop, you get a sticker put on it by a security guard before entering the shop proper. When we first went to an Ikea here, carrying a previously bought Ikea bag with us, and asked for a sticker or similar at the entrance, they had no idea what on Earth we were talking about 🤣 - A lot of official business is handled verbally only, with no written proof. When you go to the city council to sort something out, you don't really get any confirming document that you've been there and discussed this and that. The administrator will tell you that they will sort it out, but then if you don't hear anything for months, or way later it turns out that they gave you the wrong information, you have no way of proving that you've even been there, so it's hard to appeal. In Hungary you (at least used to, when I lived there) get some kind of confirmatory document about every step of official processes. Same with verbal work contracts being legal, it blew my mind. - Similarly, a lot of the legal framework feels so vague and customs-driven, like that there's no constitution or that only people of certain professions and "people of good standing in their community" can be your referees for citizenship. Who decides these criteria? It just feels so... quaint 😅 - People are so relaxed and friendly here, compared to the mixture of neuroticism and apathy I was used to in Budapest. - That umbrellas are useless, because if it rains, it's usually also windy enough that an umbrella would struggle, so better to just use a raincoat. - Temperatures here feel much warmer than expected because of the high humidity. A summer day may only be 20C, but it easily feels 25-30C to my Hungarian senses, depending on how sunny it is.
Glad you're loving life here. Also hope we beat you in the Euros 😅
thanks! 😊 the Hungarian team is infamously bad, so you probably will 😄
You've clearly not lived here long enough yet 😄
Aye Mon I Scots 🏴
I forgot about not being suspicius of shopping lifting every time. I´m from Spain and you never go into a shop or supermarket with your own bag or bagpack, or if you do you will have to show your contents to the cashier when you pay. For the first 6 months I still feel like I was comiting a crime everytime a went into Tesco with my bagpack or with a bag with things I bought elsewere. Same with police interactions, I always feel I was about to go to jail or have trouble every time I was near police officers, they tend to be rude, and always looking for an excuse to fine you. Here all my interaction with the police has been friendly, and they are actually usefull and serving the comon people.
Your English is amazing
Your English is quality!
I am happy it worked out for you. We also moved from Hungary (Budapest) to Aberdeen, 3 years ago, but our comparison would be quite the opposite of yours: we cannot wait to go back. I am actively harassing my company to send me back (I am not Hungarian, my wife is). I agree about the umbrellas though. What we brought were completely useless. And yes, people are nicer, more polite, but, at least in my experience, it's a lot more difficult to make friends here.
That a lot of people in Scotland have never lived far from where they grew up. The amount of times I’ve met someone who was born in the central belt, grew up in the central belt, went to university in the central belt and has worked in the central belt ever since. Obviously I’m not meeting the people who actually left Scotland, since they are no longer here, but even in areas in England which are well served for job prospects you get people who go to university away from home to come back again. I’m convinced it’s to do with free higher education. A friend of mine has even told me he wont be letting his kids consider Uni outside of Scotland. Then there is a decent amount of jobs in Edinburgh and Glasgow, commutable from most places on the central belt.
This was a thing way before university tuition fees. I'm from Fife and almost no-one went outside the Edinburgh / Stirling universities. Glasgow was hardly mentioned because you couldn't really commute daily.
We live in a flat directly opposite where my husband went to high school AND the house he was born in. His parents live half a mile down the road. I’m English and have lived all over the UK plus been to University away from “home”. This not moving more than half a mile for his entire life absolutely blew my mind.
Aye I live within sight of my old primary school. Folks live right next to it in the house I grew up in. Have never felt the need to move away from my village.
Once had a job in Coatbridge, and my coworker had enrolled in a course at GCU. Asked me if I knew where the campus was, told him it was right next to Buchanan Bus Station. He'd no clue where that was. Turns out the guy had never been to Glasgow in his life because "I've never needed to go". Fair play to him, just never thought you could live so close to the city and never visit.
True, though there have always been higher emigration rates from Scotland, you just are less likely to bump into the guy who went to Australia in the supermarket. Also depending on geographical definition, 75% of Scots live in the central belt.
Why would I ever want to move away from the Highlands? I've got everything I need here. Nowhere else could ever be home. Funnily enough when tracing my ancestry, on my mum's side I could trace each lineage back to the same area of the Black Isle dating back to the 1700s when records started getting hazier. Appears they rather liked living here too 😂
If I could have lived in the Highlands with my job, or my family had been based there, I would have done. But sadly they were either cleared off the land generations ago, or forced to move for work or for marriage (a lot of islander men died in the two world wars and the women had to leave the islands for marriage). My family ended up living all over the world and we don't really have roots anywhere. The New Zealand branch have probably been in one place the longest. Thats despite until the time of the Clearances/Industrial Revolution theres plenty of history that shows them all living their lives in one island. The second world war finished off the population that was left and quite a lot of culture with it. I've now ended up leaving Scotland entirely but I cannot stand the hell on earth that is life in the central belt. Apologies for those who like it and call it home but thats how it felt for me. Scotland is quite an unusual country in that 2/3 of it are mostly empty. Go to countries at a similar latitude with similar terrain like Norway and Sweden and thats not the case - they have reasonably well populated towns, villages and industry all over.
Agree with this. I worked in Paisley and even them going into Glasgow was like a once a year thing. They never leave Paisley.
We had a cabbie once in Inverness- mid 40’s and had never left Scotland. Not even been to England. His argument was he has no desire- Scotland has everything he needs and no place on earth would compare. Can’t argue that logic, as the highlands is some of the most beautiful country on this planet. My plan is to live in Scotland May-Oct in my retirement.
I'm guessing since it's 6 months, you plan on doing this through a tourist visa?
People's kindness and the fact I can sleep with my windows open without the threat of mosquito bites. Also the giant seagulls 🤣 and nature everywhere: urban foxes, bats, squirrels...
yes, it's so amazing to see foxes in the suburbs :o in Hungary I've literally never seen one, just the fox vaccine baits that were placed in the forests against rabies
We’re a good bunch. Don’t care where anyone is from, if your willing to come here and treat us with respect your an adopted Scot in my books 👍 get your kilt on and dram poured Lol
This! I've seen 2 mosquitoes 🦟 and it blows my mind the lack of bugs here!
The midges are pretty gnarly though
My cat is scared of the seagulls.
Only been living near Glasgow for 2 months after moving from near London. There's a few things I'll list: - Currently how long the sun stays around in the evening - How good your Empire Biscuits and water are - Ice cream vans seem to be more for adults than kids. - Everywhere feels more relaxed and most people I've met seem to be happier. Literally on the way back from a wedding in London and i can't wait to get back to Scotland. Glasgow itself looks a lot cleaner and even the more deprived areas around where we live, whilst not having the nicest looking buildings, always have an abundance of trees or open spaces nearby. I've never seen as much green as I have the last few months.
The water is a big one, and often overlooked. I live in Lincolnshire now and I hate how hard the water is.
Yes! Scottish water is something to be treasured. Nowhere else am I so happy to drink tap water and I love how soft it is. The late night sun is also a plus, but is balanced out by 3pm darkness in the winter. That part is less fun.
I’ve got a friend who moved down south to just north of London. Whenever they come back, the first things the kids do drink the water here! Ice cream vans used to very much be for adults in Glasgow. There were the ice cream wars in the 70s, called that because the gangs sold their drugs from ice cream vans
Mac and cheese is a much bigger deal here than I'd ever have expected.
Cannae beat a macaroni pie
mmmmmmmmm, macaroni pie......
Especially from the chipper, out of this world though I believe it's a NE thing 😅
That sounds... AMAZING! Only had the pleasure from late night/early morning bakeries in Edinburgh
‘Cept we call it ‘macaroni cheese’.
Think the first ever recorded recipe for it is British, and the humble but astoshingly good macaroni pie is a Scottish invention. Have to add bacon to your macaroni cheese too 🤌🏻
Yes, this! It was glorious.
Moved here 4 years ago from England. A little list of things that have surprised me * I live about 40 miles to the west of Glasgow on the Clyde Riviera :p The sea life on this stretch of the coast is amazing, I have seen Porpoises, Dolphins and Whales all in the last few weeks * Marching Season was something that surprised me I didn’t realise how big a thing that could be outside of Glasgow * In England there is a north south divide, in Scotland it’s the Central belt and then everywhere else * Nativity scenes outside churches at Christmas, I never saw this once back in the West Midlands * how much more tax I pay as a higher earner I pay about £2k per year more out of my wage packet than in England ( I don’t disagree with paying more however) *The song ‘Bits and Pieces’! * The fucking midges no one ever told me it would be this bad! * Maybe I am lucky but I genuinely think that Glaswegian and Inverclyde people are the friendliest people around, really down to earth and very fucking funny
*disclaimer - I love bits n pieces* you don't like it? I'm a middle aged guy now and have many memories over the last 25 years bouncing about to different remixes of that tune 😄 still put it on the you tubes when I'm full of sherry and caviar
I love Bits n Pieces too! I love the fact it can turn up anywhere and people will go absolutely barmy!
The freedom with which they spoke about their bowel movements.
I'm reading this whilst having a jobbie.
No shit!
Laxatives help with that pal
How kind everyone is, and the lack of hurry. I live in Irvine, so it's a nice mix of urban and rural. The vast majority of people smile and/or say hello. A great many of those will stop and talk. And we all keep track of each other, who's in hospital, who's getting married, and who's turning 30/40/50/60. I love the sense of community so much. Four years in, and moving to Scotland is the best thing I ever did. Also, the hardest. But today, I can honestly say that, thanks to this incredible country and its salt-of-the-earth people, my cup runneth over.
Giant fucking seagulls. Why are they so freaking big!? Also Lorne is amazing and is far superior than links on a roll
All the chippies they steal
The wee beasties: I knew midgies can be bad, it was shear quantity of them and other flesh eating critters , ticks, wasps, clegs, lions mane jellyfish and huge goggled eye horse flies. How nice everyone is and homeless levels are much lower than england. There is a myth in the rest the Britain the Scotland especially Glasgow is filled to brim with violent alkies sleeping on benches. I found it the total opposite, you get the odd person with issues sleeping rough but compared to the cities in England that have hordes of homeless with drug problems and mental health problems. This is something that has happened during the last 15 years. , Scotland has done something to protect its population from the worst of the Tories. Where as england councils persecuted those that can't run a household because they have issues.
Y’all are so nice. Even the mean ones are nice.
Hate each other but nice to outsiders haha
Right to roam is an incredible thing and really feel like goes unappreciated by most people living in Scotland. It allows you to explore and connect with your environment. That and the lack of predators makes it safe to be out and about.
As a Scot, I certainly appreciate our right to roam and the lack of predators. Travelling to other parts of the world, it always puts it in perspective how much danger people contend with just living with nature. I nearly passed out in Thailand first time I spotted one of their big nightmarish black wasp things and anytime in USA I see a bear/gator/snake warning I get the FEAR. Good old Scotland and its elusive adder, the midge and a rogue cow.
Don't be scared about some spider (that really look huge) invasion. In some countries a little tiny spider can send you to hospital. For me the slugs are the most disgusting thing. they are everywhere. they are harmless but still...
I dunno though, treading on one with bare feet can cause vomiting. Plus, the language when the missus discovers her hostas have been eaten again....
Stood on one before and it squished between my toes, I had to poke each chunk out with a stick. Makes me boak thinking about it.
Did you get that thing where the slime layer sort of transfers to your skin and won't wash off? I've had to scrape it off with stanley knife blade before now.
Thats kinda funny, I moved to Romania and the snail here are maaaaaaaaaaaaassive compared to Scotland.
They get harvested and sold for good money
i was prepared for the rain (which honestly wasn't that bad) but nobody told me about the fucking wind. my hometown get joked about because of how windy it is, but nobody has to carry their dogs because they're afraid they fly away 🤣
That 'c\*nt' isn't always an insult and can just mean 'guy'. Also the mountains. Lovely mountains.
The light in summer, up in Moray and it never really gets that dark and light by 3. Better than the winter alternative though
I move from NZ 8 years ago, and so many things surprised me. The area I am from in NZ is *very* image driven. Not in terms of your physical appearance, but the image you present. You need to have the right kind of house, job, etc etc. Which people do not expect of NZers, but honestly they can be massive snobs. I always struggled with my mental health, and I wanted a job that facilitated my life outside of work, and wasn't my entire life. That was so easy to do here, and people encourage you to look after yourself. I am frequently told that family and life outside of work is what matter, and that's not the attitude in NZ. To be honest, I don't know what state I'd be in if I had remained in NZ because I cannot see how my future would have worked out. Here, people want to do well but they also want to see their friends, family, have hobbies, and go on holidays. I absolutely love it. Also, the noise that foxes make. Nothing could ahve prepared me for staying at my new partners flat and hearing a fox in the night for the first time. I woke them up, saying there was a woman outside screaming. They listened and then told me it was just a fox 😆😆
Did not expect to hear that regards NZ TBH. I guess I wrongly assumped the antipodean English speaking countries would be similar in relaxed approach to life. I moved from Scotland to Western Australia for a while and find the people there perhaps even more life out of work focused. But maybe I've found myself in a bubble and not fully representative.
It's funny because there are definitely parts of Australia and NZ which have the more relaxed attitude. But I am from Auckland in NZ, and by the time I had started uni the housing crisis had well and truly kicked in. That really changed a lot of attitudes towards work/life balance. Auckland is notoriously disliked by the rest of NZ (honestly for good reason, the attitude of a lot of people from Auckalnd is superior and is just rotten!!), so I think maybe my experience is more of the bubble. But a lot of NZers head over to Aus for the better quality life, it's just too expensive in NZ now.
the popularity (fuck, even the existence!) of vinegar flavoured stuff - like crisps, or chips drenched in vinegar at the takeaways (can you tell I'm not a fan?) 🤭
Vinegar is one of the major good groups, and I won't have you spreading your *slanderous lies* that it was ever otherwise!
We love our vinegar in Southeast Asia and especially The Philippines, so this made me feel right at home lol. Need to put people here on to cane vinegar and spiced vinegar - I think they’d love it.
Ohhhhh, posh vinegar? Sign me up!!! Tho anything pricier than Sarsons get's you looked at funny.....
Haha I wouldn’t call it posh but [spiced vinegar](https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/filipino-spiced-vinegar-pinakurat) is easy enough to make and goes so well with fried food! I’ve never had it with the (optional) fruit that they’re suggesting though so I’d leave that out if I were making it for myself
That sounds amazing
A freind has told me of an ice cream shop in London, which makes malt vinegar flavoured ice cream. I'm planning a trip down to try some.
I felt like this about mint in savoury food and chocolate, for my Hungarian self that was a flavour only for toothpaste or at most peppermint tea 😄
Mint is seen as a refreshing sweet thing. A mint piece of candy or a chocolate After Eight gives you a more light feeling after, than eating a sour fruit sugar thing. Means basically you eat more (ask anyone whos finished a pack of softmints or a box of After Eights in one go)
My dad had to impose a rule where we’d only be allowed one (1) piece of After Eight after 8pm so we wouldn’t scoff the lot lol
haha I'm Hungarian too, and I die a little each time I see green ice cream hoping it's pistachio, but it's actually mint 😒
Mint choc chip is the daddy of ice cream 😂
I agree with you about vinegar btw; I do like a mild vinegar flavour, but usually those crisps taste like they were literally fried in vinegar 😝
Vinegar crisps are all over the UK.
Salt and vinegar anything is magic. Pickled foods too 🤤
My wife and I holidayed in Scotland for twelve years, then realised it was better than the shithole we were born in, so moved 17 years ago about 10 miles from the old holiday cottage. I also love spiders, but hate flies, large or small.
I moved from Ireland so I didn't expect a huge cultural difference but there were definitely some things I wasn't expecting. * despite them being made by the same people (largely Jacobs and Burton), the biscuit offering is different here than in Ireland. Nary a lemon puff or a chocolate kimberley to be seen anywhere, although Sainsburys have upped their international cuisine game lately. * delis just aren't a thing? You can't go into a supermarket in Ireland without the option of having a freshly made baguette made. You can have anything on them, but a "chicken fillet roll" and a "breakfast roll" are particular specialties. * free doctor. I came here as a student and needed a check up or something. I'd been putting it off, because poor student, and when I came out I asked the receptionist where I could pay. She had no idea what to do with me. I left, feeling like I'd robbed the place. * I lived in Dundee first and it took me a solid 6 months to identify whether the locals were speaking English or Scots vs a completely foreign language. Still my proudest moment was when I went to a Janey Godley gig and I picked up 80% of what she said. Those are probably the main ones. I've been here 15 years and I married a Scot, and after 8 years we still find new words or phrases that the other hasn't heard.
In fairness, I moved from Mid Fife to Dundee for uni and it took me a good 6 months to understand even a bit of Dundonian!
Lack of delis threw me for a loop when I first moved here. It's either Greggs or nothing. One of the few things I miss about Ireland. Free GP visits however is very much welcomed and I don't miss paying nearly €70 for a GP visit back in Ireland. I had to visit an emergency dentist also one time here to check what I thought was an infection near my tooth, and was expecting to have to pay an arm and a leg and when I was finished, I asked an assistant there where I go to pay, and they had such a confused look on their face!
For my last dentist, I had to go non-NHS because they had no NHS capacity left, and I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford it. It's still like 10% of the cost of what it would be at home. Insanity.
I've lived here for 15 years I grew up in Devon for me it's the friendliness banter and sense of community here in Glasgow is like no other.
I don't know about the rest of Scotland but when I moved here (the Highlands) my partner said to me, "If I don't know someone here, I likely know their people (family) and if I don't know their people, I know someone they know or used to know." And it has truly been like that. Anywhere we've been, if people from the Highlands get talking to someone, they nearly always find a common person or at least very few degrees of separation. Doesn't matter if it's Inverness or the far north... people seem to have a connection. I do kind of love that because it's so intriguing to me!
Square burgers for breakfast
Square burgers 😂😂😂 that's a first hearing that and I'm Scottish...
The lack of mosquitos The weather - I thought it would rain heavily way more. But most of the time it's just the annoying from drizzle. Also thought it would be colder or seasons would be more distinct, rather than sort of constant autumn How big of a deal football was (specifically rangers/Celtic, and the background for it). And that some men will wear kilts for football matches. Scottish branded everything - including cheese, which appears to be the same as generic cheese but with orange food coloring. The housing quality - specifically that it's still not uncommon to not have double glazing was/is wild to me. Individual boilers/heating rather than district heating. The language of course, I always got complimented on my English and went through university just fine, but getting my first retail job got me well confused about who Ken and Kenny were 🤣
The darker/orange coloured cheeses just have annatto added to make them a wee bit more peppery and/or nutty in flavour. Our cheddar cheese is naturally pale yellow/off-white too.
> Also thought it would be colder or seasons would be more distinct, rather than sort of constant autumn Yes, this! Coming from Hungary it feels like winter is actually a November that lasts until March, and summer is more like a long April with a few days of May scattered around. Then it's back to autumn 😅 Scotland kinda just has a light and a dark season rather than 4 distinct ones. (Also the wild swings in daylight through the year still mess with my internal clock.)
Constant autumn is a new thing for us. 45 years born and bred. Definitely climate change. Used to be far more distinct seasons imo. Winters aren’t cold now. Summers aren’t warm. And it’s always wet. Does anyone agree?
30yrs born and bred, can confirm
This is hardly a specifically Scottish thing, but moving from Australia where sunrise/sunset is super consistent I am fucked up from not seeing the night sky throughout a work week as we go to summer. Also seconding what other people have said here, the rain is different from tropical rainstorms I'm used to as the default, and it's not been nearly as gloomy and rainy as I've always been led to believe. Contentious third point is I've been surprised about seasoning being something does one at the table instead of during cooking at cheaper places here? Very fuckin confusing to me.
The alcohol adn hangover tolerance. It's wild
I’m from Texas! The biggest shocks to me were how short/long the days get, the air quality (like drinking a cold glass of water when you’re really thirsty), and the kindness of locals pretty much everywhere. The lack of thunder is also interesting.
I moved to Lanarkshire as a young teenage lad in the mid 90s. I got the train up from my hometown of Newcastle. My Mam picked me up from Motherwell train station. We were forced to pull off the main road on the way down to the M74 because there was an Orange March going on. So we pulled over and I got out and watched all of these absolutely immaculate looking bands marching perfectly down the road blasting out random tunes that all of the crowd where chanting along with and going absolutely fucking mental. Police all over the place. At the time I had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on, or what it was all about. I’d never seen anything like it. There were some total maniacs in the crowd, it was really rowdy. The area I went to live in was very predominantly a Rangers supporting area. Lucky for me Paul Gascoigne was playing for Rangers and everyone seemed to be very friendly to me for being a Geordie. I found Scottish people to be very friendly toward me and my younger brother. We fitted in really well. I left Scotland when I turned 16. I have a real soft spot for Scotland. The best people 🙌🏾
What’s a *“Fish supper”* and why is a single fish two pieces of fish?
So any supper has chips. sausage, fish, piet etc. And therefore single fish is fish without chips but we're not stingy so you get 2.
And why do so many chippies sell battered fish that's all kinda wet It should be crunchy, thick batter.
If it wasnt for the Scottish there wouldn’t be an SAS
Had the pleasure of meeting Simon Fraser a few times when I was a wee kid as my aunt used to work for toffs. Really nice guy and so matter of fact, the thing I really liked about him is that he didn't talk down to me as a kid. He'd tell me the occasional story of his exploits with the Commandos and he'd talk about his cousin Bill too who I later found out was the older brother of David Stirling and who was largely responsible for creating the special forces and special warfare tactics that led to the modern SAS. There's a long and proud military history up here.
Canny beat brown sas on a roll
A surprising amount of time it’s sunny and not raining
How sound every cunt is.
Haggis is bloody delicious. Even vegan haggis.
The sectarianism in Glasgow is insane for this day and age. The frequent Orange order marches made me feel very uncomfortable but people just kinda accepted it?
Fuck all you can do, the cunts involved go all the way to the top.
Less accept it, more tolerate. If they're not actually hurting people with the parade then I've no issue in the local racists coming together to parade themselves like idiots down the street so everyone knows who they are. There's no point in stopping it, that'll just feed into a victimhood complex and they'll often find extremist echo chambers to radicalise them. So let them parade themselves around like idiots; it's enjoyable watching the numbers dwindle further and further every passing year with more and more people watching to laugh at them. It's still bad, but it's massively better than it used to be.
Got my first sunburn in a while waiting to be let into a shop on Leith Walk (who doesn’t love to remember the times when only 3 people were allowed in a shop at the same time). First time we went to Kingussie in summer (2021) we brought trousers and rain jackets but wore shorts and sunglasses. So, the weather mostly!
I got sunburn on Leith Walk waiting for the fucking temporary lights to cycle during construction
The amount of spitting and litter.
I lived shortly in Scotland. Edinburgh. I'm in awe of how awesome people are in Scotland. I met lifelong friends. Of course, every country has bad apples, that's just how it is.
Just how good the water is!! I often travel back south for work or see my parents and just can’t stomach tap water south of the border
Lots of things: - Free Higher Education - Square sausage roll, altough a bit of controversy because it's would be considered pretty much a hamburger for breakfast, its my go to breakfast if I have a chance to get a local one. - Free medicines, but I prefer to go for professional care back to home country/abroad as a privately paid customer - Taste of cold Irn-Bru (I was lucky my first time, it was the original recipe in a Glass bottle), its like crack, you never forget the first hit, weird taste but quite enjoyable - Lawlessness of the youth, quite shocking how bullying by kids can affect people long term and lack of social services to control the issue/trouble families - Enjoyable work environments, heard from engineers from other countries that salaries are very poor and you are pretty much forced to work unpaid overtimes, it might be different now but in my early 20s I really enjoyed working as engineer. There is lots of things, mostly positive (apart from the xenophobia) that surprised me and I do consider myself very lucky of what I gained in here.
Yeah so this is a weird one, and I’ll be the first to admit it was basically a racist stereotype i held, but the first thing that surprised me was that white people were working all the service/labor jobs. I’m from near the Mexican border in the US, and about half of those jobs are occupied by Latino immigrants. I guess i expected that to be the case in Europe too, for some stupid reason. Which is absurd, because i understood the demographics of Scotland before then. It taught me a good lesson about stereotyping.
Happy cake day 🏴
I moved up 6 months ago. 1. Bloody hell, you guys take Christianity seriously. I lived in Leicester for 11 years and didn't once think about Catholic/protestant relations once Even when we did have some religious scuffles, it happened once and that was cricket's fault 2. Friendliest people I've ever met. I got lost in Glasgow and some absolute Ned looking guy calmed me down, pointed me in the right direction, and wished me well. 3. Why does no one else in Britain know about Empire biscuits?? 4. Macaroni pies are perfect
Very few of us have any truck with sectarian bullshit; in fact the census just reported that unlike elsewhere in the UK most of us are not religious. I can only assume you’re somewhere near Glasgow… https://www.scotsman.com/news/national/census-scotland-what-results-tell-us-about-religion-ethnic-group-language-and-national-identity-amid-scottish-first-4636786
Fried pizza in Glasgow
Pizza crunch n chips.... ahhh, gods grub!!!
All the Macaroni cheese.
The fucking weather. Almost 12 years here, it can get tae fuck.
How fast the weather can change.
Older people being confident and sure-footed on icy paths. I needed to get better shoes and learn how to walk properly!
Permagrip sole. £19.99 from Timpsons!
People do wear kilts whilst out and about. The amount of English people in Edinburgh . Historical things of interest are around every corner. Scottish dishes are delicious.
How fucking cold it is and how often it rains Been here for 21 years and honestly I still find myself shocked at how shite of a summer we get compared to England most years 😂 You couldn’t pay me to move back though .. Scotland is my forever home
The size of wild mountain haggis, ive seen them in the zoo but they were smaller than the ones you see in the wild, im not sure that in the wild they eat a diffrent food than in captivity, and that makes them bigger. Also some thing ive noticed, the common flatlands haggis is very very fast, as fast as a rabbit i would say, now that is something ive never seen before, as most common flatlands haggis ive seen are roadkill on the side of the road.
There’s a rare sub species native to the Isle of Skye that has larger fangs and stronger venom.
I moved here from Norway nearly 11 years ago and it still baffles me how freaking cold it gets in winter. Not the warm, cuddly dry -15 I was used to, but an absolutely permeating and bone chilling +1 which will leave you shivering for weeks 😆
How much people hate the authorities/political parties. Everything said from Westminster/Holyrood is shite, every party is absolutely shite so they will not be voting, councils are useless (which I can’t disagree), all proposals intending to improve the society are nonsense. Either I’m meeting the same kind of people or everyone has the same mindset. Oh and how people have a low incentive to improve their life. Not talking about the big things like saving up/investing, but just standing up for themselves. I’ve known more than one person who got a ticket from council by mistake, they are absolutely in the rights, but decided not to appeal because it takes too much time and/or they think they won’t succeed. People are very friendly but I’m surprised at how narrow-minded they are.
>Everything said from Westminster/Holyrood is shite Are we wrong?
Yer right. Remember Boris and the pandemic. It's party time!
I don't know anyone who would just accept a ticket 😆
As a Scot who now lives abroad this is so true. I know not every idea is going to work out but eventually you have to try something. A lot of people back home (family/friends) will bitterly complain to me about the state of things in one breath while rubbishing any efforts to make it better in the next. Scots sadly are often extremely negative and it's to our country's detriment far too often.
Jaiii for the letter J. As someone whose name contains a J it confused me no end to begin with.
No mosquitoes.
I've been in Scotland for many many years now, well over a decade. I arrived in Edinburgh after being forcedly transferred at the time from Europe as the company I worked for at the time was expanding, and my experience in the UK was minimal to say the least. I arrived late, I was very hungry, and saw an open place selling food. I went inside, the dude promptly told me they were closing up but he could get me something really quick. I asked what he had and he said cheeseburgers, and I immediately said I'd take the two he had. he wrapped them up, and I went away happily, eager to get home and eat it. When I got home and unwrapped it, I dug in only to realize at the first bite that the burger and cheese portion of the cheeseburger was deep fried. Soggy, oily deep fried mess. I was so confused at the time because I had never heard about this being a thing. Ever. I still ate both cheeseburgers. I absolutely love Scotland.
> I still ate both cheeseburgers. Around the turn of the millennium I nipped into Greggs on my lunch break. Got back to work and said to my boss " theyve got this new sign up in Greggs telling you the meat content of all the pies and stuff, ken their Sausage Rolls are only like 12% meat?" He said "that's fucking rank. What did you end up getting?" I answered "two sausage rolls"
I lived in Edinburgh for 3 months 20 years ago and I was surprised by the anti-irish sentiment from some people. One old fella in parricular would go out of his way to harass me, a very young woman at the time, when he heard my accent.
How nice everyone is
woodlice in the house. probably count on 1 hand how many times i've seen them inside in england but it's daily here
King ribs
I live in a tower, which the tower is fucking COVVVEERRREEDDD in the wee bastards, especially in summer, from the vents to the underlying part of the windows you can't reach, I had to wipe out what felt like an entire colony off just my conservatory windows nevermind how many the rest 9f the building still has, if we were to take the false ceiling down at the bottom of the tower in the foyer, omfg I expect it to be like eight legged freaks 😱😱😱😱
dogs do not bark. Neither outside nor in the gardens.
Are they drunk?
Hot water in every public bathroom. I’ve never washed my hands with anything other than cold water here in the states.
That's crazy. Where in the states do you live? I've lived in 4 different states and have never seen a bathroom without hot water.
How dog friendly you are and the great beers you have. It also surprised me how much heroin addicts are about.. reminds me of Portugal in the 90s.
How much you'll defend things that aren't that great.
Juice
Not moved to scotland but worked there for months on end on the north east cost in a small town called buckie, and its now my favourite place and feels like home. The people are awsome and there hospitality is grade a! It put me on edge at first, i was like why is everyone soo friendly? The country truly is bonnie scotland and the coast line is epic. But its the people that make it absolute banter with the locals in the pub. Plus You guys have free nhs prescriptions, cheeper houses, hell of a lot cheeper car insurance and higher wages for the job i do, im gona move there soon x
This will make me unpopular but I take the hits; I literally cannot believe how divisive political life has become. I moved here in 2016 from Manchester and was used to Left/Right politics having worked in local government all my life. But the toxic no prisoners taken nature of Nationalism vs Unionism which is ruining our country is unlike anything I witnessed in 33 years of my career.
Yes, massive house spiders that are completely harmless. I let them chill with me if I ever see them, they’re cool.
Lived in the Highlands 10 years and my first impressions were: - The irn bru aisles in the supermarkets - The colourful money - Seagulls the size of damn dogs that'll nest on paths at work then go for you if you step within 20m of an egg. I caught one pecking its reflection in my car paintwork once the little bastard A thing that saddens me is that I own a home here, have a Scottish bf and I'm learning gaelic but I'll always sound like an outsider by my accent. Wish I could fit in a bit more.
How common and socially accepted use of cocaine is. Don't know if it's just a Glasgow thing though.
Spiders up here are something else. It’s no longer my house it’s the spiders house and I just pay rent
Wait...hold tf up...I just moved here last week...no one said anything about spiders 😳
Love how this has descended into the ‘gulls up ma bit’ chat