how to survive Scotland

* Go to university to study English in your country of residence and then travel with your fellow students to Edinburgh for a month-long course for foreign university students.
* Ensure you are being housed with an elderly Scottish couple living in a tenement in the north of the city. He is retired and likes to play golf even though it cripples him for the next two days, she goes to work but still has the time to cook and clean and mother you. They are both excellent at dealing with your shyness and broken English.
* Stay in an attic room with poor heating (since you are unsure of how to work the gas heater and too shy to ask) but which has two lovely goose down duvets in the bed.
* Have doughy bread with marmalade for breakfast. Have lunch in student cafeterias or at Pizza Hut. Have hearty dinners with your hosts. Discover that crisps are perfectly respectable as part of an ordinary lunch, not just (as your mother taught you) an unhealthy snack.
* Take the double-decker bus - a lovely experience! - to campus every morning. Walk home every evening. ("I have miles to go before I sleep.")
* Explore the Castle, Arthur's Seat, Prince's Street Gardens, the Royal Mile, the Camera Obscura, the lovely little closes and the amazing book shops.
* Learn about Scottish literature, art, society, education and justice system. Not to mention Robert the Bruce and Mary Queen of Scots. Learn absolutely everything about Scotland.
* Go on field trips to lots of castles and realise that it rains a lot even in May.
* Have a crush on one of the Scottish course coordinators and gossip about him during pub evenings.
* Experience cultural differences in relation to the other foreign students. Especially the ones from your own country. Deal with it and learn something in the process.
* Attend ceilidhs and learn to dance reels and gigs with men in kilts.
* Ask people in the street about ghosts. Interview a professor of parapsychology.
* Try the haggis.
* Act in a play. Almost get thrown out of a court room for giggling at the judge's wig.
* Walk seven miles to see the Loch Ness monster, because you don't realise how long a mile is, until a Scottish family takes pity on you and takes you to the lake in their boat.
* Travel on lots of trains, stay in lots of hostels and eat lots of fudge.
* Ride horses on a Braveheart beach, hitch-hike with strange men and manage to get involved in a local feud.
* Love Scotland.