Internship in Glasgow

This time I will write mainly about food and people of Glasgow, well a lot of the food is common for Scotland or generally for Great Britain. Before that I will write some basic stuff about work, like what I was expecting and what happened so far.
I did expect to work hard, compared to school. Everything that not only requires to be physically present, is more than you need to do for school. The amount of intellectual challenges at school are almost non existent. So I hopped not to be challenged to much, not because I don't feel able fight intellectual challenges. More because I might not be used to it any more and my brain got shrinked like an dried cherry.
My first tasks felt kind of simple, they included mostly reading. Which was important and required, because I needed to understand the company product quite well and what they are doing at the moment. Other wise I would not be able to provide any help to them, so every day at work I will tell my colleague what the product does and I get better every time. The goal is to be able to talk to a potential investor, so a lot of details are important simply because they sound better and are more accurate. We are close to that goal.
After two weeks and some days I felt more important, because I am trusted with research tasks that are seriously important to the company.
Now let's switch to the people of Glasgow. First of all let me tell you, what everyone told me about the people before I could do my own experiences. I have heard that the people are amazingly nice, helpful and polite. Now I have made my own experiences and want to share them with you. Normally the people are quite nice and polite. Which means that you will please a person to enter the bus before you do, always. It is also common to line up for the bus, you may think we do that in Germany as well, but let me tell you, in Scotland, they really do it.
If you ask some stranger to help you find the right direction, he will tell you something, even if he don't know the direction, because he will feel ashamed for being able to help you, but most of the time they just ask someone else to help you. Being polite is something that is common in almost all of Europe is, expect Germany. In Germany people are to honest to be polite, so for me it's hard to be that polite all the time. Sometimes I catch myself in a moment where I could have been more polite, but that does not happen frequently and mostly when I am tiered. On the other hand it happens frequently that someone is polite to me, but I personally prefer if the person would be more it self and not covered in politeness. That makes it quite hard to get in personal contact with someone, like the people in my office, which I often have lunch with. The people are still very nice, so you can easily have a chat with someone, who has been a stranger to you until then. For example in a pub I often meet people who I could have spend sometime with or I did, if I had no company. Well at this point I stop and maybe tell you more, when I have made more experience.
Now let's get in to food, hopefully I don't need to take a lot of brakes, just because I am getting hungry. What do I think of, when I think of British food? A simple question to start the topic, well let's be honest, I think of a lot fat and sugar drinks. So nothing healthy at all, but a lot of tasty deep fried shit.
My expectations didn't miss the point. My host family is cooking quite well, with a lot of fresh vegetables, so a am not confronted by that in my everyday life and besides that I do enjoy the fatty fast food culture. Burger are at the side of fries the most popular food in Glasgow, so you will get them almost very where. Besides that Asian food and pizza are not uncommon, which is also mostly fatty food. I do enjoy the wide field of fast food, that you can mostly get at small take away shops.
All the bigger streets that lead in to the city centre are full of shops of all kind and about 80-90% are take away shops. The amount of take away shops really shocked me. I am willing to try all the fancy stuff they eat here, that includes food form fries with cheese, what I have not tried jet, over fried pizza to fried mars bars, which I feel a little addicted to, as disgusting as it sounds. Leaving fast food on the side, I do miss some things, like cheese and sausages. Yes there are cheeses and sausages but the amount off different sorts is very small. There are 3 main sorts of cheese which are cheddar 1, cheddar 2 and cheddar 3. Do I need to say more? With sausages it is no better, besides boiled ham and smoked ham is nothing. Well there are the small breakfast sausages, but I have eaten better sausages. That also explains why there is no need for real bread and yes I do miss bread. Now let's get positive again. I do get along quite well without all that stuff, because there is a lot of things that are able to replace them. In Germany I have abandoned my breakfast, but here I found myself comfortable with porridge and bakes beans for breakfast. I have varied with peanut butter in the porridge so it is not that lame and I do like my creation.
That's it for today.
I will try to up lode more frequently and make it shorter.
Pleased you read this far.

After two weeks in Glasgow, I will write about my first impressions and experiences with the city and my host family. For now I will save work and cultural differences for later.
Even if it is weird to live with some strangers.
My host family is quite nice and I get along with them very well. That someone else is doing my laundry is so strange, because I have done it myself for so such a long time now. Well it is comfortable as well, so I don't mind. Also I never need to worry about making dinner my self and they do cook well.
:P
As I do not live in the city center I need to take a bus, but my bus connection is pretty good and it only takes 25-30 minutes to the city center. The bus system was confusing, but I got used to it now and it is amazingly easy to use. There are multiple bus companies, but only one big, so I only use that one. Where ever you are you do not need to look up how to get home, because ,as long as there is a bus going, you can not get lost. All buses are going to the city center, so if I want to get home I just take the next bus to the city center and get home from there. That was really useful for exploring the city and all the different districts.
After that short period of time I have already seen almost all different districts, here later more and a lot of the places of interest, here later not more. Most of the museums and some other touristy attractions are for free, so that gave me the opportunity to just do them and not spending time about thinking if it be worth the money. I would have never seen the city camber and that was so impressive, well that was more.
On weekends I have done some small trips in the area. The first one was to Edinburgh, at this point I need to say that Edinburgh has that amazing old city core, but the houses are all the same. Which means they look the same, because of the material used to build them and and the time they where build in. Nice to look at for one day, but I do not want to live there.
The second trip was to Arran, an island recommended from locals. Arran was amazing there are some small villages and hills for hiking. As I went on Sunday and did not read the weather forecast and it got insanely windy. I got stuck on the island for one night and could not work on Monday morning.
more soon

This blog is about my experience in Glasgow while my internship and also about the cultural differences that I notice. I will focus on my weekly impression from people and the city it self. That also includes my trips in the area or other cities, as far as I have time and money to provide those trips.
About me I am Jorris from Germany, Berlin, 20 years old and currently training to become a Technical Assistant for Medical Device Technology. I already finished my second year and have one more to go.