I was sitting in class during the spring of 2023, when my professor Dr. Tamara Wilkins brought up an opportunity to travel with her and her fellow professor, Dr. Thor Dahle, across the ocean. She informed all of us in class that this trip would be about two weeks and would take place in two cities: London, England, and Edinburgh, Scotland. Immediately, I knew I wanted to go, but I knew that money was going to be an issue. My family was in the middle of some of the toughest financial times of our lives. My stepfather had just lost his job, and I was working multiple jobs to send money home to my family. Even though I knew that it was very unlikely that I would be able to go on the trip, because I did not have a lot of money. My parents do not pay for my college, but it was difficult for my mother to go from two incomes paying the bills to only one income. There were times that I had to lend my mother money for a month or two. I’ve even helped her pay the bills for the family so that nothing was taken from them. I did this on top of paying for my own bills, school, and my rent here in Mankato. These all added up so that I was broke. I knew that studying abroad was well out of my price range, but I still wanted to go. I allowed myself to dream, and I attended every informational meeting that I could. It was then that I remembered that my grandparents had set aside some money for me. I always promised myself that I would never ever touch that money, but I really wanted to go on this trip. I tried saving up money so that I wouldn’t have to take as much out, and I applied for the Honors Competency Grant. Thankfully, I was able to get enough money together to afford the trip with some spending money saved up as well. I’ll admit, I loved trying to find the cheaper things in London because it forced me to go into different areas or try things that I wouldn’t have if I had the extra money.

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The day after Christmas, we flew out of Minneapolis St. Paul Airport. We quickly discovered that keeping a group of 20 people together in an airport was next to impossible, so we formed our own little groups that stayed together throughout the entirety of our tour. My group was four people including myself. While we waited for our plane to arrive and boarding to start, we all walked around together and got to know each other. We did the same thing during our layover in Boston. When we finally landed at the airport in London, Heathrow, we were all super excited and even more exhausted. However, we managed to keep each other awake as we walked to where our group was going to eat lunch. The rest of the day was spent just getting to know each other and walking around the area that the hotel was in.

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The biggest challenge was the next day. We began the day by learning how to use the tube which is London’s version of the subway in New York City. It was insanely crowded, there were people everywhere, and when we started to walk to the train was when we encountered the first aspect (other than accents) that was extremely different. In the United States it is common to walk on the same side that we drive on, but in London people didn’t walk on any specified side of the street. My group tried to figure out the non-spoken walking rules, but people just walk everywhere. It did not follow any sort of rules, and it always seemed like wherever we walked that we were in the wrong.

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Another issue came right off the bat. From the minute we landed we were warned about how much British people despise Americans. No one ever elaborated as to why that was the case, and there were plenty of thoughts about why this was the case. I can only speculate why this is, but it is possible that the United States' culture is different than theirs. We are a louder group than British citizens. You can tell when eating at a restaurant, the general consensus is that you talk in a lower, whisper like, tone, and in the United States we tend to talk at our normal volume. I very seldom witnessed this hatred for us. When I was actively willing to engage in a positive thoughtful conversation, I didn’t experience any negative reactions. The only times I can remember catching on to negative looks or hearing negative words about our group was when we were obnoxiously loud or talking about how different the culture is. I noticed this especially in the tube when the culture dictates that you don’t really talk and just wait for your stop to come by so that you can get off. Upon noticing this, I tried to follow the lead of the other British people on the tube by not speaking too loud or even at all. Overall, there were no outstanding events that led me to believe that there was this hatred for Americans.

When we were in Scotland, everything was different. In fact, it was the exact opposite from London. The Scots loved engaging in conversations with Americans and hearing our stories, and they would not miss a chance to tell you how much they hate the English. It was very interesting to see and hear the various differences. I don’t know if I can count the number of times I was told the history of the war between the two countries in Scotland. They are outraged at their former King James the VI of Scotland (King James I of England) decided to move to England and run both countries from the castle in London. They took that as the ultimate betrayal, and it bled into each generation as the dislike grew. From what I could gather, the Scots are very upset that the English took their independence from them. There is not much information out there on the internet other than the history between the two nations, but when in Scotland, we visited many castles that had history told from the Scots perspective. There were countless wars that devastated the lands and stole many loved ones from families. The Scottish still see themselves as independent most of the time. Most places you go, they would fly the Scottish flag in the most visible areas, and the British flag, while flown was more hidden and simply known as the British flag, not the UK flag even though they are a part of the UK now.

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In the beginning I was focused on taking in their cultures, and I was not focused on the reflection part. This was my first experience outside of the country, so I was quite overwhelmed at first. Within a few days, I was finding myself struggling not to slip into the English accent. I have never experienced that phenomenon, and it was very weird. Immediately I knew that if I did this I should only do it when I was alone in my room or with my friends in the hotel away from other people. I was afraid of offending someone, so I fought myself anytime I heard myself bring out a little aspect of the accent. However, one of the people in my group kept using this accent when we were out. While we never received any direct negative confrontations with his accent, it made the rest of us in the group feel uncomfortable due to the uncertainty about how other people would take the situation. I don’t know why we felt this way other than it felt rude and disrespectful. Language is sacred and a source of pride in many cultures, and while I am unsure if this is the case in the UK it just felt wrong.

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Now that I know how I personally react in different environments, when I go to other places that I am not familiar with that have cultures that I am unfamiliar with, I know what to look out for so that I am not going to offend anyone. Some of the biggest lessons I learned is that when asking questions about the culture, do not compare it to your own. Thankfully, our guide was exceptionally good at helping answer these questions, and she even told us that every question we asked was something she got all the time minus a few weird ones like her favorite tube line. Another lesson I learned was that history has a significant impact on how people view each other as mentioned earlier when I stated that the Scots are not big fans of the British.

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My journey with intercultural engagement was a not an easy one. After my class Intercultural Communication, I was not very certain that I would want to do any more intercultural engagement. I was outright scared of the competency, and I thought that I may not continue the honors program because of this one thing. Thankfully, I decided to go on a study abroad trip to London and Scotland. After this trip, I believe that it is imperative that we try to understand other cultures. They help us understand our own selves and the world around us so that we may be better human beings. Maybe it’s the minor in Anthropology, or maybe it’s just my nature, but I believe that next time I leave the country I will be as unbiased as one physically can and just observe the culture. This is when I had the most fun in London, and I do it every single day as I pass people in the hallway just gathering information on how one stands with people they know and don’t or even just how their stories change from one day to the next or one person to the next.