Number 1.

Number 1. Listen carefully to the language being used around you. Listen for common ways people use formulas such as greetings, introductions, saying good bye, apologizing, or asking for favors. Pay attention to how loudly or softly people in groups speak and how they use their hands when they talk. Note non-verbal behavior such as how much people touch each other, smile, shake hands, etc. Listen also for words you don't know.

So far, the places i have been to which is not many are all the same. Which I find kind of odd because so far every place is so different. It seems that the general greeting is something along the lines of 'good day'. And the farwells and thanks you's have all been 'cheer's!'. Where back at home, it was only a simple 'hey', 'good-bye' and 'thank you'. Also, most of the time if it was a complete stranger there was emotion behind it. People just say it out of habit, and it was what they were taught. Only the rare occasion will you find a person who actually gives two hoots about you, I feel. But then I think about England and Scotland. Now these two places share the same lingo, but have completely two different atmospheres to them. England people are very very polite and quite. I have found this with more of the older crowd of people. It gives me the feeling of being at a royal ball or something along those lines. And you what that makes me wanna do? Run through the halls jumping and making as muych noise as possible. But I with the younger crowd I feel like it is split in half almost. Also I have noticed that it the personal space seems to be a big thing. Sometimes I have a hard time reading people though. But to make up for the big personal space it seems that they talk with their hands a lot. Now with the Scottish. They are 180 degrees different than the British. As soon as I walked out of the train station I could hear people everywhere. And the noise did not stop till about 4:30. It seemed to me that they the people there were just so interested in other people. At first I thought it was because it was a Saturday and everyone had the day off. But then sunday rolled around, and the city was still hopping away with energy and noise. The only way i can descirbe it is like a mini New York city, but only with the happy-buzz like feeling and not dirty. And to think that England and Scotland are so close to eachother, but completely different. Then I think about how both of those can even compare to the US. The only way I can compare is that it seems that in the US we are more about oursleves. Now Im not talking about every US citizen but, for the most part the people home would not go out of thier way to tal to some random stranger. Then main tihng that I have learned is that I need to go with the flow of the crowd. And I don't really mean my group. But the people that live here. An example of this is when we were on the train. If we were on a bus back home, you could hear people talking about whatever. But on the train here, its almost completely silent. So what do I do? I keep my mouth shut. And if I do have a conversation, I keep my voice at a low volume. and then when I got to Scotland, I had no problem with letting my voice be its normal loud self. It is a known fact that most people just want to fit in, especially if they are not from that country. So that is what I have been trying to do, but still have fun of course.