International Orientation Week @ UAD

Compared to Arcada, there's a lot of international students here at Abertay Dundee. During the orientation week 3.9 - 6.9 we found out that we were about 600, all though it later turned out we were more like 700... which is a lot in our opinion! No use in trying to get to know 'em all, it's just impossible!

Most of the international students seem to come from France or Belgium, but there's quite a few Polish, Indian and German. We're all together about 10 Finns - us from Arcada, two from Vasa, one or two from Åbo and at least two from Rovaniemi - We're pretty sure there's still some more (you can tell by the looks) but at least we haven't met them...yet.

The Orientation week was all about getting to know the other internationals, but first and foremost we got to hear about the country and the city we'd arrived in - Dundee's the fourth largest city in Scotland with about 140.000 inhabs, Ben Nevis is Scotland's highest "mountain" with some 1400 m, Scots are really proud of being Scottish and should not be named Brits etc etc... What stuck in our minds was the food - "Fried fat" is what Jess calls it, and it seemed like the other internationals pretty much agree with her. James and Hazel ("dad" and "mom") asked what we'd come to think of first when thinking about Scottish food - Greasy and fat were the most common adjectives, which is why we mostly cook at home ourselves :)

During the international orientation week we learned a lot about Student Services, about how to open a bank account, where to go for this and that and all the important stuff we need to know to make our year in Dundee start as easily as possible. In the evenings there was plenty to do also - UAD organized game nights, quizes, ten-pin-bowling, a movie night (on which we didn't fit unfortunately) and last but not least on Friday it was time for our first Ceilidh [keilid], which is a typical Scottish party with men in kilts, Scottish music and drinks and sackpipes, the whole nine yard! And it was fun, lots of traditional Scottish dances - pretty much like the dances we danced during our Elder's ball in High School :) Funfunfun!

Anyway, the Orientation week came to an end, and hopefully we at least learnt something useful... at least we made new friends, which in the end really was the most important part, at least for us :)