1.All the grey gets very confusing.
Now that you’re studying in the Granite City, being temporarily misplaced and doing some accidental sightseeing has become a common occurrence. The other freshers have no clue where they’re going either so it always ends in a blind-leading-the-blind situation. Well, why not just ask the locals then? Because that always goes a little something like, “go straight, then make a right at the large grey building, then continue until you see that other slightly darker grey building to your left and it’s the grey building to the right of that”. Thanks. That was helpful.
2.You’ve run into way too many familiar faces, but don’t remember any of their names.
Because of the size of Aberdeen – big enough to meet so many different types of people but small enough to run into them repeatedly. You continuously recognise p people from your course, societies or nights out. You’ve already figured that you shouldn’t even try to avoid the random you got with yesterday at the Institute because he’ll be in every lecture today, you’ll see him in Lidl, and you’ll have a mutual friend.
3.You’ve experienced the horror that is laundry.
Also known as, the most traumatizing experience of uni life so far. First you had to wait ages for a washing machine to be available. Then you paid for more than one card by accident or had your clothes stolen, or just cannot for the life of you figure out how to swipe that card correctly against the machine! Either way, you know you’ll be doing a lot more hand washing than anticipated.
4.You’re never sure what to wear in the unpredictable weather.
You’ve learned that in order to be comfortable you will have to bring along an extra sweater, an umbrella, sunglasses and a snow jacket. Before you arrived you were warned about how cold Aberdeen was but no one told you about the indecisiveness. One moment it’s nice and sunny, and the second you leave your flat you’re drenched in what looks like mist but feels like rain.
5.You’ve needed a translator on several occasions.
Nodding along whilst wishing you had an inbuilt “urban dictionary” in your brain is pretty much the standard at this point. When being spoken to, you contemplate if the language they are speaking is in fact English. You then follow that up with, “pardon?” about 3 times and pretend like you got it so you don’t seem rude.
6. You make sure to have change on you at all times.
The fact that the bus needs exact change was tricky for you to get your head around but now you make sure to have £3.50 on the ready, no matter what. And then once you’ve bought that student day ticket you will use it to go EVERYWHERE and make an effort to be as lazy as you possibly can.
7. You automatically assume that anyone who walks through Seaton Park at night alone is the ultimate rebel.
You’ve heard the stories and warnings from fourth years, taxi drivers, that one random old man on the street…yet you hear about people who venture into the unknown and come back unharmed. You aren’t sure if that’s brave or stupid but definitely don’t plan on joining the club anytime soon. You will, however, take the stereotypical “Seaton Park is so beautiful” picture during the day and put it on Facebook. Just cus.
8.You are now realizing why it’s called, “Hillhead” (head of a hill)
It only took walking up the hill on the first day of lectures. You know, THE hill. The one that feels like it could pretty much be Mount Everest at 8.50am when you’re already running late for a workshop. Who needs a £180 gym membership when you have that gem to stroll up and down several times a day?
9.You’ve either been annoyed by or annoyed someone else by sneezing/coughing your lungs out.
Fresher’s flu is a major thing and once one person starts, the domino effect kicks in. You’ve been on both sides, yet you still feel you are required to give the evils to the group of people in the middle of the lecture hall who are doing an eerily good impression of a dying cat parade.
10. Seagulls.
Do I really need to say anything else?