APRIL 10, 2025 | FEATURES | By Seth Jahraus
My three friends and I each have different perspectives on being American tourists in the United Kingdom. Landon McLean ‘27 has no problem expressing his nationality, while Tristan Durocher ‘25 would rather be dead than be clocked as American. I fall somewhere in between.
After our first week in Edinburgh, we are already discovering the truest test of friendship: experiencing an extended time abroad together. I am coming up on week three of sharing a room with Tristan. Landon, with his lower standing as a sophomore and a ginger, was somehow gifted a queen bed in his own corner hotel room by our advisor.
Earlier this week, Tristan stole the covers from me despite us occupying two separate beds with two different blankets. I have also accidentally walloped him several times due to my alligator death roll sleeping habits and his Napoleonic bed space invasion sleeping habits.
Besides sleep, the most contentious aspect of our trip has been our different approaches to tourism. Tristan’s primary goal, coming from a background in anthropology, is to be as unobtrusive as possible to the local culture. Landon’s primary goal, coming from a background in neuroscience, is to not have to think about the brain for a Block. I thought I had a good balance between the two, but I have begun to realize I often make up the worst of both worlds.
The purpose of this two-part travelogue is to chronicle our different approaches to being American tourists. Originally, we had wanted to write pint reviews, but we felt there was a limited appeal in writing about Scottish beer for an American audience. Additionally, there is already a well-established alcohol column in this section whose toes we were wary of stepping on. Then we thought, in clever fashion, to instead write pub reviews. After some light scrutiny, we stumbled upon the same fears as the beer idea.
So, instead, we’re taking a step back and approaching our time abroad with a more holistic perspective.
To start, it’s important to recognize that overtourism, the global buzzword of the past seven-or-so years, continues to rage rampant across Europe, and is starting to leak out into destinations worldwide. American tourism in particular has increasingly become associated with social ineptness, brash cultural disregard and – put simply – stupidity. Edinburgh itself is currently experiencing a housing crisis, in part due to the large number of Airbnb rentals that are taking up precious local real estate.
In response, the city has decided to put in place a “tourist tax” on accommodations such as hotels and rentals which is set to go live in July 2026 to help deter additional tourists while building up funds to go toward its infrastructure. We are trying to be mindful of our presence here and what it means for the local communities.
To finish off this long-winded introduction to our column, there are a few things to consider which also directly contribute to why we are writing in the first place. First, all three of us are white and male-presenting. Our identities, which come from a global history of privilege, allow us to do journalism, travel writing and anything else that requires talking to strangers in often uncomfortable situations in unfamiliar environments with a sense of ease and safety that is not afforded to everyone in the profession.
Second, we can leave the United States without having to worry about being denied, detained or deported without legal justification during our return. We don’t have to worry about harassment, and we don’t have to worry about making any wrong moves. We realize that this opportunity is not available to everyone and we want to abide by best practices in travel and writing while keeping this in mind.
On our first night in Edinburgh, we went to a local pub, wanting to immerse ourselves in the local culture as quickly as possible. This sounds ironic, but pub significance runs deep in Scotland. Journalists, writers and members of Edinburgh’s art scene have historic connections to various ale houses and taprooms spread throughout the city.
The people we have met are incredibly interested in American politics, more so than most Americans. When we sat down at the bar and ordered a round of Guinnesses, the bartender asked what we were doing in Edinburgh and then what we thought of Donald Trump. The questions came together in the same way you might ask someone for their name after asking how they’re doing. Taxi drivers particularly want to know what’s going on with Trump and what we think of him – United States politics are almost like a form of reality TV for the people here.
The next day, we went to a soccer game between Scotland and Greece in the city of Glasgow. “Which platform is the train to Glas-gow?” I had asked at the station. Thinking with logic, I figured the city rhymed with “now” or “cow.” Tristan and Landon were both quick to inform me that it’s pronounced “Glas-go,” which they have proceeded to remind me of at every step of the trip.
I was pissed at first, not because of my own ignorance or their taunting, but because the pronunciation made no sense. Glas-go when it’s spelled like “cow.” But even then, it doesn’t make much sense because they pronounce “cows” as “coos.” Then I remembered how we pronounce “mow,” by which point my mood had soured.
Before the game itself, the stadium held a ceremony for the former Scottish player Denis Law, the best Scottish player of all time, often referred to as “The King,” who had died in January. We had been talking with each other about one of the current Scottish players, John McGinn, during the service. “What team does he play for again?” asked Landon about McGinn while a group of Scottish youths passed in front of our section parading a giant flag with Law’s face on it. A man from the row ahead, after hearing the question, whipped around and met eyes with each of us individually with a face so contorted with confusion that he seemed angry.
“Denis Law?!” he asked, less as a question and more as an accusation in a remarkably thick Glaswegian accent. The man thought we had asked which team the player being actively memorialized currently played for. We tried to explain ourselves, but it didn’t stop him from looking over his shoulder periodically for the rest of the game with the same contorted features. I’m pretty sure he was checking to see if he had missed any protruding brows, strings of drool or other markings of the modern neanderthal on the three of us. We weren’t doing a great job staying ahead of the American reputation.
We started the actual Block later that week. The class is called “Linking Literacy, Language, and Linguistics,” and it’s an education class focused on the English language and the best practices for teaching kids how to read it. Right now we’re working on roots and phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. In the word “clock” the /k/ sound at the end of the word is singular and is different from the /g/ sound that would make “clog.” Our professor gave us an assignment where we had to count the number of phonemes in a set of words.
Wanting to explore the city and take advantage of some of its facilities, I decided to do this work at a local library. I browsed the collections and looked for a seat, but seeing as the library was quite full, the only spot I could find was in the children’s section. I found a relatively comfortable red stool which came about halfway up my shin. It was positioned near literary classics such as “I Love You Like No Otter” and “Fix-It Duck.” I placed my worksheet on the table and began counting phonemes. The tough part is that the only real way to get a sense of how many sounds are in a word is to sound it out. For example, “stopped” actually only has five phonemes despite having seven letters. Written out it’s /s/ /t/ /ɒ/ /p/ /t/ with “/ɒ/” standing in for the “o” sound in “hot.” I went down my list sounding out words.
“Pink. Puh… ee… n… k.”
“Train. Tuh… er… ay… n.”
I had gotten past “think” but stopped before “peach” after I got the sense I was being watched. I looked up from my foot-tall table to see the librarian staring at me. Realizing I must look pretty stupid sounding out first grade words in the children’s section, I figured I should say something to save my image.
“It’s okay, I’m learning how to teach English!”
That hadn’t seemed to reassure her. 0-2 for the Americans.
Our first avenue of really proving ourselves came in the form of a pub trivia session. We named ourselves “Yanks on Tour,” hence the name of this two-part column. Despite a heavy focus on the British parliament, we came in third. A few questions were more geared to an American audience. One asked what was the name of the territory purchased by Thomas Jefferson from Napoleon in 1803. Everyone in the bar made fun of us and said they had hoped our education system failed us enough to get the question wrong. We got the question right, but the victory felt shallow.
I said at the start that I have a strange mixture of Landon and Tristan’s approaches to being an American abroad. On the one hand, I am shamelessly American in a lot of ways. I throw out “awesome” every five seconds in conversation, which I know drives Tristan crazy. At the trivia bar, Landon and I got free pints when we came back the next day after talking American football with the bartender for a good 30 minutes. Likewise, I got a free limoncello shot at an Italian restaurant after the owner found out I was celebrating my last semester of college. Being unabashedly American seems to work well with many of the locals who take a genuine interest in what we’re doing.
At the same time, I have grown painfully self-aware of my accent in public. I can feel the eyes of pedestrians on the street when I let out my guttural American laugh. I’ve also stopped pulling out my laptop in coffee shops on account of my stickers, which include a “Pass the Ranch” sticker and a “Don’t Stop Believin’” Bigfoot sticker. There’s a line I’ve found between being American and being a dumb American, and it’s important to understand where that is. My classmates and I are still feeling it out, but hopefully by next week we’ll have a better grasp on our positions in this country.