ABERDEEN, S.D. (AP) - Northern State University student Maris Grewe grew up in Aberdeen.
Now in her senior year of college, a literary trip to Europe last year made her realize that she wanted to do a study abroad program, the American News (https://bit.ly/2lr7nPI ) reported.
“I never really left, until now,” Grewe said in a Skype interview from Scotland.
Naturally, she decided to go to Aberdeen.
The one in Scotland, that is. The one for which South Dakota’s is named.
Grewe started classes at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland, in mid-September and returned at the end of January. Spring semester classes start Monday at Northern, but Grewe has it worked out to be three weeks late in her return to campus.
“I’ll be finishing finals here and starting my next semester all at the same time,” she said. “It will be a little stressful, but it will be alright.”
Her major is management with an emphasis on international business, and she’s taking management courses in Scotland.
The original Aberdeen is on the northeast coast of Scotland, making it cold in its own way, Grewe said. All the cold air comes off the sea, which wasn’t something she was expecting.
But in many ways, it’s warmer than her hometown.
“There’s not a lot of snow here,” Grewe said, visiting right after Christmas. “It snowed for the first time a few days ago, actually, but it’s gone now.”
Many of the people Grewe has encountered in Scotland are familiar with some of the U.S.’s bigger cities - New York and Los Angeles, for instance - but have no idea where South Dakota is, she said. She explains that it’s a two-day drive to New York, and a six-hour drive to the nearest metro area from Aberdeen.
“They’re like, ’You could drive through all of the U.K. in six hours,’” Grewe said. “When I told the person about driving to New York they’re like, ’You could get from one end of Europe to the other … in less than that amount of time.”
Aberdeen, Scotland, is much older than Aberdeen, S.D., and developers have devised a way to marry modernity with the historic, Grewe said.
“A lot of the shops on the main street are pretty old, but you’ve got a KFC in this great big old building, and Starbucks in this great big old building,” Grewe said. “It looks really fancy on the outside and it’s just like your normal, American Starbucks or KFC on the inside, which is kind of strange, but really cool.”
And while there are a lot of the same fast food chains in both cities, Grewe said there are not many drive-thru windows in Scotland, because many people don’t have vehicles.
“I live with six other girls, and three of them are from Scotland and only one of them has a vehicle here, the other two just take the bus or the train,” Grewe said.
The buses in town can be a little dodgy, but traveling through the country varies by price paid, she said.
“I took the sleeper train back and forth to London, and that was pretty nice,” Grewe said. “But when we would travel during the day from London to Edinburgh, we would just take the normal day train. It’s nice, but it’s nothing special.”
But getting to experience life has a student, rather than a tourist, has been an amazing experience, Grewe said.
“Especially as a business major, I think this has been really eye-opening for me because, in class, you learn about different cultures, but you don’t get to really experience them,” she said. “It’s more than I would have learned sitting in a classroom at Northern.”
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Information from: Aberdeen American News, https://www.aberdeennews.com
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