A Weekend With the Brits

Recently I had the pleasure of seeing one of my closest friends from middle school again for the first time in over a year. He’s a senior at St. Andrews University in Scotland, which doesn’t give me much opportunity to catch up with him as much as I would like. However, he was back home this past weekend and I was able to spend the night at his place, as well as have the pleasure of meeting a few of his friends from school.

My friend, Marshall, is a philosophy major, as well as his friends. However, I wasn’t quite prepared for the culture shock I was about to experience.

The day started off normal, with a quick drive up to Marshall’s family home in Swarthmore, PA. I was greeted by his mom, dad, and little sister, as well as his Australian Sheppard, Sophie. I was guided out to his backyard, where he and all of his friends were hanging by the pool. We sat and talked for a bit, when Marshall’s mom came out back and asked if we could help out and shuck some of the ears of corn for dinner. This seemed to be a surprise to his friends, as they were all born and raised in the UK. It become apparent that they had never husked corn before, watching them fiddle around with the ears in a quite goofy manner. 

After dinner, we sat on his back porch with his parents drinking wine and discussing nihilism and the meaning of free will, which is to be expected from drunken English philosophy scholars. Overall, it was a great time and I was glad to catch up with an old friend as well as make some new ones.