Friendship Overseas

For the past couple of months, I've been chatting and getting to know someone overseas; someone from Scotland. Aside from the obvious friendship growth, I think it can be useful in writing to know someone from another culture that is actually in their culture. And it can get pretty amusing too since we hit cultural blocks almost daily. For example she could use a slang word and I'd have no idea what it means (such as "buckled" or "skint") and I can say something to her, a word or phrase and it'll make no sense to her (such as "subtle as a gun").

With small things like that, I feel like talking to various types of people can help with character building and dialogue. It allows for more room to develop more interesting characters and strike into fresh territory. Because, where you live now, you know all the cultural norms, ideas, and the stereotypes. By talking with someone else that happens to be elsewhere, you are happening upon new cultural norms, ideas, and stereotypes.