Cultural Awareness in Today's World

In the modern world, having cultural awareness is essential if you are traveling abroad or even to different regions of one's native country. Cultural awareness is basically not using your own culture to automatically make conclusions about another, to be open to the new culture's way of thinking by actually experiencing it and not from what one's own preconceptions about it. We all have common thoughts about what Ireland's and Scotland's culture is. For Ireland, most people see Guinness drinking men at pubs and for Scotland, most people see kilt clad men running around in the highlands. 
 

How the Irish are usually perceived

In the trip I am hoping to see the real people of these countries. From studying history, I can get a slight idea of where some of their cultural values and norms come from but I will never truly know what these are until I experience first-hand. Like I have said before, I have always had a curiosity about these to cultures and the parts I have heard about I always liked. I am making it my goal to try and talk to as many locals as I can to get a better feel for the real people of the countries and not just what the media shows about them.