Stereotypes/expectations that were wrong: 1. Food was pretty good. I ate a lot of traditional cuisine as well. Maybe I was easy because I, unlike some Americans, enjoy organ meat, so I loved stuff like steak and kidney pie and haggis.
2. London was smaller than I thought. It felt big culturally, like I could stand on the street and hear eight different languages, but it felt small area-wise.
3. No one seemed snooty or stuck up.

Surprising things:
1. Stuff that's only a couple hundred years old is treated like garbage. I bought some old books souvenirs for pretty cheap that were almost as old as America. Just a different sense of history there.
2. People were friendly, except when it comes to customer service. Americans are used to "the customer is always right" and having the waitress tell you to "save room for pie!" Just not the same tradition of customer service in London I guess. Even fancy restaurants weren't great.
3. The English think cross-dressing is really funny. Americans do to, but it is just a lot more common in English comedy. Shakespeare, Monty Python, Little Britain...I can't think of more examples, but all the time on the TV there was a healthy amount of cross-dressing.

Stereotype that was true:
The Scottish people were quite brusk. Not exactly unfriendly or rude, but not overly welcoming either. Even in tourist areas. Kind of refreshing in a way to not have a bunch of people acting super fake, but more surprising because we Americans are used to the sugary, over-the-top vibe of tourist stuff.

Scotland was awesome overall, it was pretty interesting how everywhere we went, big city to small town, it felt like people shared aspects of their personality or presentation. And once I got past my surprise at the bruskness, I had an awesome time talking, drinking, and hanging out with people.