STIRLING, Scotland – With clothes and homework strewn across the floor and a Led Zeppelin poster taped to his wall, Shawn Biessel's room looks like any other UAF student's abode.

The difference? It's in Scotland.

Biessel, a natural resources major, packed his bags for the University of Stirling in September for a semester exchange. Ever since, he's been having a great time, even with the bad weather, he said.

"It rains a little more than I'd like, but it's arguably better than below 40," Biessel said.

Biessel is just one of the 35 UAF students currently studying abroad, said Donna Anger, assistant director of UAF's international programs office. The option is growing in popularity, she said.

"There is an increasing demand for placement in international exchange and study abroad programs," Anger said via e-mail.

The UK in particular is a hot-spot for UAF students with a fifth of the current exchanges, she said. Stirling alone hosts two Nanooks.

For Biessel's part, exchanging to Stirling has been a mix of culture shocks, tourism, and occasional drunkenness.

He has a light class load with only three classes running three hours each per week. Through a fluke in the system, he will get 15 credits for them when he returns to UAF.

"Most relaxed year since high school," he said.

With his spare time, Biessel takes to the countryside. Last week he dropped by Bridge of Allan to watch Brits burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes, who attempted to blow up the House of Parliament in 1605. Over a month earlier, he saw "people hack at each other with broadswords" during a battle reenactment in Bannockburn.

Stirling, home of William Wallace of "Braveheart" fame, has its own attractions as well, with the Wallace Monument, a tall stone tower, the Bridge of Stirling, site of one of Wallace's victories against the English, and Stirling Castle. Biessel has been to all three.

Pubs are a bigger part of life at Stirling than at home, Biessel said. The legal age to drink in the UK is 18, and Stirling University has not one but two bars on campus along with a club.

Biessel, 20, said being able to go to a bar finally is "pretty sweet." He never has to show his ID, he said. For his part, Biessel recommends Magners, an Irish cider.

But with the exchange rate, drinking isn't cheap. Downing a pint of the student pub's cheapest beer, Carling, can cost £2.10 ($3.67). The cheapest pints at the UAF Pub range from $2.75 to $3.

More shocking to Biessel: a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream costs £4 ($7).

"The U.S. dollar is pretty damn weak against the pound," Biessel said. "That was a shock."

And while he said he exchanged to Scotland in part to avoid learning a new language, that doesn't mean he hasn't had to learn how to speak English. French fries are "chips." "Pants" means underwear. "Pulling," a uniquely British term, means to casually make-out, a drunken activity popular enough for Biessel's English and Irish flatmates to post a chart in their kitchen tracking their pulls.

Of course, the exchange hasn't always been a hoot, Biessel said. He had to pay £40 ($70) for a taxi in London to avoid missing a train, he said. Another time he found himself looking for a hostel in rural Scotland at night with not a street light in sight, he said.

Back home, Wells Fargo in Kodiak, his home town, did not have enough faith in the sorting numbers for the Bank of Scotland to wire Biessel any money, he said. He went over a month suffering through stiff ATM withdrawal fees.

"Make sure you talk to your bank before you go about money so your parents don't have to deal with it," Biessel suggested.

About 30 miles away from Stirling, Lisa Smith, a 21-year-old biology major at UAF, is studying at Glasgow University. After a high school trip to Scotland, she said she knew she wanted to do a semester in Scotland.

She returned last fall, backpacking throughout the country and looking at schools, she said, before settling on Glasgow, a "very working-class" city that's "rougher" than the stylish Edinburgh.

"I am definitely enjoying the unfamiliarity of it all," she said. "It is nice to be someplace where I don"t know everyone and things are new.  I am quite enjoying the anonymity, and exploring on my own."

Glasgow's just as social at night as Stirling, if not more, according to Smith.

"Everyone studies during the day, and every night is a party night here," she said. "A lot of the clubs and pubs offer student discounts during the week, and sometimes these places are so packed that you can hardly breathe."

With two airports, it's not hard to jet off to other places in Europe, Smith said. She went to London in October and Barcelona this weekend, she said.

For Biessel in Stirling, though, just being able to avoid Fairbanks' winters is a treat in itself.

"I'd say if you want a good break from frigid temperatures, come here," Biessel said, "because there's still leaves on the trees and it's November."