Separated by a Common Language

this is Bath from a distance...i actually thought the photo would be much bigger. Oops.

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One of my professors likes the joke that UK and America are two nations separated by a common language. The funny thing about that is that it's a little bit true. The classic difference is that they call french fries 'chips'. So, what then do they call chips...as in potato chips? Crisps. Then they have fries which, as far as I know, are just really thin crisps (chips). Maybe fried?

The most confusing one is 'alright.' It's a greeting - 'Alright mate.' Sometimes it's a statement sometimes it's a question - 'Alright mate?' In either case the appropriate answer is 'Hi' or hey or something along those lines. The real way to answer would be to say 'alright' back. That seems easy enough and once you catch on it is. At first I wasn't sure whether or not to give an answer to let them know whether or not I'm alright. Then when someone asks 'are you alright?' it throws you off because you're not sure if they just added a few words to their greeting or if they really want to know your current state of alrightness. There is also 'Hi ya.' I'm used to that one though because I have an English friend in the States who says that...plus it doesn't require any interpretation.

Here's another one. The English love to 'queue' (pronounced like the letter 'Q'). I had a ridiculously long conversation tonight about queuing with some locals. One girl's explanation was that they try to take out the unnecessary words. So, instead of saying 'wait in line' they say queue. There's that.

Now, there's the normal ones: bloke=dude, lad=boy, mate=friend, quid=bucks($).

Chips (or crisps) aren't the only one that takes some getting used to. The one I haven't figured out is what to call crackers or cookies. The names range from crackers, cookies, biscuits, digestives, and there are a few I can't remember at the moment. Sometimes I go into the store to get some cheese crackers or something and ask one of the workers after my search through the aisles proves unsuccessful. I ask where the cheese crackers might be and the aisle he points me to has nothing but cookies -- well, what I would call cookies. Then i finally find something that is close to a cheese cracker. It looks basically like a Ritz cracker but apparently it's called a biscuit. And the messed up thing is that none of them are consistent. Among the cookies are biscuits that look just like the crackers, which look exactly like the digestives.

I'm sure more will pop up, but the only other ones I can think of at this point are sledging, which is sledding...that's easy enough. Then there's winging (sounds like win-j-ing)...it means whining.

Oh. The locals in the area I'm in call supper 'Tea' and they call lunch 'Dinner.'

My guess is that a lot of these things are local (maybe Southwest) things. So, I guess they don't apply to the whole of England. Nonetheless, it's still messed up.

Done and done.

English Coffee

There is no such thing as English Coffee. There is English pisswater in a cup... there is English instant crystals that turn into a coffee-like substance... there is English tea... there is English cafe's... There is no such thing as English coffee.

When I was in London last weekend I went until about 3PM (15:00) without having a cup of coffee. Half way through the morning I realized that I didn't have a headache. I usually have a headache by 11AM if I haven't had a coffee yet. My body is dependent on it and I'm perfectly fine with that.

When I got home on Sunday, Lola told me that they bought a mini French press so I could make real coffee instead of instant. This morning I went to do that. All I found was 'real' decaf coffee in the pantry. Then I looked at the instant coffee that I've been drinking since I got here. IT IS DECAF!!!!

Now, I understand that I have been weened off of caffeine, and more so, the plecebo effect works...since I didn't even realize I was drinking decaf. Well. My life has changed. I don't mind. I suppose it's better for me. They asked me if there's anything I want and I've been considering cutting back on the caffeinated that I drink since I drink more than the average human, so I've decided not to request regular instant coffee, or even the good stuff. I figure if I want it I can pay for it...that's a disincentive for myself.

It was a real surprise this morning, when I discovered all of this, but now I've come to terms with it.

Alright!

A post without pictures

So, I keep thinking about hooking up my camera to upload the few pictures I have, then think of the 10 minutes that will take and put the camera away again. It doesn't really matter that much because I don't have many new pictures anyways. I was in London all weekend, then in Cardiff to watch a Rugby match among the Welsh (who were playing against the English that night). And, despite all of that I never found a time when taking a picture was worth while. So, I'll just tell you about it breifly.

But, mainly this is just for the sake of an update to any of my friends and family who are keeping up on this.

This last weekend we went to London. We saw a few museums, but the most interesting thing to me was seeing Westminster Palace (or Hall -- I'm not too sure which one to call it). This place is where Parliament sits. Apart from the historical points, the thing that stuck out the most was that nothing, not even the seat of government, was guarded as heavily as things are in the US. I'm not sure whether that is rhetoric/image or tactic (although those two choices could be the same things really). They don't have as many visible, physical guards, but they have a ton of cameras so I guess that does the trick.

After we visited London I took a train to Cardiff. A few friends who I met here in Bath were going up there to watch an England vs. Wales rugby match, mainly to experience the Welsh pub atmosphere during such an intense game. It was at least as good as what I thought it was going to be.

Other than that I'm doing well. It's a little warmer now -- 7 degrees celcius. I've learned that I don't like examining novels in a big class setting. As far as I can tell it's a waste of my time on earth...when I'm sitting in class all I can do is think of starting to shoot people, starting with myself. I enjoy my other classes. Now, let me clarify. I don't dislike the novels I'm reading. I dislike the discussion. People are stupid, they try to impress the teacher and/or make and original point, and I'm just not sure what it is that I'm supposed to be learning from that. But, the other three classes I have are stimulating enough for me to enjoy.

The main reason I wanted to write this post was because of two events that happened with the kid I live with. First, when I was gone this weekend he put a broken hanger on his lip and said "hey daddy, look, I'm Rob." That's pretty good for a four year old. Then, tonight, he was fighting eating his dinner. He always does this, which is probably just a phase he's going through because his mom's cooking is amazing (there's no rational reason to refuse it). So, we thought it was just his 2nd or 3rd excuse to get out of eating. Then, he started to spit his food out...Well, he wasn't spitting his food out, he was starting to vomit. Apparently he's sick. He ended up doing two or three huge heaves of puke onto the table and floor. It was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. I can't explain the volume of vomit other than simply calling it amazing.

So, maybe I'll put those pictures up.

Tomorrow, I skate!

On America

I've been asked numerous times since I've been here what I think of the new president. My answer is always something along the lines of "at least it's not the other guy." I've been trying to follow the newspapers back home as much as I can and it seems that Obama is creating quite a stir -- which is good. Someone needs to break the American public out of their complacency, whether it is for good or bad, as long as people are feeling passion for something. (well, I don't totally agree with what I just said because I think the Republican side of things is way more full of shit and it would be and aweful world if they ruled everything.)

To the point: I've been reading about the upcoming stimulus plan. I think the original version was just fine. In fact, it may have been too moderate. But, as I'm reading all of this I see the Senate deciding one thing, the House deciding the other and nothing much getting done.

At home I constantly talk to people about politics so talk of 'House this'/'Senate that' just seems normal. I don't question the idea that these two houses have the ability to check each other. We take pride in our 'checks and balance' and that is essentially what is going on between the House and Senate...right? Wrong!

It's all political bullshit. These bankers and aristocrats are just gambling with the lives of normal people for nothing more than a few years of job security in their government office.

But, what struck me is not how this stimulus plan is turning out. What struck me is that none of this stuff is relevant. I'm sitting on this "side of the pond" (that's for heather) looking at the incredible complacency of these people, whose economic crisis might be worse than ours, and seeing that they trust their government just as much as we do...and theirs is just as worthless. In short, I guess it's becoming even more odd to me that one nation can see themselves as better than another when really they are all completely worthless.

Update and pictures tomorrow!

Weekend Number One

I had my first full weekend here in England and decided to spend the better part of it away from Bath. I was kinda missing the ocean and i wanted to take a ride through the countryside to see the rural side of England so I took a train down to Plymouth. This is the place that the Pilgrims took off from. Well, they really took off from Southampton but broke down in Plymouth and went on to America from there. They spent their last night in this Gin Distillery (which was some sort of Christian gather place at the time) that I visited.

The first thing I did when I got there was check out a few historic type things. That only took about an hour or so. I don't really care all that much to relish in the historicness of stuff -- i'm perfectly fine with looking at it, reading a little about it then moving on. This is also a reason that i will probably do most trips while I'm here on my own.

I was waiting to be in a coastal town before I marked fish and chips off the list of English cliches. I was walking from the food place to go take a tour of the gin distillery when two drunk guys got out of a cab right near me. This is at about noon. As they're stumbling into the pub they tell me that i'm going with them and they're buying me a drink -- can't refuse that. A bunch of their friends showed up at the same place and it turns out they are all army guys. There's a base in Plymouth and apparently these guys had the weekend off. Another fun thing i found out was that when they first got out of the cab, the guy in the picture on the right didn't want to buy me a drink, he wanted to beat me up for no reason. The other dude's solution to that was to invite me for a drink. 2 points for me. You can see that one of them is wearing a t-shirt. well, it's literally freezing outside and apparently he left his jacket with the prostitute he bought the night before. With that, when the army guys offered to sneak me on to the base for a free place to stay i figured i'd rather get a hostel.

I ended up at this pub near the university for some dinner. As I'm sitting there a group of college students keeps running over to the jukebox to put on the worst American music -- Pantera, Blink 182, bad 80s stuff, and Michael Jackson. I made a comment to them about it and next thing I know we are all hanging out for the rest of the night. We bounced around from place to place all night so I met a ton of people. I got comments about my accent everywhere from "they're right, you guys do sound stupid" to "say something else, that is so hot."

Even though hanging out with those folks on Saturday was fun, Sunday was pretty great too. I took a ferry over to a Mt. Edgcumbe, which is across the river from Plymouth. I walked around there for a while and on beginning to dread the walk from the ferry dock to the train station a bus pulled up that would take me directly to the station. What I didn't realize was that it was going to be almost a two hour bus ride. It would through the mountains, went through three tiny little villages, along the coast, on a ferry, then finally to my stop. It turned out to be pretty rad. I was in the very front of the top level of the bus so I got a killer view and some decent pictures.

Back Home...
I finally found a nice comfortable coffee joint with free wifi. I went into one place to ask if they had it and they charged so i asked where else might be comfortable and have free wifi. McDonalds was the best she could do.

I'm heading off to Milan this weekend. Hopefully I can have a good time and keep up on my reading too.

The other day it snowed. Then it melted. Then, last night it got about 4-6 inches. That was fun.