Misplaced accents
Posted by Anya in Two nations divided by a common language on April 14, 2011
Something weird happened the other day – I was on the porch checking the post when some passing chap asked for directions. That’s not particularly strange but what happened next was. When I replied, he said “Oh you’re British”. I was gobsmacked.
Almost all Americans think that I am Australian. I tell them that they could hardly be more wrong geographically and that I couldn’t sound much less Australian if I tried. The usual answer is that “you all sound the same’. HUH?
The other thing that really foxes them is when they say: “You’ve got an accent” and I reply “so have you…”. Then they look at me as if I had said something really stupid – as if they had an accent -Strewth!
Chinese boxes
Posted by Anya in Stuff that's different and weird on April 14, 2011
I’ve never been that fond of Chinese takeaways so I have until now not held in my hands that most American of American institution – the Chinese takeaway box.
These little lovelies have been featured in so many American films and sitcoms but somehow never made it across the pond. I love them, they are so nicely proportioned and clever. It’s almost worth buying a takeaway just to have some around.
Hunting aliens
Posted by Anya in Activities, Stuff that's different and weird on April 12, 2011
We’ve just returned from a short but eventful bike trip. Our summer trip starts from Las Vegas but the BMWs were in Texas so we decided to move them. It’s 1200 miles or so and there’s a great deal of nothing for much of that distance.
Right in the middle of many hundreds of miles of nothing (ok not quite nothing but flat, open plains as far as the horizon in all directions) is Roswell New Mexico. Visiting Roswell was the highlight of the trip for me because of its history:
In the late 1940s, an apparently disc shaped object from some sort of crash was recovered from nearby. Military reports referred to it as debris from a radar-tracking balloon. Nothing was made of this for around thirty years until a ufologist (made up title or what?), after speaking to a military contact from that time, proclaimed that the debris was actually an alien spacecraft. The military contact was subsequently featured in that eminent publication known for its rigorous journalistic integrity, the National Enquirer. And so the legend began.
I can see how it might all happen. There’s so much nothing around there that I think I might start seeing some crazy stuff after a few days there. Actually I think I might have seen some aliens in one of the bars – you know – the MIB types that look normal but then spin their heads through 360 degrees when nobody is looking…
Parking peculiarities
Posted by Anya in Stuff that's different and weird on April 12, 2011
Almost every day I drive down the street where I live, past the house before conducting a three point turn in one of two irritating places before parking outside my house. Why is that? Because there’s a really stupid law here that means that you have to park in the direction of the traffic. Always.
In the land of the free, where exercising personal freedoms is considered an individual’s right there is legislation relating to the direction you park your car. And nobody minds one jot.
And even more irritatingly they really enforce it. The police don’t tend to mind you parking on corners but parking pointing in the opposite direction is treated in the same way as parking in front of a fire hydrant. Madness.
Churches either side of the pond
Posted by Anya in Stuff that's different and weird on March 27, 2011
I think it’s a lot to do with the fact that I’m used to European churches that I think most of the American ones are really unimpressive.
I’ve strolled around Westminster Abbey, visited Notre Dame and the cathedrals of Florence and Siena.
Granted those are are a hard act to follow but even small local British churches have a great deal of charm. Many of the local US ones aren’t in the same league – in fact they don’t even seem to try. Many of them look as if they were originally designed for a different purpose and then transformed into churches as an afterthought – slapping a dodgy steeple on the roof and adding a porch apparently makes a warehouse a church.
I know it isn’t so much about the building and it’s more about what happens inside, but there’s something about the atmosphere that seems like a good start for religious activities. I’ll admit that I haven’t actually attended a US ceremony but if I wanted to, I’d rather it was in a church not a warehouse. That said, there are many many people who don’t seem to mind in the slightest about the location. Good for them.
Minimum wage
Posted by Anya in Activities on March 20, 2011
I was in the office kitchen a little while ago – just waiting for my soup in the microwave to go ping, when this poster caught my eye.
It wasn’t so much the minimum wage of $7.25 that struck me – although I am quite sure I earned more than that when I worked in restaurants over twenty years ago (wow now I feel ancient). The piece that shocked me was that employers of people who get tips, eg waiters,can pay them as little as $2.13!
It’s pretty typical in the US to tip between 15-20% in restaurants. Which is a lot if you are British and used to tipping up to 10% if the service has been amazing.
I think that’s the issue -and why Brits are notoriously bad tippers. I’m used to rewarding people who’ve done a bit more than just plonk approximately what I’ve ordered down in front of me. I’d expect serving staff to at least be nice, possibly even friendly…in the good old US of A, the tips are pretty much ALL THEY GET PAID.
Which makes me wonder why some of the servers are so grumpy…how much does a smile cost? I remember one time, I was planning to pay the meal by credit card but leave a tip in cash. The waiter shouted at me for not leaving a tip…so I didn’t.
Planes, trains and automobiles
Posted by Anya in Activities on March 20, 2011
One of the things that stopped me from blogging for a while was my TRULY awful experience getting back from London before Christmas. The plan had been to spend a few days, catch up with family etc then head back.
My return flight was booked for the SUnday before Christmas out of Heathrow. The previous Friday night there was a bit of snow. I do mean a bit of snow – maybe 1.5 inches. On the Saturday some airports were closed for a while, including Heathrow, and the weather reports went into full speed doom-mongering advising all to batten down the hatches and above all STAY INDOORS. Of course I totally ignored all of it. I had my trusty hire car, so I made the most of completely clear but somewhat snowy roads (apparently everyone else listened). I visited a few people in Surrey, then drove up to Surbiton station and took the train into London. I was completely confident that LHR travel would be fully back to normal the next day, not least of all because it was actually reasonably warm and the snow was melting.
Imagine my surprise therefore, on waking on the Sunday, that my 4pm flight had been cancelled. It turns out that those mental giants at Heathrow had pretty much just closed the airport and gone home on Friday. So all the planes parked safely at their gates promptly froze into position. Genius huh? And while the runways were clear on Saturday, none of the taxi routes were, leading to planes getting stuck (have you ever seen an aeroplane with chunky tyres? Exactly). And those that did manage to navigate the taxi ways found that the gates were all blocked by frozen planes. Complete shambles.
Anyway to cut a long story short – I ended up managing to book a seat on the Eurostar to Paris where I caught a United flight home. This was rerouted after much stroppiness on my part with United agents who would otherwise not have been able to offer me anything until after Christmas.
To somewhat complicate matters, the Eurostar service was also having a meltdown. They had stopped service for a few days, then were running a reduced service because of the snow on the lines. *sigh*. They didn’t know what to do with the backlog of people who had Eurostar tickets combined with all those who couldn’t travel by plane. The queue on the Monday was miles long.
Some helpful chap had told me that they were putting people with tickets on trains on a first come, first served basis. Good plan but a lot of people had tickets and I was unhelpfully miles from the bloody station with a car to return (Avis at the station doen’t open until 10am). So here’s what I did:-
Monday pm – took rental car back to LHR, took taxi back to mother’s house $
Tuesday am – 5.15 am taxi from Hampton Court to St Pancras station $$
arrival at station at 6am to find queue out the station and 3 blocks long.
3 hours later I had reached the ticket office- and had been allocated a seat!
2.45 hours later I was on a train!
Change at Gare du Nord towards Charles de Gaul $
Hotel shuttle to nameless awful hotel airport $$
Weds am head to airport – it’s a zoo!
Customs/ security took AGES but I got an upgrade! United presumably pleased to have to arrange one less flight out of London.
The flight was absolutely fine (nice warm nuts) and I eventually got home at close to midnight that night.
What did I do the next day? I got up at 5am and headed off to the airport again of course…
Here’s a vid of the crazy queue at St Pancras:
I’m sorry it’s been so long…
Posted by Anya in Activities on March 20, 2011
I’m sorry, it’s been ages. I’ve been wrapped up in all sorts of crazy life stuff and I have totally neglected to update here.
I’ll make a start on the updates but in the meantime, I’ll leave you with a couple of random pictures that amused me.
This is the view from my agency’s office building – I thought it was hilarious. And so New York too:-
Texas Thanksgiving
Posted by Anya in Activities, Crimes against food, Two nations divided by a common language on November 29, 2010
I’ve just come back from my first Texas Thanksgiving. The absolute highlight was a deep fried turkey. YEs it does sound awful but actually it was the best turkey I’ve ever tasted. The oil is heated to around 300 degrees F in a special cooker, then the turkey is lowered in. It was quite a big bird but it cooked in about 40 mins. It cooks the meat so quickly and keeps the moisture in, so it tastes great. Unlike the usual cardboard that you get after you’ve roasted one of these birds for hours, the meat is moist and delicious. Because the oil is so hot it crisps the outside but it doesn’t soak in. Wow.
Actually this method of cooking is the biggest cuase of Thanksgiving fires. I think that’s to a large extent because people cook them indoors. That’s just not too bright is it? Even worse, if you use a frozen turkey you can turn it into a surface air missile by dropping it into the hot fat. Scary but worth watching from a distance maybe…
Another strange Thanksgiving dish I heard about is the Turdurken. This is a de-boned chicken stuffed into a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed into a de-boned turkey. Why would anyone inflict such horror on these birds I have no idea. I bet it’s a Southern US thing – I haven’t heard of anything similar that doesn’t involve either a) swans or b) Henry VIII.
What’s with you and the taxi drivers?
Posted by Anya in Activities on November 14, 2010
It’s strange. Of all the posts I’ve added recently, pretty much the only topic that has really provoked people to comment (offline) is my comment about taxi drivers. So everyone has been asking “what’s with you and taxi drivers?” or possibly more accurately; “what’s with taxi drivers and you?”.
The truth is, the best cabbies in the world are in London. They really know their stuff, they know the roads, the routes, the hotels. It pretty much spoils you for them the rest of the word over.
In Italy, it was always a case of “OK so I might be foreign but I can still count. Now please give me the rest of my change….” Usually followed by a sheepish look or shoulder shrug from the driver.
In Amsterdam I’ve been driven around for an hour then randomly dropped off at a cab rank when the driver couldn’t find where we were going.
In Egypt I’ve been driven around at night in a taxi with its headlights off – apparently to save electricity. (sadly true)
In China, it’s the fact that they are blatently trying to rip you off. All those stories about it being a longer route on the way back, the heavy traffic means you need to come off the meter or the dodginess when they surrepticiously remove their signs and pop the meter on a higher rate.
But it isn’t just me. Here’s the evidence. When you take a cab back to the hotel in Beijing, the meeters/ greeters/ porters hand you a card like the below. Clearly there’s a problem.
