Saturday, November 17, 2007

More Random Observations

The other night as I sat at the station waiting for the train home, I looked around and noticed that the three men sitting around me all had mufflers on, which is a higher percentage than I have ever seen in the States. Scarves are way more popular here and now that the weather is getting so cold, I will also be wearing one. I laughed though because about a month ago I had told my friend K how I was sick of seeing so many girls here scantily clad from the waist down but with the biggest, bulkiest scarf wrapped many times around their throats, sometimes covering their faces up to their eyes. What?!

Other interesting tidbits:

No one says bless you when you sneeze here unless it’s a very dramatic sneeze that just cannot be ignored. This doesn’t bother me because it’s just a silly superstitious tradition which has somehow evolved into proof that you are a kind person if you say it to others See the early 90’s movie Singles for a very funny “bless you” reference.

You know how in America we use the word gourmet a lot, like gourmet coffee or gourmet sandwiches, etc. Well here, luxury seems to be their gourmet. The grocery store is selling luxury mince pies right now.

What we call calendars, they call diaries. I always feel a little strange saying to my group “bring your diaries to this meeting…” I feel like I am about to ask them to reveal their deepest darkest secrets.

We talk about vacuuming a room. Here it’s all about hoovering.

I have also noticed that people don’t say that food is delicious or good, they say it’s nice or it wasn’t very nice.

The train that I took home on Thursday started in Glasgow. There was a little boy sitting in front of me who looked about three. He kept turning around and asking me a question that I could not for the life of me understand because of the mixture of baby talk and heavy accent. My work colleague told me that he was asking me “Where do you stay?” which is the Scottish equivalent of where do you live.

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