Things no one tells you when you move to England.
Disclaimer to my English friends/readers/Boyfriend:
I love you. Dearly. And if you hang in there, I have nice things to say too. So you may want to close your ears and skip past the mean-ness bits.
<mean-ness>
Because first I need to vent to some rational people for a moment.
Oh, yes.
I went there.
First thing's first. There are no Graham Crackers. ANYWHERE.
And if that doesn't give you an idea of how American my priorities are, well you'd better hope you don't get hungry after 9 here, because they'll be damned before they do something American and awesome like Denny's.
</mean-ness>
Ok while I'm on the topic of food...
ASDA. So imagine a super market, where basically everything is less than $1.50.
And the store brand IS the good brand.
I am getting so effing fat and I love it.
Oh! AND GET THIS!
There is an entire aisle for tea. And there is an entire OTHER aisle for BISCUITS.
I don't know who thought of this, but I would like to kiss them on the mouth.
<mean-ness>
They do this thing, where they pronounce things the opposite of Americans. I'm pretty confident that it's just a front to make me angry most of the time.
I bet if I told them I say tomato, they'd switch and pronounce it <opposite pronunciation of the way I just said tomato> Brain usage. I am too lazy to phonetically spell this out to you
</mean-ness>
This is a big one - as much as I like to 'take the piss',
<mean-ness> which is English for 'be a snide sarcastic bastard'</mean-ness>
these people, do NOT FUCK AROUND when it comes to heating up hot water.
In America, it is a task to make tea - like put the old kettle on the stove and stand there staring at it for all eternity until it boils, and then it takes longer when you stare at it, so you sit there for two eternities, and by the time that happens your mom's dead, and then who really wants tea. We basically invented the term a watched pot never boils. While the English just left the kettle on and used that time to invent an electric fucking kettle.
IT'S BASICALLY WIZARDRY.
It heats up in like 30 seconds and WOAH you have tea.
<mean-ness>
Ok, so they bust out the word 'proper' on you like they're gettin paid.
i.e. That's not proper tea, because you just put honey in it.
or That's not proper 'blahblahblah'
Well how about you properly kiss my ass
or How about you DRIVE ON THE PROPER SIDE OF THE fucking ROAD, ENGLAND
Which brings me to my next point; It's called the right side of the road for a reason. I basically have heart failure every time I ride shotgun. It does not help that Boyfriend takes pleasure in this, but I am telling you, it was no mistake that the word right, also means correct. And don't pretend you don't know, cause you can't seem to stop telling me how you wrote the English language.
</mean-ness>
Round abouts. They are everywhere. Big intersections basically don't exist. Why don't we do this in America? Intersections and stop lights are the reason that my car got plowed into by a 68 year old drunk Polish man because he ran a red light. That and because, well, he was a 68 year old drunk Polish man.
But really, they save so much hassle instead of sitting at that one light for like.. 3.7 eternities or something. As I've demonstrated, these people do not waste time.
So, that's basically it. And as I discover more, I will continue to add posts with the same tag/title.
Until then, to all of you English folk - I love you and your country. Even if you're kinda weird sometimes.
xx Mel
^ Oh and that too - "xx". I love the kisses thing at the end of a message. It's huge over here. But ladies, don't let anyone fool you - in real life, only parents and the French do the European kiss on each cheek thing. The rest of Britain is trying to confuse you and sneak in a kiss on the mouth.