Week 3

Busy, busy! The last couple of weeks have been a blur of orientation sessions, information forums, meet and greets, pub nights, and a lecture and seminar series, and I am thoroughly exhausted. I'm even presenting a paper myself next week at a lecture in my department. But things are finally starting to fall into a routine for me, and I've made an excellent (and very international) group of friends: two from Belgium, one from Denmark, a French Canadian who grew up in Greece, two from France, one gal from Peru, and two Englishmen. We've all become fast friends and have had loads of fun already.

In other news, I'm heading to London on Monday for a lecture, and my department is planning two trips later this month to Cambridge and London for private tours in a couple museums. Should be fun!

Now I'd like to share with you some of the fun tidbits about English culture I've picked up on so far.

1) They love queuing. It doesn't matter what it is, you always stand in a queue and wait patiently without getting annoyed or flustered even if the line wraps halfway around a building. Sometimes the queues are so long that you don't know what the queue is for, but people queue up anyway because they figure it must be something good on the other end. And make sure you are "queuing properly" because the English get very annoyed if it is not a proper queue.

2) They say "cheers" a lot. So far, I think it can mean "thank you," "you're welcome," and a general pub toast, but I've also noticed that in check out lines, the cashiers always say "cheers, thank you," which, given the redundancy, I haven't quite figured it out yet.

3) They really do love tea.

4) American English and English English are NOT the same thing. One of the most interesting differences I have noticed, besides the accent, is how we use different words (synonyms actually) to say the same thing, but how the English always sound smarter when they say it. For example, where an American might say "pretty weird," an English person would say "quite strange." Or where an American would say that they want to try "real" Belgian chocolate (or crepes, or whatever), your English friend would say "proper" chocolate/crepes/etc. There are lots of little things like that, and it's fun noting the differences.

Pictures coming soon, promise!