After being in Spain for the second time and this time with much less language fluency (I guess that tends to happen when you don't ever speak it at home). I was excited to go to a country that I could understand everyone. I figured that it had to be easier to make friends and talk to random people. What I realized is though this is partly correct, it is also assumed that you can understand everything... ummm not so much.
Being able to speak English fluently and not understanding actually makes me feel like more of an idiot than not being able to understand someone from a Spanish or French speaking country.
One of the first days I was here I was trying to get a sim card for my cell phone and determined to get my iPhone unlocked (which is still locked by the way). I asked someone for directions to some phone store and he told me, "Go to the left and then to the right, under two tunnels and then it's right on your right." I asked him to repeat it twice, had no idea what tunnels he was talking about (real tunnels? car overpasses?) and I gave up. I never found the place he was talking about.
I found a new dry cleaner down the street from me. He has an accent that I do not understand at all. He was curious (I think) as to what an American is doing here and he tried to communicate with me. It lead to me just answering something back, that I thought maybe he had said. He looked at me like I was crazy when I told him my age and he replied back, "I'm not that cheeky love." Hmmm I still have no idea what he was talking about then...
I was at breakfast the other day and the waitress asked me, "Would you like ketchup or brown sauce?" I just stared at her unsure of what she had asked me. She brought me both. I learned from my new friends (that I made in a pub in Marylebone) that it is an english institution. Don't run out and buy any... it is not appetizing! It's a mix of vinegar taste and anise. Eww.
View from the Thames- the gherkin is the weird-shaped building, see below
I've made new friends here and it has been a new lesson in vocab. Sometimes I have no idea what they are talking about. Sometimes on the phone all I hear is accent and no actual english words. I am slowly learning to use the slang here, but it feels so forced still. The other day I realized that one of my friends had no idea what I meant when I said something was "sketchy", it's dodgy everyone. And here I thought that I could understand everything and people would understand me.
Oh and don't mistaken pants with trousers. Pants mean underwear.
New things I've learned:
- Trousers = pants
- Gherkin = pickle, also a building in London
- Dodgy = sketchy
- Get on = getting along, "They get on well together."
- Half four = 4:30, shortened form of half past four
- Cheesed off = pissed off, I thought someone was joking when they said this, like the South Park episode
- At weekends = on the weekend
- Sort out = to figure out
- Trolley dolly = used in the context to explain a girl who had no job, but had money
- Quid = used to refer to the pound
- Stones = a way of measuring how much you weigh, 14 pounds
- Rubbish = trash or anything that is stupid or bad, "That place is rubbish."
There are definitely more and I will include them as I think of them.
My tube stop, random iPhone picture
Other updates:
Everything else is fine here. In case you're wondering the ash has no effect on my life at all, you can't tell that it's there. It's microscopic and high in the air. I'm just hoping that everything gets sorted out in the next 2 weeks before I leave. Stupid volcano.
I am halfway through class and taking the first exam we have to pass on Wednesday and then the last one is next Wednesday.
I have no idea what I am going to do for the summer or where I am going to be, it's better not to ask. I also have a feeling that going anywhere from London is going to be messed up for a while and it is going to be expensive and hard to book flights out of here after they cancelled more than 63,000 flights in the past few days.
My bus outside of St. Paul's, again random.
Trust me though, when I know what my plan is I will share it.
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