Odds and Firsts.

I’ve been in London a little over a week now, and I’ve found quite a few things odd, and had quite a few firsts for myself. Being a bit of an anglophile, I thought I had prepared myself for London. I knew it would rain all the time. I knew a lot of words and their meanings: a coach for a bus, trousers not pants (pants means underwear) jumper not a sweater… etc. I was prepared for the questions that were going to arise: Does everyone in America own a gun? But apparently there are things that I was unaware were different, or were perceived differently. They follow.

Odds

When you make eye contact with someone walking down the street or around campus, if they don’t know you, nine times out of ten they won’t smile at you, even if you smile at them first.

There is a cemetery on Campus.

Normal coffee (black) is referred to as Americano.

The University Pub, is open most of the day and then into the night.

No one has even heard of Ranch dressing. I ordered chicken nuggets at Burger King the other day and got something called Chili sauce, that tasted sort of like sweet and sour sauce you would get at a Chinese food restaurant.

London is way more culturally diverse than back at home. My flat mates include a Norwegian, a Sri Lankan , Vietnamese, Northern Irish, and one English (from the Cambridge area). I’ve seen more women in head scarves than anything else. As opposed to the one or two people in a class that might be from a different country or talk with a heavy accent, it will actually make up half of a class here.

We were asked, upon meeting our Vietnamese flat mate, if we knew where Vietnam was. We are still not sure if she perceived us as stupid Americans or what, but at least two of us had to stop ourselves from responding, “Yeah, I think I’ve heard of it before… Did we fight a war there once?”

Firsts

First Legal Drink – Pimm’s Classic (a gin and lemonade drink)

First time on an Underground – They call it the Tube

First time seeing a woman in a full burqa in real life. I’ve seen people in the head scarf before but never fully covered. I have a girl in my Linguistics of Story Telling class that wore a black one the other day.

First time having only one class a day. My schedule gives me almost too much free time. I have one class a day four days a week. In addition. I have a reading week off (same as Redlands Spring Break I think) and the entire month of April off as my Spring break, this is followed by a month of finals (which I probably won’t have because I’m doing English and not something that requires tests…