Brit Speak
Jun 28, 2005 A day in our life
Between what my mom told me and what I observed, there are many things different in Britian. I decided to keep a little record of it so I won’t forget.
The most obvious difference between the UK and the US is the language. Yes they speak English, but it’s quite different from the way we talk. I found this great website that tells what a lot of the British terms mean; The Best of British – The American’s guide to speaking British… Some of the words I have already listed in my previous posts (e.g. subway=tube, lemonade=Sprite, etc.). Watching the UK version [the original] of Big Brother I figured out what “snogging” is and what a “cheeky monkey” is.
Another obvious difference is the currency. I found this interesting website regarding the history of the British currency and it includes pictures of currency.
All of their banknotes have a picture of the Queen on them. I asked what happens when she dies. Apparently when Queen Elizabeth passes on they will slowly introduce new money. Also, they have a lot more coins then we do in the US. They have a coin for one penney (1p), two pennies (2p), five pence (5p), ten pence (10p), twenty pence (20p), fifty pence (50p), one pound (?1), and two pounds (?2). Then their banknotes begin at ?5, ?10, ?20 and so forth.
While we were the exchange rate was around $1.80. So for every ?1 that we spent, we were really spending $1.80. So it was expensive for us. Everything was almost double. That ?24.99 jacket I bought at the Gap cost me $48.99. The ?1500 hotel bill was really almost $3000. It’s outrageous. It took me a while to realize that the prices weren’t that bad. For the Brits. The Gap had jeans for ?49.50. Well in the States we would probably find Gap jeans at around $49.50. They get paid in pounds. We get paid in dollars. So it’s really the same. But for us to use USD to pay for merchandise priced in pounds, it was crazy. Just think, for the Brits to come to America it’s like half price. That must rock!
Their TV is quite different too. Not the TVs [or Tellies] themselves, but the programming. They get anywhere from 2 to 7 or 8 channels of BBC programming [depending on where in the UK they live]. And the BBC channels have no advertising. No commercials. Instead each household pays a “Telly tax” of like ?50 a year or something. If you don’t have a telly you need to prove you don’t have one and you won’t have to pay the tax. Or if you have a black and white telly your tax is less. They have a couple of channels of American TV on SkyOne and SkyTwo and so forth. On those channels they get some of our shows like Desperate Housewives, House, CSI, Cold Case, etc. They also have cable or digital TV in the UK. They have a few cool game shows that I think we need to bring to the US. We stole borrowed Big Brother, American Idol and the Weakest Link, why aren’t we bringing over some of their “word play” game shows? There is this one show where there are two teams of three people. Each round they have one word. Each member of one team gives a definition [only one of them is correct] and the other team has to guess who is telling the truth. They are very hard words so it’s not as easy as you’d think. I loved that show.
Many of us have seen pictures of the UK telephone booths.
But did you know the mailboxes are different too?
Their transportation is slightly different too. You’ve seen the double-decker buses. The old buses had open stairs on the back, but they are gradually replacing all of those. Apparently people who were running late would run after the buses and leap on to the steps. Sometimes they would make it. Sometimes they would not. Mom said she has seen at least one lady being dragged by the bus. So now the new buses are still double-decker buses, but they no longer have open stairways. You can only get on to the buses when they are stopped and the doors are opened.
Their taxis are different too. They look like old fashioned cars. Their main taxi service are the “black cabs,” but they do have other services too. Many of their taxis have advertising all over them.
We were in a posh neighborhood so we saw a lot of expensive cars; Mercedes, BMW, Jaquars. We drove by the Porsche dealership on our way to and from the airport. The Porsches are awesome. They even have a new SUV. But many people also drove Audis or Saabs. There were also these little, itty bitty cars. They are little two-seaters and allow people to get in and out of traffic quickly. But they are funny looking [and least to us they are].
And, finally, their paper is different. We have our typical 8.5×11, but theirs is slightly longer and not quite as wide. I printed a bunch of stuff for my math homework and when I got it home and tried to staple it together with some stuff I printed here it wouldn’t match up. Crazy.
The Return Trip from Hell
Jun 28, 2005 Seeing the world
Note: The trip was not hell. The trip to London was wonderful. But the flight home was horrible!
Sunday, June 19th
The weather today was unseasonably hot for London. It was in the 90s. A far cry from earlier in the week.
We got up around 9am today. Checkout time was noon and we needed to be packed and in the lobby by then. The concierge called a cab for us. It was before 1pm when we got to Heathrow airport and we had about three hours before I flight was going to leave. So we decided to eat lunch. We ate at this little french restaurant. We could hardly understand the waiter and he had some trouble understanding us, but the food was good.
After lunch we did a little bit of shopping. We didn’t go to the big, huge Harrod’s store in London, but we did stop in to the much smaller version at the airport. Keaton even got his picture taken with the bear at Harrods. Then we went in to Hamley’s. Again, this was a much smaller version of the seven story toy store in London. We [and by we I mean Grandma Cathy] had promised Keaton we would go to Hamley’s, but we never quite made it. Keaton had some British change left over and decided to get a toy. He wanted to get this small fish tank toy, but we tried to convince him to buy a British telephone bank as a souvenir. He didn’t want no stinkin’ bank though and it was his money so he bought the fish tank. Kids can be so stubborn some times.
Our plane was supposed to leave at 3:40 [15:40], but we didn’t even have a gate until 3:30. Then we finally boarded at 4pm [after standing in a very long line in a very hot corridor for half an hour] only to sit on the plane for 45 minutes with no word from anybody as to what the hold up was.
Finally the steward announced that there was a problem with air traffic control. Apparently the radar had gone out that morning and all planes were delayed. The steward said they were waiting on confirmation as to how long it would be before we could take off, but it would be anywhere from an hour to two and half hours.
At around 7 or 7:30pm we finally got on the runway. But the captain announced we were 17th or 18th in line and it would be another 45 minutes or so before we actually took off.
I started to listen to air traffic control on the airplane radio. Listening to them talk I discovered there was a problem with one of the planes in front. “Oh great,” I thought. It felt like we would never take off. All I wanted to do was get home to my family. Luckily I called Lee from the plane [using mom's cell phone]. Otherwise he probably would have tried to pick us up from the airport at 9pm, but I was pretty sure by that point we wouldn’t make it to the airport that night.
The pilot of the stalled plane in front decided to get it off the runway. And we FINALLY took off around 8pm London time [2pm CT].
We landed in Chicago at 9pm. That was when our flight home was landing back home. And, obviously, we weren’t on it. There was another flight at 10pm, but by the time we got through Customs it was quarter til and we never would have made it. United left mom a voicemail on her cell phone saying they rebooked us on the 8:30am flight, but we didn’t want to wait that long. Luckily mom had called Candy from the plane and she reserved a rental car for us.
So after finally finding the Hertz bus and getting to the Hertz location at O’Hare, we got in to our rented Nissan Armada and headed home. I drove the whole way while Keaton slept and mom nodded off. The trip from Chicago took us about 3 1/2 hours. I got home around 2:15 in the morning; almost 24 hours after I woke up yesterday morning. I was never so happy to be home. Everybody was sleeping, but I gave them all big hugs and kisses and finally crawled in to bed. Aahhh. Heaven!
Where the Wild Things Are
Jun 28, 2005 Seeing the world
Saturday, June 18th
The weather today was HOT.
Keaton wanted to go to Legoland, but Grandma Cathy wanted to go on a river cruise. Grandma won. We spent our Saturday morning on a cruise on River Thames. We saw a lot of the sites we’ve already seen, but we were finally able to get a good look at Shakespeare’s Globe [at least from the outside]. And we snapped lots of pictures along the river.
After our cruise we went to the London Zoo. It was really hot out. At the beginning of the week I was freezing and then today I was sweating just sitting around doing nothing. Crazy London weather.
Grandma Cathy’s been to the zoo before so she found a nice shaded bench and read her book while Keaton and I walked through the Zoo. You really should allow all day for this zoo. It’s huge and Keaton and I didn’t get a chance to see everything before it was closing for the day. We spent too much time looking at the snakes, lizards and turtles in the Reptile House. We didn’t have time to go in to the aquarium or find the elephants. But I refused to leave before we saw the giraffes. And when we got to the giraffe house they had just fed them so we got see them up close and personal. It was awesome.
The London Zoo is pretty famous. It’s been in a few movies and inspired some writers. Of most interest to Keaton was the fact that one of the Harry Potter movies was filmed her. Of most interest to me was that this zoo inspired the creation of Winnie-the-Pooh.
After they kicked us out of the zoo [ok, not kicked, but they did holler over the loud speaker that the zoo was closing], we hauled our sweaty bodies back to the hotel. On the way to the tube we walked down Baker Street and we saw the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson lived at 221b Baker Street between 1881-1904, according to the stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The house was last used as a lodging house in 1936 and the famous 1st floor study overlooking Baker Street is still faithfully maintained as it was kept in Victorian Times.
That night we met mom’s friend Sam for drinks in the hotel bar. We were pretty exhausted from the non-stop activity the last week and the thought of the marathon packing we had to do that night, so we decided to eat in the bar too [just so you know, the bar was attached to the restaurant and kids were allowed in there too...so we didn't make Keaton starve, he was with us]. Sam was very nice. I don’t know how old he is, but he looked pretty young. Apparently mom hired him at Agency.com right out of college. It was fun talking to him. And it was fun meeting all of mom’s friends. But I was ready to go home and hug my family again.
Gimme Some of Them Jewels
Jun 28, 2005 Seeing the world
Friday, June 17th
The weather was much nicer today. It finally started warming up and there was no rain today.
We’ve been talking about riding on the London Eye all week, but the time just seems to fly by. So that was our goal for today. Going on a week day was a good idea, because the line was a heck of a lot shorter today than it was on Saturday when we first went by it. We were only in line about 2 minutes to buy tickets and then another 10 minutes [if that] to get on the Eye. The Eye does not stop. It continuously turns. So you need to be careful getting on. But it goes very, very slow so it’s not too bad.
Basically you step in to a big transparent egg. There is a large bench in the middle, but we mostly spent our time pressed against the glass taking pictures of the city. It goes so slow you don’t have to worry about falling over or anything. It’s an amazing view. And you can see London from all angles as you turn around.
After the our trip on the Eye we had some time so we walked along the South bank. Keaton’s stomach was bothering him so we decided to sit down on a bench at Gabriel’s Wharf. Apparently they were filming something there and this lady came over and asked us if we could move. I don’t know what they were filming, but it looked like a man and a woman on a date. First they filmed them walking around and then they filmed them sitting on a bench. Woo hoo. Whatever it was maybe we’ll be movie stars for getting in the way. Or maybe not.
As we continued our walk we came across Founders Arms Youngs Pub. It’s a pub. [Imagine that. A pub in London. What a shocker.] We thought it was pretty cool though cause it’s “Young’s Pub” [and we are geeks]. So mom took our pictures in front of it.
We were going to go to the Shakespeare Globe again, but Keaton wasn’t feeling very well so we just rested instead. We never did make it to the Shakespeare Globe, but we did get a photo of it on our river cruise on Saturday.
Finally we made it to Tate Modern. Tate Modern is the national gallery of international modern art. It was created in 2000 and you can find it in a disused power station on the river bank. Tate Modern displays the national collection of international modern art and contemporary art; which is art since 1900. International painting pre-1900 is found at the National Gallery, and sculpture at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Tate Modern includes modern British art where it contributes to the story of modern art, so major modern British artists may be found at both Tate Modern and Tate Britain. Tate Britian is a gallery devoted to British art from 1500 to the present day and it is farther down the river [we didn't go there]. We didn’t tour Tate Modern [although I would have liked to, but I'm sure Keaton wouldn't have enjoyed it]. Instead we met mom’s friend Nick, his wife, Emily and their son, Owen there. We ate lunch in the restaurant up on the seventh floor. You get a great view of the river [and St. Paul's Cathedral] from the restaurant.
Both Keaton and I tried to order the suckling pig sandwich, but they were out of it. So I got the Lincolnshire asparagus on citrus French toast with a poached duck egg. [I'm not making this up. This are the actually names from the menu. Don't believe me? Look here.] It was basically two sticks of asparagus on a piece of toast. And I didn’t even touch the duck egg. It looked like a normal egg, but something told me not to eat it so I didn’t. It was probably fine, but I like to follow my instincts. Keaton ended up getting the New season rump of lamb with the boulangere potatoes and a red wine jus, which happened to be the most expensive thing on the menu. But he ate it all so we couldn’t complain.
After our long lunch we said our goodbyes to Nick and his family and headed off to the Tower of London. The Tower of London is by far one of the most famous and well preserved historical buildings in the world. From its earliest structural beginnings by its founder William I of England better known as William the Conqueror 1066-87, the Great Tower or White Tower as it later came to be called was fast becoming the most talked-about building in England. The White Tower was also the most awe inspiring, and frightening structure to the Anglo-Saxon people who were trying to get used to the rule of their new Norman king, the destroyer of their own ruler, Harold II, at the in 1066. Within three months of his victory William the Conqueror had begun to build a castle on the north bank of the river Thames in London.
Beginning life as a simple timber and earth enclosure tucked in the south-east angle formed by the joining of the original east and south stone walls of the old Roman town of Londinium Augusta, the original structure was completed by the addition of a ditch and palisade along the north and west sides.
This enclosure then received a huge structure of stone which in time came to be called The Great Tower and eventually as it is known today The White Tower. This formed the basis of a residential palace and fortress ideally suited for a king or queen and as history has shown, to its regal occupants the Tower of London became the perfect all purpose complex. Since the first foundations were laid more than 900 years ago the castle has been constantly improved and extended by the addition of other smaller towers, extra buildings, walls and walkways, gradually evolving into the splendid example of castle, fortress, prison, palace and finally museum that it proudly represents today.
Click here for more info on the tower of London.
Many royals lived here including King Henry the VIII. Many “traitors” were executed here too, including some of King Henry’s wives. The Crown Jewels are housed here as well. The Tower of London is also home to many ravens. Rumor has it that if the ravens ever leave the White Tower will fall and great disaster will come over England.
The book we had said the tower closed at 6pm, but by 5:15 they were shooing us out of the White Tower and by 5:30 they were kicking us out of the whole place. But we got through most of our audio tour and we saw [most] everything we wanted to see. We will have to go back again if we are ever in London in the future.
We were meeting mom’s friend, Joanne and Natalie for dinner at the Ask. This was a different Ask then the one we ate at our first night. This one is right on the river, but on the other side of the river from the Tower of London. So we crossed the Tower Bridge to get there. Many people think the Tower Bridge is the the London Bridge, but it’s not. The London Bridge is actually kind of boring. It’s just a big cement bridge. Although at night it lights up red which is pretty cool.
So anyway, back to the Tower Bridge. The Tower Bridge is beautiful. The detail on it is amazing. And, once we got to the other side we watched them raise the bridge as a boat went under it. That was pretty cool too.
We had a long dinner at the Ask. The four of us [Jo, Natalie, mom and I] went through three bottles of wine. When we left it was getting dark. That made it a perfect opportunity to take pictures of the bridge at night. It was spectacular.
