Another quick one

I have absolutely nothing new to say this week, except:

BritBit 1: In the UK the ground floor and the first floor are two different things, whereas in the US the words are synonymous.

Nothing else new to report, sorry. Term has started and I’m overloaded with work, which is why I missed posting last week. Also, I feel kinda bad about saying that I think British accents are annoying. I mean, I still think it, but I feel bad about it. It depends on my mood.

Also, there are several types of English accents and I’m not sure which is the one/are the ones I don’t like, which makes it all complicated. So I guess the more accurate thing to say is that I hate the cockney accent. That’s the only one I know the name of, besides Manchester, which is also annoying.

Erm…okay, that’s it. Sorry for the lack of a good update but I’ve been assigned at least 3 books a week to read (ah, the life of an English major) and it’s rough.

BritBits, Groceries and...Zzz...

Time for an update.

School has started up again. I’m kind of excited and dreading it at the same time. It’s an odd feeling.

I have a few BritBits that I realized when my brother came to visit.

BritBit 1: British people really do talk with strange inflections in their voices. I honestly wasn’t sure if it was just me, but my brother commented on it too, asking, “Why do they talk like that?” No idea. They just sound overexcited all the time.

Speaking of which,

BritBit 2: The English accent is annoying. Yeah, I said it. How it took me this long to realize that is beyond me. I guess it’s kind of like…you expect something to be one way and so that’s how you perceive it, despite the fact that it’s actually different. I expected the accent to be slightly less hot than in the movies, but still attractive. No. It’s annoying. I kind of wish I hadn’t realized it, because now it really bothers me.

You know Giles’ accent on Buffy? Or Wesley’s on Angel? Or basically any British actor ever appearing in a movie? That’s not how they sound. The girls kind of sound like Drusilla from Buffy, except for some reason she has American inflections. That, and she’s crazy. These references are probably lost on most people so I’ll just stop now.

BritBit 3: When you’re on the metro in London there’s a voice that says “Mind the gap” before you step onto or off the train. That means “watch out for the space”. I was used to it but my brother commented on this too.

BritBit 4: They call dishwashing liquid “washing up liquid”.

BritBit 5: They have a bunch of foods that they label “Americano” or “American style”, but most of them don’t seem particularly American to me.

Since I’m talking about food, I guess I can talk about the grocery stores they have here. Sainsbury’s is one of the big ones. They have typical food aisles and stuff, but one thing I noticed is that they have canned food. I don’t remember if I said this already but they have hot dogs in jars and “dinner” in cans. I haven’t tried it because it just sounds gross. They have ready meals you can get 3 for 5 pounds, which is a good deal for a college student. They also have stuff for kitchens and some DVDs and random other items.

ASDA is another big store, which is actually owned by Walmart. It’s basically the British version of Walmart. They sell clothes, groceries, electronics, etc. Their food is cheaper than Sainsbury’s but it’s harder to get there because it’s not in the city center (I’m talking only about Brighton by the way, not the entirety of England). I prefer ASDA because I think the food tastes slightly better, and it’s cheaper. The key word there is cheaper.

Gosh, this post is so lifeless. Sorry, I’m really tired. I’m trying this thing where I sleep at night instead of during the day—I know, crazy—and it makes me really tired. So far it’s working, but in order to do so I have to force myself to stay up all day instead of taking a nap like usual, which causes me to go to sleep at around 9 or 10 instead of 1 or 2. You’d think sleeping all night would make me refreshed during the day, but it doesn’t. My body is used to the opposite and it hates me right now. I’m questioning whether it’s worth it, because I feel like a zombie.

Also, it snowed again. This is the worst weather the UK has had in…I think 30 years. Yay me.

Also, my housemates are back. I miss the quiet.

I can’t wait for the weekend. Sleep sounds amazing right now.

Until next time :)

By the way, the pictures are of ASDA, not Sainsburys.

The Paris Chronicles: pt. 3, Food and Shelter

Here’s part three of my summary of Paris. It’s all about the food today. Again, this is about budget dining, not 5 star restaurants. I’m just a poor college student after all.

If you don’t want to spend a ton of money on food, you don’t have to. I did a ton of research before I went and I read all kinds of stuff. None of it came in handy, except, “Don’t call the waiter ‘garcon’ because it’ll be rude.” ‘Garcon’ means ‘boy’ in French, so even if they do it in the movies it would be dumb to do in real life.

There are places to eat all over the place, and it’s not necessarily expensive. The first night we just looked at the menus in restaurant windows and decided on a place that seemed good. A lot of times the owner will be waiting at the door and say hi to people in an attempt to coax you inside. At least, I’m assuming they were the owners; they could have been regular waiters.

Some menus are in French with an English translation underneath, and some have no English at all. It doesn’t really matter. English certainly helps but you don’t need it. Certain words are similar enough to English for anyone to understand. Sometimes the menu will have pictures next to the words so that helps too.

I learned that the word ‘entrée’ is not the same as the English word. I think entrée in French means appetizer…except I think they also say “aperitif” for appetizer so I’m not really sure what an entrée is. Wow, this isn’t exactly useful.

Typical courses include the oh-so-famous snails (“escargot”) and frog legs, as well as normal foods like fish (poisson) and other meats. If you want to remember that “poisson” means fish, think about The Little Mermaid. In the movie the French chef is singing in the kitchen as he’s about to cook Sebastian, and he sings, “Le poisson, le poisson, hee hee hee, haw haw haw.” Oh, Disney.

Chicken is “poulet” and…that’s all I know. Seriously, you don’t need to know that much. If you’re planning on going to Paris and you’re concerned, you can look up some basic French words online. Odds are the waiter speaks basic English so he or she can help you.

Day one: I had pasta with salmon and a weird Schwepps drink. By the way, they use bottles, though they also have cans. My brother had frog legs and peach iced tea. I loved what I ordered (delicious), my brother didn’t like his. But he liked his drink, and I didn’t like mine. Meh.

Day two: The hotel gave free breakfast. We got both a crossaint and a roll each, orange juice, and a choice between coffee (café), something I didn’t understand, and hot chocolate (they just call it chocolate). It’s small, but from what I’ve read the French don’t eat large breakfasts. It was nice little morning snack.

For lunch: We were starving so we weren’t really taking our time to look for a great place. We stopped to look at one place and the owner (I’m assuming) said that he spoke English and that we should come inside. Either we looked like obvious tourists or he heard us speaking English. Either way, we went inside. I got a cheese and chicken crepe, which was weird because the crepe was sweet, and iced tea. My brother got this chicken kebab with tons of cheese and couscous and rice. It was okay, but I didn’t really like the crepe.

For dinner…I honestly have no idea what we ate. I can’t remember. I’m starting to think we skipped lunch and actually ate the crepe for dinner.

Day three: We had the same breakfast. For lunch we went to a place right outside Gare du Nord. It was kind of…Americanized, I guess. I got chicken wings and fries; my brother got the same.

Okay, so we didn’t really eat that much French food other than frog legs and the crepe. Still, we didn’t spend that much.

Some restaurants have special menus where you can get an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert for around 11 euros. You would have to choose from a pre-selected menu but still…that’s a good deal. The last restaurant had something similar to that: a main course and a drink for 8 euros. Considering the drinks are around 3 or 4 euros each, that’s a good deal.

This might sound stingy, but you might want to bring a few water bottles with you so you don’t have to buy drinks, as they’re really expensive. I’ve recently started bringing Capri Suns with me whenever I go out. It’s cheaper that way. Plus they have Capri Suns here (England) so I’m all set.

There are also tons of little cafe/shop things that sell crepes, crossaints, paninis, etc. that sell quick snacks or lunches you can pick up rather than go to sit down restaurants.

Since this is going to be my last post about Paris I’ll just add a bit about choosing a place to stay. I was convinced that hostels were absolutely cheaper than hotels, but after the train was cancelled and I decided to look for a cheaper place, I found a hotel that was even cheaper than the hostel I had booked previously. I would suggest going to hostelworld.com, they have all the hostels on there. They find hotels too—I only realized this when I tried finding a new place.

The difference between a hostel and a hotel: in a hostel you stay in a room with people you don’t know. There can be up to 12 people in a room I think. The more people there are, the cheaper it is. Of course, this can lead to uneasiness and theft, but the price is what usually attracts college-age students. You can find a hostel with a private room but, as I discovered, by the time you pay for a private room in a hostel you can probably find a hotel for the same price. Read reviews online—just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean it’s bad.

We stayed at Hotel Gerando. I’d recommend it. It’s close to Gare du Nord, where the Eurostar trains get off, so it’s convenient if you take the train and arrive late and you just want to go to sleep. It’s basic: it has beds, lights, a bathroom, and a TV. I’m not big on extras so I didn’t care that it was small and that the TV only had two channels…in French. Bring a computer or an mp3 player and you’ll be fine. You shouldn’t be spending that much time in there anyway—it’s Paris! Go out and do something.

Recommendation: see the monuments at night. We didn’t, and I kind of wish we had. Isn’t Paris the city of lights? I only just remembered that…sigh.

So that ends the Paris discussion. It’ll be back to good old England next time. Happy New Year everyone!