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.
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.
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!
This post will be a summary of shopping in Paris. I’m not an expert by any means, but I did buy things, so I have a bit of experience. This is mostly for touristy stuff (t shirts, key chains, mugs, etc.); I didn’t do much clothes shopping.
First things first: don’t buy things under the Eiffel Tower. There’s a couple of shops under there and they all have expensive touristy things. There’s also a little stand thing near a corner before you go under, and I’d recommend not buying anything there either. My brother and I got cheated.
So everything was fairly expensive, like I expected, so I wasn’t that put off. The cheapest things at the stand that I just mentioned were key chains for 1.50 (euros). We thought, wow, what a good deal compared to the rest of this stuff. Then I bought a pocket mirror for 10 euros because I thought it was really cute. After walking around under the Tower and then going to cross the street to get a better view, we were approached by guys selling stuff. Their arms were full of key chains and model Eiffel Towers. We automatically said no and kept walking, but as we got closer to crossing the street we actually heard what one of them said: “3 for 1 euro.”
My brother and I both paused and said, “Wait, what?” We went back and bought more key chains. It was then that we realized we had been cheated. By the end of the day those guys were selling 10 key chains for 2 euros—and we had spent 1.50 for one! So if you see a bunch of guys (mostly African) with tons of merchandise in their arms, go to them. Their prices are cheaper, and you can bargain. Across the street there were men sitting on the ground with displays of what they were selling, and they had a bit more than the guys directly under the Tower. I got a little glass figurine of the Eiffel Tower. Actually, it’s one of those figures with the image inside a glass square thing. I don’t know what they’re called, but I love them, so I got one. They wanted it for 6, I paid 3.
Don’t know how to bargain? Never fear. I already had experience having been to Ghana before, so I consider myself something of a pro. *Brushes shoulders off* First thing is, be willing to spend a minute or two talking to the seller. Whatever the original price is, you can bring it down. There are a few exceptions, like with the key chains I said before. 3 for 1 is a good deal; asking any lower is just being stingy. I don’t know, just use common sense. Think about what price you want to pay, think about whether it’s reasonable, and then ask that price.
This is an example scenario (if the grammar seems bad it’s because that’s how they talk):
Shopper: Ooh, this is nice.
Seller: Oh yes, *insert description of whatever it does/looks like here*
Shopper: How much is it?
Seller: 6 euro.
Shopper: Oh…
Seller: No, it’s okay! Tell me how much you want to pay.
Shopper: 3.
Seller: Oh no, that’s too low. Okay, okay, 5.
Shopper: I don’t think it’s worth more than 3.
Seller: Come on, 5, is good deal.
Shopper: Mm, no thanks.
Seller: Wait, okay, 4.
Shopper: Mm…nah, no thanks. *start to walk off*
Seller: Okay, okay. *nods head, extends hand for money*
Whenever they do that I always confirm the end price. So in that case I would say, “3 euro, right?” and then they would nod. I always do that because once I went through this whole thing and at the end the guy acted like we had come to the conclusion he wanted. Always confirm.
The walking off thing makes them desperate. It’s like, oh no, I’m losing a potential buyer. I think the starting price they offer is usually high because there’s always that one person who goes, “Oh, whatever,” and pays for it without bartering. But you can bring it down. It might take a little longer than the scenario I gave you, or it might not. It all depends. If you’re willing to spend 5 minutes you could probably get it down a lot, but it takes time.
Now, this ONLY APPLIES to the people you see on the street. Don’t try it with someone in a shop. Regular rules apply there.
For regular touristy stores, be sure to shop around. That mirror I spent 10 euros on? I found similar ones in a shop that were selling 3 for 10. I felt dumb. (Just a side note here, it’s not like I spend tons of time looking in mirrors. I’ve just never had a pocket mirror and I’ve actually started looking for one recently and haven’t been able to find one, so when I saw it I thought it was my lucky day and decided to buy it, despite the ridiculous price.)
So remember, if you see something in one tourist shop, it’ll be in another, and it might be cheaper. There’s tons of shops, and a lot of them are close together, so don’t worry about not finding whatever you’re looking for again.
They sold a lot of scarves along the streets too. Scarves, hats, gloves, and some purses. If you cross the street at the Eiffel Tower to that…museum/building place (I don’t actually know what it is) and you go up the stairs, there’s guys up there selling purses on the ground as well. They weren’t knock offs, they were just regular purses. I’m not a name brand person so it didn’t bother me. If you’re looking for Prada or Louis Vuitton or whatever then you’d have to go to a regular store. Champs d’Elysees has tons of rich stores so if you want to spend some hardcore money, go there and walk up and down. There’s a giant Louis Vuitton there. There’s some regular stores there too, so non-rich people can find some stuff as well.
We did go into some normal clothing places too. I got some boots. By the way:
BritBit 1: Girls love boots. I don’t know why, but it seems like every single girl has boots here, and it’s annoying. Seeing a girl in sneakers is rare. If she’s wearing sneakers she’s probably also wearing a punk sort of outfit, or a…I don’t know what the word is. Skater, maybe. I guess the only reason it’s annoying is because everyone looks exactly the same: shirt, leggings/tights, boots. Leggings have taken over.
BritBit 2: They wear shorts with tights. I’m used to it by now, but when I first arrived I thought it was strange. They even do it in the winter. As in 30 degrees outside (Fahrenheit). How can people stand the cold?
Anyway, French stores are just the same as other stores. You don’t really need to know French to buy anything. Like I said in my last post, I bought some earrings in another store and it was fine. No advice needed here.
Okay, so that’s my overview of shopping in Paris. I’ll post again soon talking about…something French. I haven’t decided yet. Au revoir!
I’m going to be posting several times over the next few days. Remember last post when I said I had the feeling I would be posting more often, or something like that? I actually have more to post than I thought, due to the failure of Eurostar.
So my brother came to visit. We were planning to go to both London and Paris. Guess what happened the first night? It snowed. A lot. We were supposed to go to London the next day, a Friday.
The buses into the city were all cancelled, so I had to reschedule the bus for the next day. That worked out, I guess.
But then guess what happened? We made our way to London on Sunday to go to Paris. We got up at 5 in the morning, arrived, and were told that all the trains were cancelled due to bad weather. The security guy actually said something about condensation, but I couldn’t understand his thick French accent so I’m not sure what that means. All I know is, the train was cancelled, and I was out of a lot of money: the train, the hostel, the bus to London—that all costs money, and it was all down the drain. Needless to say I was not pleased.
The train was also cancelled on Monday. Sarkozy finally got involved—he ordered that the trains resume on Tuesday. They were all reserved for people who didn’t get to travel on Sunday and Monday, so my brother and I decided to try and go again. That time, it worked. Instead of going by time they just stuck people on the next available train.
So we FINALLY made it to Paris. Overall grade: C-. I wasn’t impressed to be honest. First of all, it was overcast. Second, when we got there on the first day it was already dark, so we didn’t do anything except go to the hotel. Speaking of which, I still had to pay for the first night at the other hostel I booked. Thanks Eurostar.
We went to Champs d’Elysees the second day. Unfortunately we went down the wrong way so we didn’t go to many shops, because there weren’t many around. I fail at directions. We also got lost on the way to the hotel the night before. My mistake.
We then walked to the Eiffel Tower. The top half was covered in fog but later it cleared up and the sun came out. There were these hardcore armed guards there patrolling the place. There were also some pigs towards the middle with a sign close by, but since I don’t read French I have no idea what they were doing there. We also got cheated on some souvenirs, but I’ll mention that another day.
The city is kind of gross. There’s spit all over the ground and we saw a guy peeing in the street the first night. Charming. Plus my tickets for the underground didn’t work several times, and I had to get someone to open those doors that are attached to the machines you stick the tickets in to go through. I’m not sure if there’s an actual word for that.
We also saw the Louvre. The Louvre is a nightmare. If you ever plan on going and you want to see the Mona Lisa, do that first. The museum is huge. I mean, I knew it was big, but I didn’t realize it was so big that the map didn’t even make sense. There were two drawings for the same floor…I think. Basically, we got lost inside, and by the time we asked someone where the Mona Lisa was we were already tired, and then it took another…I’m guessing 15 minutes to find it. The museum, I reiterate, is HUGE. Plus it was far away, you couldn’t walk right up to it. There was a rope that designated how close you could get to it, and there was a crowd around it. Plus the painting was protected by glass. I can’t help but think that the painting is difficult to locate because they don’t want it to be easy to find for anyone trying to steal it.
After that we got something to eat and then went to Notre Dame. This sounds silly, but it looked bigger in the Disney movie. I love that movie by the way. Hellfire? One of Disney’s best songs. Anyway, it was nice looking inside. I liked the windows. Honestly though, it was kind of…I’m not sure what the word is. I don’t want to say creepy, I just got an odd feeling while in there.
Afterwards we wandered around some more. We went into some shops to find stuff for family members back home. I got a bunch of stuff for myself too. I’ll go into that on another day as well.
The next day we went back to Champs d’Elysees and went in the right direction. There’s tons of shops there. The Arc de Triomphe sits at the end, which is pretty cool because we hadn’t even realized it at the time. It was...tall. I'm not sure what else to say about it. I wanted to visit Sacre Couer or however you spell it, but we were out of time. We rushed back to Gare du Nord and caught the Eurostar back to London. As it is, we could have stayed longer because we got back two hours or so early for the bus back to Brighton. Oh well.
So! Stuff about France:
1. Everyone speaks French. Duh. All the signs and everything are in French. 2. Some people speak English as well. It’s actually not that hard to get around without knowing French. I bought a pair of earrings at this store and the cashier didn’t speak English. She tried to tell me that I couldn’t return them, but she only knew a bit of English so it just came out as, “No…change,” with a lot of gestures towards the earrings. I figured it out eventually and we laughed about it so it was no big deal. 3. It reminds both me and my brother of New York. I hate New York. 4. They really do have snails on the menus at restaurants. My brother got frog legs on the first night. They weren’t that good, but only because they weren’t seasoned. I’ve had them before and they can be delicious if cooked properly.
I don’t know what else to say. I think you can leave comments, right? If anyone reading this has a question, just leave a comment.
I’ll end here. I’ll try to post again tomorrow and talk about buying things in Paris. Fun stuff.
P.S. I look really young in that picture next to the pyramid...ugh. I just turned 20 (happy birthday to me!). I'm told I will like this "looking young" thing in the future. Is the future here yet?
I went to get my hair done today (braids, if you care) and I learned a bit more about British speech. Well, I knew these things, but I had forgotten about them, so it was a little refresher.
BritBit one: British people pronounce the beginning of some words with an ‘f’ even though there is no ‘f’ there. For instance, they’ll say what sounds like “froo” when they’re saying “through”. They do it in other instances but I can’t think of any other examples right now.
BritBit two: Just a bit of slang—“bang out of order”. It basically means someone has done something wrong, or said/done something uncalled for. If you’ve seen the Harry Potter movies (woot!) in the fifth one Ron says to Harry, “Seamus was bang out of order mate,” after Seamus had accused Harry of lying about Voldemort being back and said something about his mom nearly not letting him come back to Hogwarts. If you didn’t understand any of that you need to pick up a Harry Potter book ASAP. Here’s another example for you: If you’re having an argument with a friend and you snap and call them…I don’t know, a slut, they might gasp and say, “That’s out of order.”
BritBit three: I can’t remember if I’ve written this already (story of my life) but they call a five pound note a “fiver” or a ten pound note a “tenner”. It’s shorter, it’s easier, it makes sense.
That’s all for today. I get the feeling I’ll have a lot more to write about in the upcoming days…muahaha cliffhanger.
Sorry sorry sorry! I’m overdue, I know. But the good news is, the term is over! I’m free!
Let’s give a few quick updates: I had my band concert last night. It went really well, apparently the audience said it was the best the band has sounded in a while. This is my first term so I’ll just take their word for it.
I finished my two essays. Yay me.
I haven’t started editing my nano yet. Boo me.
That’s it for my personal life. Let’s move on to more interesting things.
BritBit numero uno: While at the concert they had little snacks for people to eat, including cookies (or should I say biscuits?), wine (it’s still weird for me that alcohol is not even a problem for college-age people), and these things called mince pies. Now I’d heard of mince pies before, but I had no idea what they were. I asked two girls sitting next to me and they had a difficult time explaining it, beyond saying that there were raisins and the pies are really sweet. So I tried one, and they were right. They do have raisins, and they are sweet. It’s like a mini pie with really sweet fruit filling. I didn’t like it. I’m not a fan of raisins.
But if you don’t like raisins, you must be thinking, then why did you try it at all if they said there were raisins in it? Well imaginary questioner, I just like to try stuff sometimes. It might’ve been so delicious that I didn’t mind the raisins. Unfortunately…it wasn’t.
BritBit numero dos: I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this (how many times have I said that? I can’t remember) but here they only go to school for three years. In the U.S. college is four years. Also, here “college” is like “high school” in the U.S…I think. So, if someone here says that they took maths in college they don’t mean university, they mean the equivalent of high school. Oh yeah, and they say “maths” not “math”.
BritBit three yo: I have no idea what a surgery is. I went to the pharmacy to get something and the ladies there mentioned going to the surgery. In the U.S. surgery is a procedure in which stuff gets cut up. And by “stuff” I mean your body, and by “cut up” I mean operated on. The first way was simpler.
Let me look it up now…okay I give up. I keep getting links for the actual practice of surgery, not what the UK version of the word means. Hm…it’s a mystery. I’m guessing it just means the doctor’s office, or the hospital.
BritBizzle number fizzle: Does parmesan cheese have to be refrigerated? I’m almost certain it doesn’t, but everywhere I look here it’s in the refrigerated section. This has nothing to do with England except for the fact that I discovered it here. How weird. England is challenging all of my previous beliefs about food.
Sidebar: Glee is the most amazing show ever. I say this now because the songs are stuck in my head and it’s hard to concentrate. If you have a TV, watch Glee. It’s on Fox. By the way, not a fan of Fox. They cancelled Firefly, and therefore they suck. What is Firefly? Watch it on hulu. If you’re not in the U.S. and therefore can’t watch it on hulu, buy it. It’s a sci-fi western. Yeah, that sounds weird and kind of stupid, and I was reluctant to watch it at first, but it’s amazing. The pilot starts off slow though, so be sure to stick to it. Also, they cancelled Dollhouse and it just started getting good. Fail.
I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be plugging these things. It’s not like I’m getting paid for it. *shifty eyes*
Seriously though, I’m not getting paid for it. I wish.
Well, I’m done for now. Also, my birthday is next week. I just realized that when I looked at the calendar on my wall ten seconds ago. I always forget about my birthday until a week or so beforehand. Weird. Anyway, you can send presents to University of Sussex room number…just kidding.
Hello all! My name is Afoue Ellison. I'm a junior at Clark University, about to embark on an intergalactic journey to another universe...nah, just kidding. I'm just going to England for a year. Still, fun times!
