Perhaps I should mention some things we have noticed about England. Hmmm. First of all, it often doesn't feel like we're in England, because there are so many people from so many different countries here, that we could be anywhere. The buildings are all very close to each other, actually they're usually attached to each other, like the row houses in Boston. They're also very old, and the architecture has more embellishments than most of our houses/buildings in the U.S. So, I do feel like we're in Europe. The roads and the pubs are what seem the most British to me. I never know which way to look when crossing the road. I look both ways a bunch of times, then cross. There also seems to be a lot of gates & fences corralling us as we walk about. When we're at an attraction (e.g. The Tower of London, or Ripley's Believe It Or Not Odditorium), they severely limit where you can go, so that you have to go in a very specific direction. You can't really take shortcuts to get out of somewhere. It's like they have a map of where you are going to walk, what order you will look at everything in, and you're not supposed to deviate from that.
OK. The people. People are dressed different here. You see a lot of guys wearing skinny jeans, which in the U.S. are reserved for girls. Genci has noticed a lot of women/girls wearing leggings and a short dress over them. He mentioned a few times that I should try that, so he must like that fashion. I don't know that I'm that keen on it. I think I finally cleared the leggings out of my drawers last year (from about 15-20 years ago). There have been plenty of interesting hair styles - dreadlocks, bright colors, interesting cuts.
A huge percentage of the people we come into contact with are originally from countries other than England - i.e. immigrants. We talk to a lot of people in the service industries - waiters, store clerks, hotel managers, tourist site workers, etc. When we do hear British people speak, we really enjoy it. There is a sing song type rise & fall to their voices. But among those who seem to be British, there is a wide variety of accents. I don't know if they're just from different regions or if some are are Irish or Australian or something.
I thought that American English & British English were pretty close to each other, with just a few words spelled differently. But they say things different here - not so different that you can't figure out, but different enough that it makes you have to listen closely & think for a minute. I'll try to think of examples... coach=bus, take away = take out (take out food), lift=elevator, way out=exit, oh, I don't know. There were tons of them, but I can't think of them. Mostly they just word things differently.
The main thing we notice about England is that it's very expensive (except the wine, which is surprisingly affordable). Perhaps they earn more money than we do.
So, today we didn't do too much. We took our dirty clothes to a launderette, and headed for the boardwalk. We got some food, then went to another playground, then hung out at a place that had volleyball courts, sand for kids to play in & a climbing wall. (We did all of that.) We went back to the hotel, where Genci took a nap & the kids played on the computer, while I took a walk to pick up the laundry. That walk went well, so I went for another walk, just for fun. I had 30 minutes of freedom to just walk and observe. I spent the last 5 of that gathering yummy food from a specialty deli. We ate in our room, then headed out again. There's a little amusement park at the end of a pier nearby. We scrounged up every last pound we had (10 pounds, which is $16.70), which gave us enough tickets for the kids to go on 2 rides each. (That was fun - they let me go on one for free, since Nathan had to have an adult with him). We headed out in search of a money exchange place, but they're all closed for the night. So, no small purchases (not even ice
cream!) until we change some Euros, but we have everything we need for now. Thank god for my credit card. Genci forgot to bring his wallet on this trip, so we only have 1 functioning credit card with us (they don't take Discover here). I called today to make sure we're not near our limit (we're not). I don't know what we would have done without this little piece of plastic.
So, today was a good day. Everyone was in a reasonable mood. We weren't terribly ambitious, but the weather was nice & the kids had fun.
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