February 2012
8 posts
"Just kidding"
On a recent trip into Grantham, I made a bit of a culture connection.
When checking out from ASDA I told the elderly cashier to excuse me while I struggled to count exact change (I had a ton of it, so I really had to use it). As I’m counting, she asks, “Are you all Americans?” I said, “yeeeaahhh, what gave it away?” I was just joking, I knew it was a number of...
January 2012
12 posts
Learning the Lingo
A cab picked me and some friends up from the train station last weekend. When the cab pulled up, one of my professors got out with her kids. We made small talk as she got luggage out with help form the driver and I put my bags in the back seat. Without thinking, I shut the back passenger door and started to open the front passenger door. The cab driver sees me do this and says with a smile,...
Stamford and the Cheese Lady
The honors section of British studies had a field trip (and it was freeeeee!!!) a week ago to a little town 30 minutes away by coach called Stamford. The name is not to me confused with the univeristy in the states. After a bus trip where the double decker coach immitated a lost whale giving half of the students motion sickness, we arrived in the most beautiful town I’ve ever been too....
Lesson: Packages
Packages tell me I’m still a kid on the inside.
How the package experience goes:
1) Told by my parents that they sent a package TWENTY YEARS AGO, because I know I know I know…….. it HAS to cross the ocean.
2) On a random day when I’ve forgotten about the package, I meander up to a the mail boxes and insert my key, only half-heartedly looking.
3) And there it is! could...
Walmart HAD a daughter named ASDA
Something I learned/had free time to research because I’m a nerd.
Walmart is the largest company in the world (by value). In 1999, Walmart decided to spread its smiley face of happiness to the UK. So, it bought a largish called ASDA (pronounced azda). ASDA began in 1965 has a market in Yorkshire in North Britain and spread out from there. In 1989, little ASDA got little greedy and bought a...
Look "left", not "wrong".
I had to ride a bus from my terminal to customs once I arrived in London over a week ago. I was slightly disoriented because of the massive time change and six hours of my life seemingly vanishing into a time warp, so I didn’t notice it right away: the bus driver was trying to kill us all! We were going around 30mph on the WRONG side of the road. My heart started to beat quickly but I...
Ben From-Germany
I don’t think Ben From-Germany knows how much he taught me during that 7 hours (I guess it was 13 if you include the time change) flight. First off, Americans, well, we’re kind friendly. I think the term with a negative spin is “in your face.” Maybe it was my excitement coupled with nerves, but I just really wanted to say hello to the guy flying next to me. So I turned...
It was inevitable really.
I believe it was around month ago that I received an email, asking if I was interested in being a student blogger. I won’t lie, my mind wandered about how cool it would be to share my stories, and make captions under more pictures (an activity I probably enjoy way more than the average person). But then I mentally slapped myself on the wrist and remembered that I was taking a semester to not...