A Travel Letter in 739 Words
Wow – London! I love London! They have beer in London. And Camden Market. And fish & chips. And lovely people. Some strange people, and a couple not-so-lovely-people – but overall the English have proven to be friendly and nice.
I, on the other hand, struggled for at least a day and half with being as polite as the English. The first night I said “Shit!” in the elevator (because it almost killed us – the elevator, that is.), and I forgot for a second or two that “Shit!” is not a positive or accepted word amongst strangers or children. So the rest of our fellow elevatorers hated us. My friend tried to make them happy by being jolly, and she even said “byyee byyyeee!” when we got out on our floor. It didn’t work. Neither of them replied.
The second day I was smoking outside the hotel and an elderly gentleman came up to me and mumbled something. Because he mumbled I couldn’t understand what he was saying (obviously.), so I replied “What?” instead of the accepted “Pardon?” or “Excuse me?”. He then got all snappy at me - which of course now I can understand and relate to. I didn’t get ‘it’ until later that day, when all of a sudden ‘it’ came to me; In England, one is supposed to be polite, and not being polite means that one is rude and can be perceived as obnoxious. And from that moment on I said thank you, pardon, please, excuse me, I’m sorry, may I please etc etc at least once per sentence.
The moral is; if you’re going to England, please be polite.
If I’m going to complain about something that is clearly wrong in the English culture, I would have to mention two things; the pubs close at 11pm (what’s that all about!?), and females are not supposed to drink beer.
Oh well.
We did meet some crazy people. And by crazy I mean heeellooo. One guy rapidly went from talking about how he was born in Ireland to all of us somehow being responsible for the tragic death of Princess Diana. Another guy wanted us to shake his nipple. Shake his nipple as in shake his hand, except not his hand – his nipple. A third tried to christen me by putting his hand on my hand whilst asking for the sweet release of Jesus Christ.
All of the above happened at a bar. Obviously.
I didn’t get any wealthier in London, but some good things did happen. For example, I learnt that “Give us a snog then” means “Kiss me now, and kiss me hard, please”. And if someone says that one must be prepared for a lot of lip and tongue action. Of course I wasn’t prepared, and it ended up being a funny kiss rather than a cool snog. I also learnt that I can talk to people about almost anything whilst under the influence – like for example I didn’t freak out when asked to go to a sex club and have a foursome. I didn’t have to run away whilst screaming, because the sex club was closed (and thank God in Heaven for that)! Also, I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with singing in the street after a couple of double Jack’s on the rocks. German songs, to make it even worse. With German back-up-singer, who, incidentally, also were under the influence.
Finally – if you go and see a musical, be prepared to sing and hum the songs for at least four days afterwards, annoying everyone around you and eventually yourself. We saw the Queen musical “We Will Rock You”, which was great, but I am not listening to any Queen songs for at least two weeks. It’s still too fresh.
The end of the story is that 4 days and 3 nights in London simply isn't enough time to spend in this great European metropolis. We didn't get to meet the Queen in that short amount of time. Nor did we shake hands (or nipple.) with Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant or Karl Pilkington. We did however do London by day and night with style – which of course is the only excepted way to travel anywhere!
To the lovely people we met (Sam, Ben, Adam, toilet-lady, Miguel, Miguel’s very drunk friend, Tim, Crazy-Clive, Pavel-Music-Man, Pavel-Bicycle-Teacher-Lovely-Man, Brasilian-Music-Guy, Q, Nice Non-Verbal Doorman with Good ID-photo on Arm) – thank you! We’ll be back soon :D
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
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Hilarious! I loved this entry.
ReplyDeleteSo did you shake it?
ReplyDeleteThank you, Shania! :)
ReplyDeleteMzzLily: Yes! Twice! I was just... you know... trying to be polite and all ;D
You have yourself a new follower! Okay, firstly funny post! Secondly, I have to say something about politeness in England because, quite frankly, it's bollocks. I am sure the bloke who got snappy with you when you were smoking was old and set in his ways. And also, i say 'what' instead of 'pardon me' All the time. No one says that anymore. Maybe the Queen and all the aristocrats which is what everyone in the world perceives the english to be. But we're not. Oh and what's this about women not drinking beer?! You were actually in London, weren't you?! lol
ReplyDelete:)
I have to agree with Lou - it's news to me too that women are not allowed to drink beer?!?! And I'm not so sure about the politeness thing - though I normally say "I'm sorry?" instead of "What?" but that's habit rather than politeness :-)
ReplyDeleteAs for pubs closing at 11pm (I thought they generally closed at midnight?), it's something to do with the alcohol licensing laws for pubs. There have been public urges of the government to relax it, but so far no success.
I've not seen the Queen musical, but I HAVE seen the Avenue Q musical... and I completely relate to what you say about having the songs in your head afterwards, I was running round singing "The Internet Is For Porn" for at least a week.
Maybe the elderly gentleman was an aristocrat, come to think of it. We did live in Mayfair. Turns out Mayfair is somewhat posh. By somewhat posh I mean _posh_.We almost didn’t fit in at all – but I have to say I did find it enjoyable :D Plus – the police were guarding the American Embassy (across the street and slightly to the left) with all their best men, so we felt safe. I suppose. Not really. They are there for a reason – and it’s not a pleasant reason. I get that. But still. Police, posh, safe. It fits.
ReplyDeleteI know!! We did however drink beer. And Jack. Mostly Jack. I don’t think I’d be able to get along with people who didn’t care for women folk drinking beer. In fact, I don’t think – I know for a fact that I wouldn’t care much for those people. Anywho. The point is our Ministry of Foreign Affairs has this to say about England on their website (which we read before we left, just for fun. Ish. Maybe I was bored. Don’t remember. Anywho – I read it, and here’s their last sentence under “Customs and rules”: “Be aware that it’s less common for women to drink beer in England.” Like, really. They had to mention that. The good news is it felt good drinking beer, and at the same time feeling rebellious. Well. Sort of rebellious anyway.
It just came to me that I could’ve written an entire post about this subject. Oh well :)
great story, have always wanted to go there!
ReplyDeleteMayfair!!!! Blimey, that must've cost a bomb! And yeah Mayfair is posh - and that's an understatement, you have to have at least a couple of million pounds in the bank to even *think* of buying a residence there. Mind you, I'm sure that'll suit you fine, won't it? :-)
ReplyDeleteWe really did get a good deal – the third night was free, so it set us back around £400. Not bad! And it was superclose to Oxford Street as well, like… just through “Grovenor Quare”. What’s with not pronouncing the S in Grosvenor!
ReplyDeleteIt did secretly please me to see all those extremely fancy cars parked outside random people’s houses. And I say secretly because we were lost and very, very hungry – so I couldn’t just go all ‘positive attitude’ all of a sudden ;D