Funny enough the sun has actually been following us quite well. It's very rarely rained whenever we've gone. I'm in Edinburgh, Scotland now. I'll be heading off to Inverness tomorrow and then I'll be 1/3 done with the trip. To be honest, I'm a little ready to go home. I'm enjoying the trip very much, it's interesting and fun but it's just 3 weeks is a long-ass time and we're constantly moving around, changing hotels and everything is so overpriced. Also everything we buy here is like an additional 1/3 of the price in US. So like we buy something for £9.50 it'll be really $15. Ridiculous.Xaru wrote:How are you enjoying yourself so far Hen? I noticed the weather hasn't been too great. But hopefully you came prepared for that. :P
The lack of Internet at the hotels is also irking me severely too... I've had to pay $32 so far so less than 24 hours of Internet (at this hotel alone) and some of the time it starts bugging out and the first day (24 hours I bought) ended only 19 hours through... So not having easy access to anything, moving around so much, being so far away from home for so long -- really makes me want to go home. I'll be looking forward to my return very much.
But don't get me wrong, the trip so far is very fun and interesting with the things we do/see. It's just... this trip would be a really good retirement activity to do, when you have no idea what the Internet is and you have no job anymore. The majority of the people, actually about 95% of the people on our Globus touring trip are elderly folk. I'm the only person my age in the group, then there's some 11-year old girl and her parents.
The differences in terms of culture are really not much different than that of the US. And I know Seb and anyone will want to argue that with me, but a lot of things of course like custom culture things are different, ways of life, etc. But in the adverage "here's what we do on a daily basis, here's what we have, etc." it's very, very similar to the US. I love how people complain about the US for having fast food places, in truth the UK as just as many. Every corner has a KFC, McDonalds and Starbucks. Yeah, I was a little surprised and just about everyone drinks coffee. Is tea a house-only thing now? A lot of people smoke too, that was another thing I noticed. Especially young people; in the US they've done a great job at really preventing young people from starting to smoke, but then again tobacco commercials have been completely banned in the US for a long time which probably helps a lot. Funny how nothing is done about alcohol though? ... lol.
The driving on the left side of the road was really strange at first but I've gotten really, really used to seeing it now and it doesn't really confuse me or anything. Was really weird looking at first.
It's interesting to see how the English language is more older, or traditional I guess in England (I believe in Canada too). But everything that in American English ends in "ize" is "ise" here. eg: realize, recognize, characterize, authorize. (etc.) all end in ise here. Realise, etc. Every time I'm seeing the words I think they are misspelled too, it's so weird. In addition, they do the whole adding u's to everything "or". Honour, labour, etc. In modern US English there's no extra u anywhere. Honor, labor, etc. (lol my Firefox keeps marking them as misspelled :P)
There's also a few interesting differences in labeling or calling things certain ways. In the US exit signs simply say "EXIT". But in the UK they are "Way Out" Also their fire signs are always a picture of a man running, followed by an arrow pointing either sideways, or downward and then an upright rectangle. O_O. So in case of a fire, run into the white rectangle shape! There's no words on the sign either, just open for interpretation? A lot of bathrooms also are "Ladies" and "Gents" instead of the plain "Women" and "Men" in the US.
There's seatbelts on buses! One big thing in the US is that you'll never find seatbelts installed into public buses. I guess they simply have never been needed because buses are usually huge anyway, have trained drivers and if they hit something the momentum will usually only affect the other car so I guess they didn't care to add them in the US. But in the UK it's apparently a violation to not buckle on a bus.
This trip taught me a bit about currency pricing too, I had always figured if something cost $16 USD, it would be priced the equivalent of £10. But of course, that's very wrong. For example, Blizzard charges people in Europe the SAME amount to play WoW (15) but USD and Euros. The price stays the same, even though the conversion is different. This made me seriously realize I shouldn't be pricing Smolderforge's donations in USD, but in Euros. Hell you guys are literally paying like 3.5 euros... I mean... seriously now? I should change the currency to Euros then -- my server bill is in Euros and when it fluctuates I have to pay more anyway!
All the old buildings, cathedrals, monuments, etc. are pretty cool. It really makes the US seem so not special because we've only been around a few couple hundred years. So many things date back hundreds and hundreds of years here. But really apart from the buildings, accents, driving on the left this place is really similar to normal first-world life. Not sure why people always point fingers and make fun of each other about being "stupid" or "fat". From what I'm seeing, they're very, very similar in so many ways it's quite funny. Of course Seb will argues for hours that England is perfect in every way, shape or form. :P. But, yes, I am enjoying my tour I just simply wish I could like teleport home each night instead of having to stay 3 week overnights in new hotels almost every night and such. Just an inconvenience to someone my age. Also it's not fun paying for Internet... But I am really looking forward to getting back home, but at the same time enjoying the rest of my trip as much as I can.
Oh yeah and I can legally drink here. That's been quite strange. I don't even get carded either -- in the US even if you're 50 and look 100 years old you'll still have to show ID to prove you're 21 or over. I've not even been asked the whole time I was here... really lenient!
Well I've written a bit too much about the trip so far, hope that sums it up for you, Xaru. I really wish I had formatted this better -- it's really spontaneous and a lot of reading to do. I'll be sure to let you know what I think near the end of the trip as well. Like I said, it's been quite enjoyable---I'm glad to have gotten to visit other places but for an extended period of time with no real "home" it's really lonesome. But yeah... it's extensive here, and not just the conversion rates. We decided to fit the stereotype after like 6 days here yesterday and when the bus stopped at this area to get lunch, there was a ton of fast food so we were like "ahh what the heck, lets get burgers" and I'll just say. I've always heard people say "American burgers" and I always wondered what made ours so different. There is a difference I can tell you, a big one. Not sure what the heck is different other than ours are probably pumped with fatty stuff (lol) but they didn't taste nearly as good(fat). Also they really stretched the term "fast" food. I digress, but the prices here for example in the US for a full burger, fries and a huge ass drink is like $3-4. Here it's like £8 and then in USD that's $12.8 USD! Crazy priced! I think it's very easy to say things are always bigger in the US and the term "more bang for your buck" REALLY applies to the US. That's for sure. If you want easy, cheaper living -- move to the US! :O! lol.
I can't imagine being a millionaire and converting my money from like pounds to euros. You'd be like a 1/3 more richer! But yeah, I seriously want to charge Smolderforge donations in Euros or Pounds now... you all have been cheating me and getting extremely cheap stuff... -_-. 5 dollars is already low but you guys are paying low-low.
Must force myself to stop there... post is too freaking long.
Wutzke I have not seen you in like 2 years, did you like randomly do you're thing again where you'll sign onto the Internet for 1 day of the year only to disappear for all time again? Probably. I tried MSNing you like 9 months ago multiple times when you were online but never got responses. Weird.Wutzke wrote:henhouse that great English accent you do should come in handy ;)
Also my English accent is good sounding to non-English people :P. While it's just an impersonation, I simply cannot match the real thickness and simple realness of their accents here. Plus if I attempted it would apparently insulting to them (read that). Or I would just come off being a weird person.
