Sorry fans, with all my school work and the excitement of the trip I have failed miserably in my duties as blog author!! But no more...
It was the trip of a lifetime, and I have tons of stuff to say. I recommend the experience of traveling out of the country to anyone who can do it. It is eye-opening to say the least. Even though English is the main language in England, there are still many differences in the way it is spoken, and cultural differences aside from language that took some getting used to. Some things I preferred over the American way, or at least found endearing, and others made me glad I didn't have to live there (like driving on the impossibly narrow roads!!!)
Signs are funny - in America, it's short and to the point. In England, its informative and polite. Mind the Gap.
Fireplaces - yes, they exist in just about every home, and I even had one in my room at St. Hilda's, but burning a fire in your fireplace has been banned all over England. In Bath, in Oxford, and who knows where else, the fireplaces had been boarded up. Why? Well the smoke had stained all the beautiful old stone buildings, and was considered a pollutant.
Speaking of pollutants, cars are tiny by any standard all over Europe, unlike the gas-guzzling Earth destroyers that clog our freeways. People actually ride mopeds like it's cool, and mini-vans or SUVs are a tiny minority.
So there's a smattering of memories from my trip. I promise to continue posting until I run out of things to say about Europe, and for those of you familiar with my love of words, you know that time may never come :0)
1 comment:
The fireplace thing is pretty sad. All my romantic notions of kettles singing on the grate, people hoisting a pint while standing by the blazing hearth, etc. dashed. Darn ecologist fanatics, anyway.
The little cars are kind of cool, but what do people with more than two kids do?
Thanks very much for the blog update Angie. Another great posting.
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