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10 Cultural London Surprises
Ten Cultural London Surprises (from an American Midwesterner’s point of view) My Love. For a city known for its aloofness, strangers sure can come on strong. Don’t take it seriously when the Tesco bloke (grocery delivery) or cashier at Wilko (a wannabe baby Target) refers to you as My love. Your love? I hardly know you! You alright? Americans only ask, “Are you alright?” when someone is obviously not alright. If one has tripped or is crying or throwing up. When something bad has happened, that’s the time to ask, “You alright?” So you can understand my alarm when, a couple months after moving here, not one, not two, but…
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Learning London
I never expected to mourn the loss of a three-ring-binder, but I have. Thinking I was smart to save on room/weight when we moved overseas, and assuming I could easily buy a three ring binder once in London, I packed my plastic sleeve encased recipes without the binder, only to find that three ring binders don’t exist here in the UK, only two ring binders. A two ring binders seems close to a three ring binder, but it doesn’t work with my recipes. Close, but functionally different. The US and the UK may seem culturally similar, and in some ways we are, but our (mostly) common language can blind us…