London details

Here I am with the boys. I stayed in their house. From left to right it's Jake, me, Pete and Sam.

Here I am with Jake. We are in Leicester Square on my last day of my visit, the same place where a little over 5 years ago (June 2004) we met for the first time. It was a fitting end because when we met it was also my last day in London before heading back to Tucson.

This is where I slept while in Jake's house (the living room).

Here I am in front of Buckingham Palace.

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So, as I've said before, the differences between the English language in England and the US are interesting. There are some things I brought up in my list from a couple of days ago that are a continuation on this theme.

-"slag tag" is the equivalent of the US's "tramp stamp" (the tattoo in the middle of the lower back that women sometimes get). "Slag" is the term for whore, slut, tramp, etc. "Tramp" for the English is the equivalent of "hobo" for us
-"top up" means to fill up. So adding value to my Oyster public transit card is referred to as "top up"
-you don't get "in line" when, for example, you buy something. You get in a "queue"

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Last week on Friday night I went clubbing with the boys and a group of their friends. One of their friends was celebrating her birthday. Though I only had enough money just to get into a club, being American I managed to get a few drinks paid for. At one point I had a very good looking Australian hitting on me. The problem was I got creepy vibes from him, which meant that I kept him somewhat in check. He picked up on this and actually declared to me "I'm gay." Let's just say he was a bit too touchy feely for me to actually believe that.

When leaving the club the bouncer almost immediately told our group to move. One of the things I have noticed about Brits is that sometimes they can be mouthy. A couple of people from our group started mouthing off the bouncer, and quite frankly I saw no reason to get so touchy about it. Then again, most of our group was drunk.

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Some aspects of the culture really caught my attention, as well. They don't really "doggy bag" food from restaurants. I asked the boys about this and they told me that while it's not an unusual thing for people to request, it is not common. Some waiters might look at one weird if this request was made, but others might not, they said.

The concept of patriotist is also different compared to Americans. The boys told me that to be patriotic in England is frowned upon. Wearing anything pro-England (regional sports on game days excluded) wasn't really something many English do, especially not to the extent of Americans and American patriotism.

There is also quite a bit of cursing done by laypeople in England. I fit in pretty well.

I will continue the rest of my list later.

-AALA