Monday, April 22, 2013
That bloody ice cream man!
It's cold in Scotland, about 11 months out of the year. It'scold, and dark, and rainy or snowy, and yet no matter how cold or dark and miserable it is outside, without fail the bloody ice cream man drives slowly down our street BLASTING "Anchors Aweigh" about 15 minutes AFTER I have put my children in bed for the night. Does anyone buy ice cream from the ice cream man at 9:00 at night in the middle of winter?
Sibling Rivalry
The United Kingdom is made up of Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland...The tiny northern part...Southern Ireland...or Ireland has their independence.
Even though all these countries make up the United Kingdom, similar to how the 50 states make up the United States to say that England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are states is wrong. According to Wikipediea,
"They are individual countries, that have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capital cities. Devolution refers to the statutory granting of powers from the Parliamnet of the United Kingdom to the Scotish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly and to their addociated executive bodies the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive.
Devolution differs from federalism in that the devolved powers of the subnational authority ultimately reside in central government, thus the state remains, de jure unitary. Legislation creating devolved parliaments or assemblies can be repealed or amended by central government in the same way as any statute."
That's a long way of saying it's like 4 siblings sharing a house and all competing to be in charge. We fight and bicker among outselves, but no one else better mess with our family. But Scotland is like Isaac's song Esau, the independent, wild hunter, and England is like Isaac's son Jacob, tricking the older brother out of his birthright and inheritance, and Wales is like their siblings that were never mentioned in the Bible. (Poetic license has been taken here.) Ireland is a bit like the red headed step child, if the step children were twins, where one went off and got his own apartment, and is doing his own thing.
Even though all these countries make up the United Kingdom, similar to how the 50 states make up the United States to say that England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are states is wrong. According to Wikipediea,
"They are individual countries, that have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capital cities. Devolution refers to the statutory granting of powers from the Parliamnet of the United Kingdom to the Scotish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly and to their addociated executive bodies the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive.
Devolution differs from federalism in that the devolved powers of the subnational authority ultimately reside in central government, thus the state remains, de jure unitary. Legislation creating devolved parliaments or assemblies can be repealed or amended by central government in the same way as any statute."
That's a long way of saying it's like 4 siblings sharing a house and all competing to be in charge. We fight and bicker among outselves, but no one else better mess with our family. But Scotland is like Isaac's song Esau, the independent, wild hunter, and England is like Isaac's son Jacob, tricking the older brother out of his birthright and inheritance, and Wales is like their siblings that were never mentioned in the Bible. (Poetic license has been taken here.) Ireland is a bit like the red headed step child, if the step children were twins, where one went off and got his own apartment, and is doing his own thing.
See in the past, Scotland was Independent, with it's own Parliament, and King. England historically has always tried to rule Scotland and Scottish hero's like William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, and Bonnie Prince Charlie tried to fight it. When one English king died, the closest heir just happened to be the reining King of Scotland, so he became king of both countries, and later parliament in Scotland was disbanded.
What a nasty little twist of fate. Since then Scotland has been used for it's natural resources, their political voice has been disregarded, and an independent and wild country has been placed under a rule that continuously tries to break and train them, and they are still fighting for their independence.
Next year there is going to be a vote in Scotland for Scottish Independence from England... ok technically is the UK, but really it's from England.
I'm not British, I don't have a say, but since I moved here the amount of ANTI Scottish propaganda I have seen is amazing.
England... or should I say LONDON, doesn't give a crap about Scotland on so many levels, and I'm not even going to mention the poll tax of so many years ago.
England wanted to get rid of Daylight savings, saying that it would be better for everyone except for Scotland who would then be thrust into darkness from about 3pm to 10am...I realize regardless it's only 5 hours of daylight anyway, but to have darkness from 3pm seems way worse than darkness at 4...kids would be walking home from school in the dark, but it's better for England.
We use pounds Stirling here. Some of the pounds are issues by the bank of England and others from the bank of Scotland...like having a penny minted in Philadelphia of Denver... except when you go to England, often times, a shop wont take your Scottish Pound. That's illegal, but they still do it.. Can you imagine going to a store in the US, giving them some coins and they say, "Oh I'm sorry, we only except coins made in Denver." It's really annoying.
BP stands for British Petrol. One of the largest oil wells is in the North Sea...Scottish territory... lucky for England that we're part of the UK, so London pipes it down to England where they put a 20% tax on it, and ship it back to Scotland and the rest of the world. That's right, Scotland buys back it's own oil, while England makes A FORTUNE and then they give Scotland a tiny little kickback... If we get our Independence, they will lose all the money from the North Sea Oil, and they are TERRIFIED! Which brings me to the amount of ridicule they are subjecting us to in the media, like this picture here
If I was undecided before, I am for independence now!
As an American, the best thing we did was win our independence and the freedom to govern ourselves. I don't know anyone in American who says "I wish we were still part of the Brittish Empire, where they make all the decisions for us from 5000 miles away."
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Scotch Whisky
Now, I didn't drink much alcohol prior to having kids, and whisky was definately not something I would ever CHOOSE to drink, however being in Scotland, I had to try it. My first time...so painful. Burned the whole way going down, and I couldn't force myself to take a second sip.
Fast forward two years.
Paul is having a small dram of 10 year old Jura while reading in bed. He turns out his bedside lamp, and goes to drink the last little bit in has glass... he underestimates the amount in the glass and it spills down his chin and onto the bed sheets.
I smell the whisky all night long, but instead of a strong alcohol smell, it's a lovely scent of Vanilla, and honey, and cinnamon.... golden honey dripping off a vanilla blossom in the morning sun while the cinnamon fairies since and an angel gets it's wings... it was lovely.
The next time he had a dram so did I, and since then, I've been sold. I've never met a whisky I haven't liked.
For my birthday, Paul took me to Jura so I could visit the distillery there.
We have a book called the "Whisky Companion" or just "THE BOOK" as we call it, that has all the single malt scotch whisky's listed there along with all the information on it, history, distillery location, tasting notes, whisky score.
We're drinking our way through the book! I love learning about it, and it's a wonderful little hobby that Paul and I enjoy together!
Fast forward two years.
Paul is having a small dram of 10 year old Jura while reading in bed. He turns out his bedside lamp, and goes to drink the last little bit in has glass... he underestimates the amount in the glass and it spills down his chin and onto the bed sheets.
I smell the whisky all night long, but instead of a strong alcohol smell, it's a lovely scent of Vanilla, and honey, and cinnamon.... golden honey dripping off a vanilla blossom in the morning sun while the cinnamon fairies since and an angel gets it's wings... it was lovely.
The next time he had a dram so did I, and since then, I've been sold. I've never met a whisky I haven't liked.
For my birthday, Paul took me to Jura so I could visit the distillery there.
We're drinking our way through the book! I love learning about it, and it's a wonderful little hobby that Paul and I enjoy together!
What's a Gallon?
In America, we know gallons.
We by gas by the gallon.
We buy milk by the gallon.
We get Gallon cans of paint.
We have 5 gallon buckets.
Ya know what you can by here by the gallon?
I really have no clue. In the last two years I have never purchased anything by the gallon.
We buy out PETROL by the litre.
The largest milk we can get:
That's six pints....I will do the math for you.
2 pints in a quart. 4 quarts in a gallon. 8 pints in a gallon.
So for whatever reason, they don't like to give you those 2 extra pints of milk... which when you have two kids drinking 8 cups of milk a day...you really wish you could by a gallon of milk.
I think, the reason they don't have bigger jugs of milk, is that it wouldn't fit in the normal refrigerators sold here.
Most homes don't have room for a full size fridge, they use the small college size fridges with a little ice box at the top.
Fridge Freezers such as this one:
like what we have are so much better, but still...not a lot of room for a gallon of milk as you can see, however, those skinny little milk jugs fit quite nicely in the door.
It takes a bit of practice to be able to pour from one though... for about a year I spilled milk every time I went to pour milk into a cup or bottle, and I feel like I'm a relatively graceful person having mastered the gross and fine motor skills some years ago...
We by gas by the gallon.
We buy milk by the gallon.
We get Gallon cans of paint.
We have 5 gallon buckets.
Ya know what you can by here by the gallon?
I really have no clue. In the last two years I have never purchased anything by the gallon.
We buy out PETROL by the litre.
The largest milk we can get:
That's six pints....I will do the math for you.
2 pints in a quart. 4 quarts in a gallon. 8 pints in a gallon.
So for whatever reason, they don't like to give you those 2 extra pints of milk... which when you have two kids drinking 8 cups of milk a day...you really wish you could by a gallon of milk.
I think, the reason they don't have bigger jugs of milk, is that it wouldn't fit in the normal refrigerators sold here.
Most homes don't have room for a full size fridge, they use the small college size fridges with a little ice box at the top.
Fridge Freezers such as this one:
like what we have are so much better, but still...not a lot of room for a gallon of milk as you can see, however, those skinny little milk jugs fit quite nicely in the door.
It takes a bit of practice to be able to pour from one though... for about a year I spilled milk every time I went to pour milk into a cup or bottle, and I feel like I'm a relatively graceful person having mastered the gross and fine motor skills some years ago...
Alternate Spellings
I saw alternate, but it's probably more accurate to say CORRECT spellings, as the UK was here first, and they do not accept the American spelling of:
Center (Centre)
Color (Colour)
Honor (Honour)
Flavor (Flavour)
Aluminum (Aluminium)
Theater (Theatre)
Traveler (Traveller)
That's all I can think of, but I'm sure there are more.
It's really not a big deal, but when I write on any social media such as facebook, I have both British and American friends, and I'm always afraid that one or the other of those people group will think I am stupid because I can't spell those words... I tend to go back and forth with the spellings since I can never choose which one to use.
On one hand I want to hold onto my American education, but on the other, I live in Scotland and should embrace the language and culture...if not for me, for my children... who by the way, already say 'Z' as ZED and call pants "trousers" and underwear "pants"
Center (Centre)
Color (Colour)
Honor (Honour)
Flavor (Flavour)
Aluminum (Aluminium)
Theater (Theatre)
Traveler (Traveller)
That's all I can think of, but I'm sure there are more.
It's really not a big deal, but when I write on any social media such as facebook, I have both British and American friends, and I'm always afraid that one or the other of those people group will think I am stupid because I can't spell those words... I tend to go back and forth with the spellings since I can never choose which one to use.
On one hand I want to hold onto my American education, but on the other, I live in Scotland and should embrace the language and culture...if not for me, for my children... who by the way, already say 'Z' as ZED and call pants "trousers" and underwear "pants"
Walkers Potato Chips
Ok, So in the states we have LAYS potato chips thanks to the good people in Texas where their corporation is located.
Here, we have WALKERS!
I guess "Lays" didn't translate well in the British English, which, you can understand why....what I don't quite understand is why our flavours of chips didn't translate... What's wrong with, Original, and sour cream, cheddar, BBQ, even Salt and Vinegar... and occasionally, Ketchup flavoured... but here... oh here, we have:
Oh Yeah... Roast Chicken flavour chips... prawn cocktail, worcester flavour, bacon flavour, roast beef, and other strange, but mostly delicious flavours...also flavor is spelled with a u.".flavour"..but we can cover alternate spellings next time!
Here, we have WALKERS!
I guess "Lays" didn't translate well in the British English, which, you can understand why....what I don't quite understand is why our flavours of chips didn't translate... What's wrong with, Original, and sour cream, cheddar, BBQ, even Salt and Vinegar... and occasionally, Ketchup flavoured... but here... oh here, we have:
Oh Yeah... Roast Chicken flavour chips... prawn cocktail, worcester flavour, bacon flavour, roast beef, and other strange, but mostly delicious flavours...also flavor is spelled with a u.".flavour"..but we can cover alternate spellings next time!
Where's Waldo? Not in the UK
That's right folks! There is no Waldo in the UK. He's WALLY here! Isn't that so random?? I need this to go with me outdated version of "Where's Bin Laden" book. :)
Grocery Carts (Trolleys)
If you need a grocery cart, be sure to have a pound coin on you.Why? Because they're not free. NOTHING is free in the UK.
Lets face it, in the US we have all had the unnecessary car ding from a rogue shopping cart that someone didn't bother to put away. Or found a perfect parking spot only to find out there was a cart right in the middle forcing you to get out of your car and move it in order to park.
It can be argued that this problem has created job opportunities for some lucky individuals who traipse around the parking lot wind, rain, snow, or shine rounding up the carts like cowboys with cattle, however, for the consumer, this raises the cost of your consumables to pay the salary of the cart cowboy, so the UK and Europe, and the middle east, and most countries really, have developed this locking chain system. Want a cart? Put a pound coin in that slot there. It will unlock the trolley and a grocery shopping you will go! When you're done, simply take your trolley back, insert the locking chain and out pops your coin! Too lazy to put it back? Or maybe you're shopping alone with two babies and after you put your groceries and kids in the car you feel it's too dangerous to leave your kids unattended in the car while you run your trolley back...it's only going to cost you a pound and the shopper who does pick up your cart and return it is rewarded with a whole pound! TAX FREE! It really is a brilliant system... until you find yourself with nothing but 20 p and a debit card.
I found myself in this situation...well numerous times really... but the first time, I went to customer service and said "Hi, I need to get a lot of grocery's and need a cart, but I don't have a pound coin. Can I trade my ID or my keys for a pound, and I will get it back to you when I'm done shopping?"
The manager at the counter replied "You want a cart for free?"
I said "Well I will trade you and pay you back when I'm done shopping."
"You can't get a cart for free, and just say you'll pay us back."
"Do you want me to shop here? I have a lot to get, and I can't get it all if I don't have a cart."
Turns out, they thought I was asking for a carton of fags (cigarettes), saying I would pay them back later...
Now I know...I need a trolley.
Lets face it, in the US we have all had the unnecessary car ding from a rogue shopping cart that someone didn't bother to put away. Or found a perfect parking spot only to find out there was a cart right in the middle forcing you to get out of your car and move it in order to park.
It can be argued that this problem has created job opportunities for some lucky individuals who traipse around the parking lot wind, rain, snow, or shine rounding up the carts like cowboys with cattle, however, for the consumer, this raises the cost of your consumables to pay the salary of the cart cowboy, so the UK and Europe, and the middle east, and most countries really, have developed this locking chain system. Want a cart? Put a pound coin in that slot there. It will unlock the trolley and a grocery shopping you will go! When you're done, simply take your trolley back, insert the locking chain and out pops your coin! Too lazy to put it back? Or maybe you're shopping alone with two babies and after you put your groceries and kids in the car you feel it's too dangerous to leave your kids unattended in the car while you run your trolley back...it's only going to cost you a pound and the shopper who does pick up your cart and return it is rewarded with a whole pound! TAX FREE! It really is a brilliant system... until you find yourself with nothing but 20 p and a debit card.
I found myself in this situation...well numerous times really... but the first time, I went to customer service and said "Hi, I need to get a lot of grocery's and need a cart, but I don't have a pound coin. Can I trade my ID or my keys for a pound, and I will get it back to you when I'm done shopping?"
The manager at the counter replied "You want a cart for free?"
I said "Well I will trade you and pay you back when I'm done shopping."
"You can't get a cart for free, and just say you'll pay us back."
"Do you want me to shop here? I have a lot to get, and I can't get it all if I don't have a cart."
Turns out, they thought I was asking for a carton of fags (cigarettes), saying I would pay them back later...
Now I know...I need a trolley.
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