Week 6 Impressions by Megan Percell

Now that I am all settled in and am capable of effectively giving someone directions (most of the time) I think that I can really give a good perspective of London. I wrote to my parents the other day with the email subject “im a Londoner... can you believe it??” What’s funny is, I can barely believe it! Partly because I have been waiting for this moment for many years and preparing for months... so to think that this time is actually here is pretty surreal.

After two and a half months I can confidently say that I have acclimated pretty well. When I first started informing friends and family that I would be going abroad they were very happy for me, but also explained that they didn't think it was going to be TOO much different... “New York on steroids, thats all” they said. While I do agree to a certain extent, there have definitely been some instances where I felt like Dorothy, and said underneath my breath , “Toto, I don't think were in Kansas anymore.” I've gone through the typical linguistic misconnects, pronouncing or phrasing a word one way instead of the common “British way.” It’s actually a very interesting experience. First you get this really awkward silence, a face expression that my dog gets when I start making funny faces at her, and response as if I’ve just uttered Chinese mixed with Zulu.

I have also been sent in the completely wrong direction due to my lack of specificity. For example, in a desperate search to get my computer fixed I spent 45 minutes asking several people if they could point me in the direction of the mac store, all of which pointed in the same direction. After an exhausting hunt I look up and see Mac, the makeup store. Yes, I do understand that mac is my computer and not the name of the store, but I mean come on!! I at least thought my point would come across... but apparently not. Since then, I have been obnoxiously correcting people when they ask for Vaseline instead of “petroleum jelly” or a Q-Tip instead of a cotton bud.

Although it is over a small matter I had an incident that was culturally eye opening. To familiarize yourself with me a bit, I happen to have certain type of relationship with cheese. Some call it obsession... I’d like to think of it as more of a... strong like. And because of this “strong like” I happen to ask for extra cheese on everything that I order, and sometimes even add it if it is nowhere in sight within the food description.

Within the first week, my classmates and I went over Imperial College, where many of the students hang out and grab something to eat or drink. I went up and ordered, politely of course, nachos with extra cheese. I got the weird silence and the confused Chinese/Zulu response. “You want what?” they said. Extra cheese I said a little louder, just in case the problem was that they couldn't hear me over the music. When I went back to grab my plate there definitely wasn’t extra cheese on my nachos. I took it back to my table to ask my friends just to make sure I wasn’t being dramatic. Once they verified that there in fact wasn’t extra cheese, I went back to the counter and politely, explained the situation. The worker then snatched the plate and said okay. When he came back he dumped, what looked like 7 pounds, of cheese on top and slid the plate my way.

I’m usually not the one to complain about cheese, but since I felt like this act was a little malicious I decided to bring it up during discussion in class the next day. When I told my teacher about the incident, he laughed and joked about it for a while, then said that what I did is a very “American characteristic”. In the states you can pretty much completely revamp the menu and it’s not even questioned, but in the UK, you get what you get. It doesn’t really matter if you’re paying for it, it’s not really your place to change what is being offered. Not to say that all restaurants and servers feel this way, but it is very common in the UK to have this mindset.

Although I may be in “’New York on steroids”, culturally there are many small things I have learned and many things, big and small, that I will continue to learn.