Back in June, I took a poxy little part-time job at a big grocery store chain here in the UK as a checkout girl. Now mind you, this something I'd have never done in the US (why? I don't know!) but here I did for several reasons the most important being 1) my husband had been unemployed for 7 months (he is now thankfully gainfully employed!), 2) it was within walking distance of my house and 3) it was part-time which is what I wanted to reintroduce myself to this working thing after having spent the past four years as a full-time stay-at-home mom/foster mom while in the states and 4) for all of these reasons it was just too convenient to pass up. But I digress.
So I started working as a checkout girl back in June. The two big differences between American grocery stores and UK grocery stores is 1) the checkout staff get to sit down for their job (a big plus for the injuries I sustained in a horrific car crash 14 years ago ... I'd never be able to do this job in the US with all that standing up!) and 2) the CUSTOMERS bag their OWN groceries while us checkout people politely sit there and smile at them. How novel! But again I digress. Anyway, because I am working directly with the general public, this is how a typical exchange goes with my customers:
Customer upon hearing me speak, with an added look of confusion: "You're not from around here!" OR "Where are you from?" OR "That's not a local accent!" OR "What a lovely accent you have! Where are you from?"
Me: "Yeah, I'm from the Chicago area..."
Customer, every time without fail: "Why are you here?!?!?!" (there is no good answer that satisfies these people ... I've tried them all!)
But every time a customer starts this conversation with something about my so-called accent, I am confused because I don't think of myself as having the accent ... they do! It throws me off guard every time! Once I even replied, "I'm not the one with the accent, you are!" to which I got the most befuddled expression from the customer. And then I'm reminded, oh yeah, I'm the foreigner, not them! To me I sound like, well, me. The same old Amy with the flat way of speaking. I even once had a customer ask me, "Do you think you'll ever lose your accent and have a British accent?" and I immediately without thinking replied, "God, I hope not!" I don't think he was well pleased with that reply, but ho hum.
Along these lines I had a funny experience on the public bus not so long ago. Nottingham has a huge and renowned university and because of that there are a lot students on the buses, and a lot of foreign students from the likes of Asian and Eastern European countries. I was on the bus with my children going into the city centre for an outing , the bus was standing room only and I heard a lot of Polish and Slavic-esque languages. The first thought that came to my head was, "Bloody hell! This bus is full of foreigners!" I think I may have even muttered those words under my breath so that only my kids could hear me. And then I caught the irony of my inner stream of thoughts ... "Hello! I'm a foreigner as well!" This is a shocking revelation every time it comes to light. I. AM. A. FOREIGNER. This is how the outside world perceives me when they hear me speak. Some are enchanted (I once had a customer at work who giggled like a little school girl every time I opened my mouth to speak ... a bit amusing, but also a bit annoying), some are curious, and some are downright hostile but if I'm honest, the latter is the exception. It's funny because I don't feel like a foreigner. It is only when I interact with the public at large that I am reminded of my status in this country. They are the locals. I am the foreigner. Funny, I don't feel like a foreigner. I just feel like me.
Since entering the UK as an alien resident, I suddenly have a compassion and understanding for my Mexican counterparts (whether legal or illegal) in the US. I feel for them. I too know how they're just trying to be who they've always been and not wanting to conform to their host country's accents and traditions if it means giving up your own. While we may be seen as being stubborn or rude or not respectful, we're just wanting to stay true to ourselves. Of course there are times when I do have to compromise and conform because I don't want to look like a horse's ass talking about how nice those "pants" are in the store window when pants here means underwear so I will give in and refer to them as "trousers." There are other times when it is just good fun conforming to the way they speak here (especially with swearing, my favorite past time ... bollocks, bugger, bloody hell, blimey ...) So with that I will take what I like and reject that which I don't and conform only where need be to avoid looking like a complete idiot. After all, I am just but an immigrant.
Cheers!
Amy x
Wednesday 7 October 2009
That was then, this is now
As I mentioned in my pilot post, I am not new to the UK. I previously lived here from December 25, 1998 to April 8, 2000. A year and a bit really. And as you can tell from those dates, I hightailed it back to the good ole USA as quickly as I could get my British husband his greencard!
I missed everything about American life ... the malls, the round-the-clock shopping convenience, Target, my family and friends, Hostess cupcakes, American tv shows, knowing what my friends and family back home were talking about in regards to current events, American accents ... all of it! I was a very homesick girl.
Fast forward 10 years and here I am back in a place that was a great place to visit (and I loved visiting as often as possible!) but a place where I didn't want to live. Oh the irony that I have returned! But it's different this time. I actually enjoy living here. There! I said it! Everything that I once upon a time despised about the English way of life I now love now that I'm older and more mature. Who wants to make runs to Target at 10pm? At 10pm the only place I want to be is in my bed watching tv. I am no longer bothered by the fact that most stores close by 6pm because I have no desire in my old age to leave my house after dinner.
And speaking of tv, I'm spoiled for choice in American programming! Friends, Scrubs, Two and a Half Men, Everybody Loves Raymond, Sex and the City are run ad nauseum over here just as they are in America! I even have the E! channel on my cable menu! And all of the American primetime tv shows that are broadcast here so that when my friends back home are discussing the latest Dancing With the Stars or American Idol results I know what' going on! Sweet!
Much to my surprise, England has become very Americanized in the past 10 years. Guess what we now have in recent years? Malls! Not just any malls, but Westfield malls made from the same American designs complete with food courts. Let me tell you, I may not have been so quick to return home to the USA if they had these structures last century! We still don't have round-the-clock shopping here, but the big grocery stores have come around to the notion that not everyone can get what they need by 6pm and are now open 24-hours a day with the exception of Sundays when they are only open 10am-4pm due to strict Sunday trading laws. So now I only have to be super diligent about planning ahead for Sundays.
And thanks to the advances in social networking on the internet, I have been able to meet local Americans living in my neck of the woods. Again, if this had existed 10 years ago, I may have never left the UK. Hell! I didn't even have to go on the internet to meet a fellow ex-pat. One night at work an American girl heard I was American as well and asked me if she could give me her business card so that we could meet up sometime. A few weeks later when we got together for a drink at a local pub, we discovered that we lived on the same street. What are the chances? This place is crawling with Americans as I'm discovering with each passing day.
And thanks to the advances in social networking on the internet specifically Facebook, I am able to keep up daily with my friends and family back home. It doesn't make me miss them any less, but it makes the missing them bearable because I feel connected to them at any given time. And Skype! OMG, Skype! This is stuff that we used to fantasize about what would happen in the future. Ladies and gentlemen, the future is here NOW! The world is a smaller place than it used to be which is a blessing to us ex-pats!
But the UK is still lacking in one department. I still desperately miss Target and all it's Target goodness including Hostess cupcakes! But I don't have money to spend there anyway, so really it's not so bad and something to look forward to when I plan trips back home. At least that's what I tell myself to make me feel better.
So a lot has happened in the past 10 years. Not only have I aged and matured (I've got a few gray hairs to prove that!) but it seems that England has as well. And that is what has made my relationship with her workable this time around.
Cheers!
Amy x
I missed everything about American life ... the malls, the round-the-clock shopping convenience, Target, my family and friends, Hostess cupcakes, American tv shows, knowing what my friends and family back home were talking about in regards to current events, American accents ... all of it! I was a very homesick girl.
Fast forward 10 years and here I am back in a place that was a great place to visit (and I loved visiting as often as possible!) but a place where I didn't want to live. Oh the irony that I have returned! But it's different this time. I actually enjoy living here. There! I said it! Everything that I once upon a time despised about the English way of life I now love now that I'm older and more mature. Who wants to make runs to Target at 10pm? At 10pm the only place I want to be is in my bed watching tv. I am no longer bothered by the fact that most stores close by 6pm because I have no desire in my old age to leave my house after dinner.
And speaking of tv, I'm spoiled for choice in American programming! Friends, Scrubs, Two and a Half Men, Everybody Loves Raymond, Sex and the City are run ad nauseum over here just as they are in America! I even have the E! channel on my cable menu! And all of the American primetime tv shows that are broadcast here so that when my friends back home are discussing the latest Dancing With the Stars or American Idol results I know what' going on! Sweet!
Much to my surprise, England has become very Americanized in the past 10 years. Guess what we now have in recent years? Malls! Not just any malls, but Westfield malls made from the same American designs complete with food courts. Let me tell you, I may not have been so quick to return home to the USA if they had these structures last century! We still don't have round-the-clock shopping here, but the big grocery stores have come around to the notion that not everyone can get what they need by 6pm and are now open 24-hours a day with the exception of Sundays when they are only open 10am-4pm due to strict Sunday trading laws. So now I only have to be super diligent about planning ahead for Sundays.
And thanks to the advances in social networking on the internet, I have been able to meet local Americans living in my neck of the woods. Again, if this had existed 10 years ago, I may have never left the UK. Hell! I didn't even have to go on the internet to meet a fellow ex-pat. One night at work an American girl heard I was American as well and asked me if she could give me her business card so that we could meet up sometime. A few weeks later when we got together for a drink at a local pub, we discovered that we lived on the same street. What are the chances? This place is crawling with Americans as I'm discovering with each passing day.
And thanks to the advances in social networking on the internet specifically Facebook, I am able to keep up daily with my friends and family back home. It doesn't make me miss them any less, but it makes the missing them bearable because I feel connected to them at any given time. And Skype! OMG, Skype! This is stuff that we used to fantasize about what would happen in the future. Ladies and gentlemen, the future is here NOW! The world is a smaller place than it used to be which is a blessing to us ex-pats!
But the UK is still lacking in one department. I still desperately miss Target and all it's Target goodness including Hostess cupcakes! But I don't have money to spend there anyway, so really it's not so bad and something to look forward to when I plan trips back home. At least that's what I tell myself to make me feel better.
So a lot has happened in the past 10 years. Not only have I aged and matured (I've got a few gray hairs to prove that!) but it seems that England has as well. And that is what has made my relationship with her workable this time around.
Cheers!
Amy x
Tuesday 6 October 2009
Stranger in a not so strange land
Okay. So this is my first blog. Something I've been meaning to do for a while now.
So I'm an American girl living the life of an immigrant. My journey started almost 11 years ago when I first met my British husband. On Christmas Eve 1998, we headed to the UK together to begin our life together and in March 1999 we were married in Nottingham where we were residing. I was so very homesick for my home America and all things American and found myself back in America a year after our wedding.
Fast-forward nine years and here I find myself, my husband and our two children living back in the UK. I am officially five months and a bit into this new journey and realizing that I am now once again an immigrant. Me? The immigrant???
What does it mean to be an immigrant? For me it means being a woman in her mid-30's reduced to not knowing how to do the simplest of tasks that I performed on a daily basis stateside without even thinking about the hows and whys. Driving, banking, speaking, even cooking ... take everything you know and throw it out the window because it's time to relearn everything when you're an immigrant. Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's aggravating.
Here in my little corner of the internet you can follow my journey and perhaps be amused and entertained as I laugh, cry or even bang my head against the wall on this journey where I'm the one ... with the accent??? (but I don't have an accent!)
Cheers!
Amy x
So I'm an American girl living the life of an immigrant. My journey started almost 11 years ago when I first met my British husband. On Christmas Eve 1998, we headed to the UK together to begin our life together and in March 1999 we were married in Nottingham where we were residing. I was so very homesick for my home America and all things American and found myself back in America a year after our wedding.
Fast-forward nine years and here I find myself, my husband and our two children living back in the UK. I am officially five months and a bit into this new journey and realizing that I am now once again an immigrant. Me? The immigrant???
What does it mean to be an immigrant? For me it means being a woman in her mid-30's reduced to not knowing how to do the simplest of tasks that I performed on a daily basis stateside without even thinking about the hows and whys. Driving, banking, speaking, even cooking ... take everything you know and throw it out the window because it's time to relearn everything when you're an immigrant. Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's aggravating.
Here in my little corner of the internet you can follow my journey and perhaps be amused and entertained as I laugh, cry or even bang my head against the wall on this journey where I'm the one ... with the accent??? (but I don't have an accent!)
Cheers!
Amy x
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