Monday, November 26, 2007

English People

I spend a lot of my time here with English people, so here's a post about them.

They'll immediately correct me by saying that they're not all "English". Some of them are from Wales (which apparently is its own country...) or Scotland or England. The phrase "Great Britain" includes all of those places, but not Northern Ireland. You need to say "United Kingdom" to include all of their land.

They measure speed in mph, distance in miles and feet. If they're measuring something exactly, they'll use cm, though. They use the Celsius temperature scale.

Now, to weigh people, they use stone. Really. A stone is about 6.5 kg, but trying to figure out how much someone weighs is ridiculous because I have to do two conversions. Stone? Are you kidding me? Is it the 1300's? Am I going to get the plague from being around you?

Defeating a greyhound dog being hit by a bus in the irony competition, I celebrated Thanksgiving dinner with three English people. I was thankful for the pilgrims leaving England.

A conversation with Alex:
Alex: "So, when you go to Hawaii, do you need a passport?"
Me: "You know Hawaii's a state, right?"
A: "Yeah, but it's not connected."
K:"No, you don't need a passport."
A: "What if you're already in the country as a foreigner, then do you need one?"
K: "No, they already checked you when you came in the first time."
A: "So you could just get in and then go anywhere? Why don't people just fly to Hawaii then go to the mainland without being checked?"
K: "You're checked when you fly into Hawaii, it has the same standards as everywhere else."
A: "Yeah, but it's an island, so it's gotta be easy to get in."
K: *blank stare*

I make a lot of puns, as usual. Sam makes them, too, but Cat thinks they're ridiculous. She did laugh at the seal pun, but that was hilarious. Anyway, we were at the top of this old fortress that used to have a stone lion carving. She was trying to get a picture but there were people in the way. She says, "I guess I'll have to lie in wait..." She was so mad I corrupted her into making puns.

We were playing a game and I said, "Big money, big money, no whammy, no whammy, STOP!" Then I said, "I really shouldn't have pressed my luck with that reference." It was awesome. Nobody got it...

3 comments:

Lisa-sis said...

I love that you're corrupting other people into making puns. Puns make life better. Most definitely.

I interact with a person from the UK quite a bit (Ryan, my law-student friend) and we only have minor trouble when referencing. I tend to explain everything though so that I'm sure he gets it. I also think he humors me and laughs when he thinks I'm trying to be funny.

The Hawaii story was the best. This guy's going to be a doctor? smh

Craig said...

Do British people get "The Office" references?

Lisa-sis said...

They have a different version of the office that they claim is better than our office.