Pardon My English

It's been almost a week since I've moved here to London, and already I've been picking up the neat, the funky, the superfluous, and - believe it or not - the delicious, of London.

First order of business, and in my eyes the most important: food.  There seems to be a peculiar stigma regarding England that I could never seem to wrap my mind around.  When asking once-ago Britons back in the states what their perceptions of the UK were, aside from the gushings of this museum and that statue and a quick gambol on the Eurostar to Paris for une soirée chic, they all added in, "...terrible food though."

As a modestly self-proclaimed food aficionado, I reacted in a way that would resemble a flabbergasted Foghorn Leghorn.

Because, let's think about it...  Certain people may not have a particular palate for Indian food, but those that do think it's delicious, right?  Same could be said for Thai, or Chinese, or any kind of food.  I have never heard of a nation's cuisine as just being plain old bad...and everyone agreeing that it is.  I will be putting this notion to the test more and will report back on how it goes - as of now, I've been to one restaurant and had soup and salad and it was delightful - but it's hard to mess up soup, right?  Unless you're a college student in a dorm near the end of the semester and attempting to make magic out of beef bouillon cubes, olive oil, carrots and capers.  But that's another story.

Regardless, amongst all this hubbub about bland food, I've found two treats that I've become obsessed with...though they're not classified as "food food."  First...FLAPJACKS!  I've always thought of flapjacks as the colloquial American English version of a pancake, but these are oat squares, often with a flavored frosting on top.  (Quick tangent #1: my U.K. spellcheck is being prissy and wanting me to change "flavored" to "flavoured."  This will never get old.  Ever.)

The second are these pig nose gummies - which seems gross, but they are somehow the perfect hybrid between marshmallow and gummy, with jelly on the tops of them.  I don't understand it, but they're darn good, so I will continue to eat them.

Second order of business, American English or British English?  Being in drama school, many of us have a quick ear for accents, and since living in the UK, we all have unintentionally let our inner refined British accents slip.  The other day I wanted to put my over-practiced accent to its first practical use ever. I went grocery shopping for a few items, a seemingly harmless endeavour.  I managed to have a delightful conversation with the cashier, finally able to navigate the rising and falling pitches and new vocabulary I've been picking up for the last week.  All was going swimmingly until she said, "That'll be £3.59."  I opened my change purse - because the largest UK coins are £2 - took out three £1 coins, and then froze.

I forgot that I am an idiot with UK coins.

59 pence seems like an easy enough amount - one fifty pence coin, one 5 pence, and 4 pennies, or 2 two pence coins.  UK coins are scary, however, and, like our coins, do not have a rhyme or reason to their sizes, shapes, or colors - nor do they print a nice-and-easy numerical value on both faces.  Thankfully, I had a £5 bill in hand, handed this over to the cashier, and made my purchase as a well to do English girl.

That was close, though.  Gotta study up on them coins.  For now I'll keep my hard R's and diphthongs.