Random British Musings

Now that's it been a couple of weeks here, I feel as though I've finally gotten the lay of the land. I'm no longer blown away by people's accents and have most of the slang handled. I say the food is for 'Take Away' (equivalent of take out, yet they don't understand what take out means) with confidence. Here are some other things I've noticed.

• Banking is unbelievably secure here. It's taken a solid two weeks just to get all four of the required letters (1 for debit card, 1 for credit card, 1 for debit pin, 1 for credit pin). As well, there are no service charges here for taking money out of a competitors machine. I can withdraw a 20 from a Barclays and not get charged a stupid service fee, despite being a member of a different unaffiliated bank.
• Despite British people being overly polite, I find some things a bit different. For example, no one really says "you're welcome" or "no problem" when you say thank you. As well, "thank you" has pretty much been dropped for "cheers". Almost everyone on my work team uses "cheers" in their professional emails.
• English girls are ugly. I feel like I shouldn't say British girls, but after I go to Scotland this weekend, I'll have a better idea. However, I can say for certain that the English shouldn't have given up looks for colonization. There are a number of good looking girls in the London area, but don't fit the typical English girl look.
• Cuff Links are so badass. A majority of my male coworkers wear cuff links and make my stupid non-cuff linked shirts look lame. I shall remedy this with time.

Enough rambling. So this coming weekend is Edinburgh, Scotland. A post about it will be posted after the weekend. I'm looking forward to Sunday, when I will be travelling 30 minutes on a bus to a small town called Falkirk. There, I will be in the stands to watch Falkirk FC play against Scottish Premier League giants Celtic FC. I am unbelievably excited, as it will be my first European football match.

As well, today I booked my ticket to see Chelsea FC play Reading FC at Stamford Bridge on the 30th of January. My money is quickly getting taken by my love of football and I couldn't think of a better recipient.