OPINION: Calendars and candy floss

As a child, I always dreamed of moving to England. I remember being in maybe fifth grade and planning what my life would be like if I went to college in London and just stayed there forever.

As I grew older, that dream never really died. I consistently consumed British media - YouTube, books, “Doctor Who.” I loved taking a trip to World Market and finding some British goodies - Malteasers and Cadbury Fingers were favorites for some of my top YouTubers, but I also loved Tunnock’s Teacakes, a Scottish treat that has a shortbread biscuit as a base, a marshmallow-like top and is coated in milk chocolate.

My obsession continued and I planned a semester in Liverpool, England, in college. I think my parents were semi-hoping this would bring me back down to Earth a bit. I’d see it’s not all it’s hyped up to be and that would be that. Oops, sorry mom and dad, that didn’t quite work out.

I never thought England was perfect, even before going. I knew it would have its rough sides, things I didn’t enjoy as much or missed about the States. I think, because I went into my semester knowing this, everything turned out exactly as I wanted it.

The one thing I didn’t expect was to enjoy my time in Edinburgh that much more than in Liverpool. Maybe it was because I wasn’t in school at that time, but Scotland in general snuck up on me and became my new favorite. Luckily, it’s still on the island of Great Britain, so I can keep my title as a lover of all things British.

I’m not going to go into all my favorite things about Britain or about my time abroad. Instead, I’d like to chat a bit about some of the random differences I’ve noticed between American and British culture.

One thing I completely forgot about until this new year was calendars. One of the British YouTube channels I follow will usually release a calendar every year. This year, the theme was fantasy, so I had to go for it. It’s up on the wall at my desk, but I kept getting confused when I looked at it.

Well, British calendars begin with Monday, not Sunday. I’m so used to the second row being Monday that I’ve almost put the wrong date for various events in both my digital calendar and in stories.

Another major difference is transportation. I’ve written plenty of times of my love for public transport, brought about from my time abroad.

In any even semi-substantially sized town, I could take the train to all the neighboring cities. A train would usually come by every 15 minutes, so waiting for the next train was never a major issue. Plus, when you got to your destination, there was no need to worry about where to park your car or how much parking would cost; you just got off the train and left.

In the bigger cities, the various undergrounds were fantastic, taking you to every corner of the city. Plus, using public transportation is a universal experience there. You’ll see people of every class, even sometimes a famous person or two standing next to you in the tube.

And then there’s the simple idea of walking everywhere else. When I would plan trips, or even just go out for drinks or a show, if the walk was 25 minutes or less, that’s what I’d be doing. It’s the same for almost everyone there. Here, my lovely coworkers basically force me to accept a ride home from them if I try to walk, despite it being only a few blocks.

One of my favorite differences when comparing the U.S. and U.K., though, is the change in words. Some are simple, with the U.S. removing the letter “U” from various words, ie colour vs color, flavour vs flavor. A lot of times, when we use the letter “Z” in the U.S., the U.K. will use the letter “S,” aka realise or organise. The word gray is another one that’s just spelling (in England it’s grey).

However, the best ones are when the Brits use a completely different word than us to mean the same thing. Candy floss is cotton candy. Dungarees are overalls. A courgette is a zucchini, while an aubergine is an eggplant. Crisps are chips while chips are fries. Sometimes, you have to be careful. While “pants” in the U.S. are simply trousers or jeans, “pants” in the U.K. means underwear. To “punt” in the U.S. is to kick, while to “punt” in the U.K. is to row a specific type of boat. There are plenty of other words that get even trickier than that, but I’ll let you do your own research.

My love of the U.K. and the slight cultural differences will always be a part of me. Though I’ll likely never have the experience of living there again, I hope many visits are in the future for me.