Thursday 20 November 2008

Let me tell you something..

Joooyyy to the woorrld....

There are some things you need to know about Englishmen (or maybe Scots) in general. It might sound like stereotyping, and probablywill, but see for yourself ;)

1. They L O V E Christmas.
Or they most certainly prepare for it early enough. When we arrived the 5th of November, I thought we've somehow moved into the future, is it Christmas eve already? All the shopping windows were full of glitter, presents, "Give someone something special this x-mas" signs. But I didn't thought more about that, maybe it's just the stores that want to attract tourists or something. Not more than 2 days later (7th Nov. that is), we step into Starbucks. What music do we hear? Christmas carols, of course! (Oh, we just forgot it was only more than a month until x-mas!) It was "Iiii'm dreeeeaaaming of a whiiiite christmas" on high and all the employees ran around in santa hats! Plus, if you haven't noticed on my previous photo the Starbuck cups are all christmasy red and stuff.
Can you then imagen me sitting and studying two days in a row in Starbucks, I feakin' knew all the christmas songs in the world after that! :P


That's not even the worst part. Exactly 4 days after, Didrik and I walk around in town and suddenly stands face to face with this building (photo 1). Not only does it make you feel like you've come to Santa's house but they also had this artificial snow coming down from the roof. So when we passed the building flakes of foam fell down on us. I'm not kidding, FOAM SNOW! (How desperate can you get..)
I'm sorry I don't have photos to prove this but, believe me in true. I've counted up to more than 5 stores that even from outside looks like they ONLY sell christmas stuff. It's like Santas workshop exploded all over their shop window. There are ornaments, cards, tea, cookies, gifts, food, towels, curtains and the list will go on forever, how much does these people need? And it wouldn't surprise me if those shops were closed during the rest of the year, they looked authentic!
Okej to make a long story short (short?!), there are christmas everywhere you turn. You can run but you can't hide.

2. They can't drive
Well most of you must know that they drive on the other side of the road here, right-hand traffic. It's like the Englishmen feel they are not special enough if they drive on the right (correct!) side of the road...like what? XD But that's kinda okej when you get used to it, only their whole system is messed up!
Let's say you and your friend are walking on a street and a crossing comes up. There are cars that wants to pass from the right-hand side. Your friend walks about 1 metre before you, passes before the car a couple metres before it passes the crossing. Evidently the driver sees you as you want to cross a half second later but does he let you? If your in Sweden of course but if you're here the driver will floor the gas and you have to quickly jump left and back if you still want to live. And this have happened to me let's say more than once. NOTE: drivers are crazy.

About their redlights. They don't have a system for those! First you'll push the button so that W A I T lights up, then you'll wait. The cars will stop because they have red light too. But why do you still stand still before the crossing? Because it's not green! (and we've learned not to cross just like that!) You wait, the drivers wait.... Sometimes both of you will wait for so long that you'll burst into laughter, like what the hell are we waiting for?!
Then like in a zillions years you'll hear this deafening peeping sound that indicates "Walk fast, idiot" because you only have 3 seconds to pass.

3. They love Hannah Montana more than Miley Cyrus love herself
Not only that I despise her so much and thinks she's pathetic but she has to be all up my face too. You will not believe all the stuff they have of Hannah Montana here. Say one thing, ONE THING (object) that comes into your mind and I can almost swear that there is a Hannah Montana verision of it here.
It doesn't matter if you're in the clothes store, bookstore, grocery store or whatever store, she will be there! You maybe think well there are pretty much Hannah Montana stuff in Sweden too. NO, believe me. Even if you walk into some random-arabic-1 pound-store you'll find her on something. Like this:
This was like the shabbiest, most untidy, "pound stretcher" shop I've ever been into, even they will provide you with products to quench you Hannah thirst.
Or why not wait for christmas with your very own Hannah Montana chocolate calender?!


A piece of Hannah anyone?

You will see mothers carry around Hannah Montana backpacks! (Mostly for their 3 year old girl but anyway) I've seen Hannah Montana TV's, underwear, barbie dolls, christmas cards, balloons, whatever object that can have a theme have Hannah Montana. I'm sure they'll sell Hannah Montana cakes and rice soon. Just you watch!

4. What they'll ever do is queue
Random question, what do englishmen do? Answer queue you'll have 90% of it covered. Whatever they do is to queue. You will not find ONE single (bigger) store that doesn't have a organized area for queueing, there might be fancy bands with a "Queue starts here" sign or shelfs with with their products and a sign that says "Please wait here". Even their busstops and bus shelters are built in a way that forces people to stand in a line. Like come on! XD

This is one day, to a regular play:
Really this is only the beginning of the queue. When we first saw them I swear I thought they were giving away free food or something. This queue was insane!

This was a long post, obviously. I'm all tired just wiritng it. Gonna sleep. KEEP VOTING: http://abc.go.com/primetime/ama/index?pn=tmobilevote :)

11 comments:

Caroline said...

HAHAH, kul!

det snöar här xD

Tiffany said...

Nämen va bra. :)
Jo jenny har sagt det. Här e de bah regn, vind och svinkallt ingen snö!

Jenni said...

I don't know about you but I'd definitely buy some Hannah Montana toilet paper.

And yeah, Hannah Montana sucks.

Tiffany said...

re Jenny: hannah toiletpaper! XD I actually think I've seen that! or maybe...

Elin said...

ROFL!!!

"Walk fast, idiot!"

Like when I, Didrik, Rickard and Kajsa went to Tesco to buy sweets once. They were all queueing in a nice line and we got there standing in a bunch and then whoever of us wanted to pay first walked first. xD

Tiffany said...

re Tiff: OMG the english must have thought you guys were mad XD

Elin said...

most probably... xD Queueing à la Sweden xD

Anonymous said...

Brittlands jul säsong börjar typ i September. HAHA!
Den där byggnaden ser ju mysigt ut nu. När jag var där var polarna inklädda i konservburkar.

Hannah Montana min Halloween kostym måste ju bli komplett där. HAHA!

Det där med kö är typiskt brittiskt.

Jag har röstat!

Tiffany said...

re Kattis: Jo kan faktiskt tänka mig att den gör det. XD Jaha vad e de för en bygnad egentligen?

HAhah juste, det är hur lätt som helst att klä ut sig till henne här. Man kan typ gå in i vilken affär som helst och köpa sig en massa Hannah saker. XD

Tumme upp för dina röster, rösta på mer! Det är inatt det avgörs! Våra favorit kramisar måste vinna! XD

Anonymous said...

Jag vet inte. Jag har fått för mig att det finns konst där inne.

Ja. ska klä ut mig där. hAHA!

Well I voted and they won. hihi.

Tiffany said...

re KP: Jaha. Jag var aldrig där inne så jag vet inte. XD

JOO tack sp mycket igen för alla dina röster :)