Out and Proud

My name is Mikie. And I'm a Yank.

This has never been as painfully obvious as when I'm tooling about town doing menial things like buying groceries or visiting the post office. Even greeting people on the street ("you tawkin' to me?") seems to be an exercise in foreign behavior, but I don't know if that's too many years living in NYC, or truly a result of living in a new country (of course, if you saw the 'hood that I'm in now, you wouldn't talk to people on the street either. Ha-- so much for big city living prepping me for anything!). As I attempt to adopt British-isms (without sounding like Madonna), I have started to document the following insights:

• Note that you are taking coffee "to take away" as opposed to "to go" (applies for fast food and even liquor-- yes! no open container laws here).
• Doggie bags are gauche here. Don't finish your extraordinarily large portion of food (because the U.S. is not the only obese nation anymore, after all)? You're out of luck. It's going in the trash.
• "Z's" are "S's" and things have random "U's" inserted... behavioUr; honoUr.
• People look at you funny when you say "thank you" or "have a good day." Okay, not necessarily an oddity reserved for the UK, but my parents raised me to be polite, so I'll continue to complain about this wherever I am.
• "How are you?" will solicit equally odd looks. Replace with "Are you alright?" but run it together so that it sounds like "Awyouaiight?" Hmmm... perhaps New Yorkers would fit in better here than originally thought...
• "Hello" or "Hi" is "Hiya."
• Crock pots are Slow Cookers.
• They don't have Ziploc bags... plastic ones with ties instead. Definitely not as convenient.
• It's not "ground" beef it's "minced."
• You make breadcrumbs, not buy them.
  

I'm certain there will be even more observations to come... but I'm a fast learner. But don't worry-- I have some friends on point to beat me down if I start sounding like Madonna.