LOST IN TRANSLATION

Whilst on a weekend away in Newcastle, I encountered my first experience with a monster. An albeit nice, normal looking monster, but one with a deadly weapon.

A completely unintelligible accent.

Monday afternoon saw myself and two friends (one Australian and one English) in the back of a taxi on the way to the train station attempting to converse with a Scottish man who had the world’s strongest accent. The whole situation rendered me completely stupefied. I was consciously concentrating very hard to understand what he was going on about but it all just came out in this huge, drawn out, mumbled syllable. The only thing I managed to grasp was something about a sister who lives in Australia and someone who glasses someone in a pub….hopefully the two weren’t connected.

Luckily for me, my English friend had obviously taken some lessons in Scottish and was able to hold up the passengers side of the conversation and my Australian friend and I were saved from the humiliation of having said ‘oh yes of course’ to a question which was not of the yes or no variety...

It was only afterwards that it got me thinking about the whole accents phenomenon. How is it that people come to say the same words (well in the Scottish case I swear they weren’t the same) but in a different way?

It is the general consensus that everyone likes the sound of other people’s accents over their own. I find it highly amusing that some of the English I have met love the Australian accent, and for the life of me I cannot figure out why. It’s so terribly nasally and we make up and shorten words like there is no tomorrow.

However, accents are useful tools for two main reasons.

1.       They make you recognisable as coming from a certain country or area and can thus perhaps give you something in common with another person from that country or area.

Or, and most importantly,

2.       It provides endless entertainment for the people who don’t have your accent and are constantly laughing at the way you say things.

I can admit that I have been lucky enough to experience both sides of the argument. Although, perhaps the latter more than the former. Of course.

So despite his interesting speech and pronunciation, I wish to say hello to the nice Scottish man who drove us to the train station. We are all unique individuals and it would be rude of me not to appreciate the speech from your beautiful homeland.

And besides, you can’t help it if no one has a single clue what you are saying.

Do the English learn a lot about the Australian accent from Neighbours?

DEFINITELY (and it’s really not the best teacher guys!)

Was the Scottish man talking about glassing his sister in a pub in Australia?

MAYBE (but I hope not)

Will the English ever truly believe me when I tell them that no one really says ‘throw another shrimp on the barbie’?

PROBABLY NOT! (so please stop asking!)

NO PUN(T) INTENDED

Cambridge. Home of Cambridge University, which was this year voted number one in the world beating out Oxford and Harvard. As with a lot of the places I had been to, Cambridge bought with it many expectations of quaint little rivers, beautiful old college buildings and little men steering punts with long sticks and those ugly boat shoes.

Well fortunately (although unfortunately for the boat shoes) I was lucky enough to experience it all.

The morning of the Cambridge trip arrived and I felt – not amazing at all. In the space of half and hr I had convinced myself that I should stay and get better because it was a long way to Cambridge and then changed my mind again because I so desperately did not want to miss out. Luckily, my somewhat jealous streaked reared its ugly head, and it was the thought that everyone else was going to have a great day and have so many good photos that got me on that bus!

It was a long (3 hr) bus ride to Cambridge (well long for English standards anyway…I virtually spanned the nation!) However, once we arrived at the beautiful little town, all thoughts of being cramped and cold on the bus were forgotten.

We began at Kings College, the most visited and well known in all of Cambridge. The buildings were amazing and the Kings College Abbey towered over them all. Being the nosy children that we are, we took a sneak peek into a couple of the rooms on the ground floor – it was so crazy to think that students actually stay in this place! We also saw some people having lunch in the dining hall… a dining hall that looked like something from Harry Potter….can you say jealous!

Just a note here: I also found out that tuition fees at Cambridge (and I’m assuming Oxford as well) are not anymore expensive then what you would pay elsewhere in England. Yes, you have to be the best of the best to get in but I was very surprised to learn the fees are very equal. Made Louise and I wonder why Adelaide doesn’t do an exchange with Cambridge?!?! And why we didn’t do it?!?

The rest of the morning we spent wandering around looking at the buildings, ducking into cute little shops and perusing the Saturday markets. All I wanted to do in Cambridge was go punting on the river and our prayers were answered by the most handsome punter alive: a.k.a Tom.

Tom took us on a tour down the river, past all of the colleges and the historical buildings and monuments. Everything was so nice and the sun came out just for us. The boat was a little unstable with 6 of us in it but Tom assures us it is actually quite difficult to capsize. And if he said it, it must be right. Louise and I got some really good photos (of the view and Tom of course) and we bid our punter adieu as he collected a new group. Sigh.

Afterwards we climbed the main tower in the square to see the view from the top. Little did we know it was what felt like hundreds of steps to the top in a staircase that you would not have fit in if you had eaten too many donuts that day. And don’t even get me started on the way down, it was so steep! But the view was amazing, as we were there just as the sun was beginning to go down and the girls got some great shots (remember people that the sun starts going down at about 3 here!)

Ate high tea and scones at a nice little café (with terrible service but that’s ANOTHER story) with all the girls and sat back basking in the Cambridge air. Got on the wrong bus to go home and were promptly redirected to our bus where EVERYONE was waiting for us (ooopppssss) and headed back to Leeds.

If you were going to go to any University would it be Cambridge?

DEFINITELY

Was the fudge from the Saturday markets one of the best I’ve had?

MAYBE

Will Cambridge still be Louise’s ‘favourite place ever’ once we go somewhere new? (keeping in mind her ‘favourite place ever’ was the Lake District. And then Bath. And then Cambridge….)

PROBABLY NOT!

X

SMALL THINGS THAT AMUSE BIG MINDS WHEN THEY’RE NOT THINKING ABOUT BIG THINGS

Cultural adjustment is a tedious thing. Yes, England and Australia are both Westernized societies and are firmly set in their Western ways. However, there are many small, some would deem insignificant, things about life her in the Motherland which are irksome, tiresome and just generally piss me off.

A list of such things is as follows:

Computer keyboards.

I must admit, I did not originally think this would be a problem I would need to contend with on a daily basis. But after discovering now that I do indeed have a severe problem with them it has been constantly bugging me. Firstly, a few of the keys are in the wrong spot. The @ sign is underneath the apostrophe (now that’s just plain weird). And I spent a good five minutes looking like a complete retard searching the keyboard for the comma. I’m guessing though that the English lack of grammar could be attributed to other people’s inability to also find the comma key…

Secondly, NO ONE uses the number pad at the end of the keyboard. I think this very odd. I hate the numbers on a laptop because they are in one line and my fingers aren’t long enough. However, on a computer keyboard it is all located nicely for you in one little square. But every time I go to use it, some dickhead has turned the ‘Num lock’ off and I end up printing no numbers and making a right mess of whatever I’m trying to work on. I swear I used the same computer in one day and someone had TURNED IT OFF… I don’t understand why that is even necessary! I mean I know that a little light comes on when you do it, but surely they are not THAT much conscious of their electricity consumption. LEAVE NUMBERS LOCK ON PEOPLE!

Sugar.

Here in England the coffee shops are run much like Australian coffee shops. Except on the whole, with exceptions of course, the coffee in England is largely terrible. So in my attempt to make it palatable I look to the little condiments booth in most coffee shops for my sugar. And there we have white sugar, brown sugar and sweetener: all of which are unacceptable. A large proportion of Australian coffee selling establishments provide RAW sugar for people’s hot beverages. I am a big raw sugar fan. A) because it takes better and B) because its like brown sugar, but far superior, and you don’t feel so bad putting it in your drink because its not obese producing white sugar. Well England have apparently not been hit on the head by the Raw Sugar fairy and have Brown Sugar instead. Brown Sugar should be put on top of an apple crumble and NOT in my skim latte.

Not happy.

Slow Walking People.

Anyone who calls themselves my friend knows that the one thing I hate more than anything in the entire world is people who walk slowly in front of you. If I’m walking somewhere, most of the time it will be because I need to get somewhere and there is nothing I hate more than people that prevent you from doing so. Yes, they might have carefree lives where they have all the time in the world to meander down the road but I do not and would kindly prefer for them to get out of the bloody way.

I do not intend to be racist when I say this, because there are a lot of other people who commit this crime regularly. But I will have to deem the English as one of the worst offenders I have ever seen.  Most of the time I believe it to be students who are either trying to put off their inevitable arrival to a lecture, or are still trying to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other after a big night out.  You would think that a country like England, which has weather as a bad as it does, the general population would not hesitate in their trips between warmly heated buildings. Get a move on people! This Australian is not happy!

So there it is, another rant to fill in the abyss that is another rainy afternoon. Of course there are also many good things about England, some that I even prefer to our Australian way of doing things.

But those are so nice. And boring.

Nobody wants to read about that right?

Will the English Winter be the death of me?

DEFINITELY (no seriously it could be, it is so cold!)

Should the English adopt some of the Australian ways?

MAYBE

Will I miss having to pay 10p per page for printing at the University when we get over $30 FREE PRINTING CREDIT in Adelaide?

PROBABLY NOT!

X

ITS ALL ABOUT THE DOLLARS AND SENSE

I hate English money. There I said it. You are now free to come and attacked me with your torches and pitchforks and yell blasphemous insults in my direction but, to follow in the steps of the suave Rhett Butler, ‘frankly my dear I don’t give a damn’.

So herein follows the justification I have for hating the currency of this grand country.

Number #1: The Penny. There are not enough words in the English language (or any other language for that matter) which can successfully explain how useless these tiny bits of copper are. And if that wasn’t bad enough there are two of them! The argument is that they are necessary because in England, items are not rounded up to the nearest 5c (or p depending on where you’re from) so when a sausage roll costs 1 pound and 82 pence they mean exactly 1 pound and 82 pence. In my opinion 1 and 2 p coins only serve 2 purposes, neither of which are particularly comforting. One, they serve to largely bulk up your wallet making it appear as though you have more money than you actually do. And two, it is handy to give to charities who don’t make a whole lot of money because all they are getting from other people are their 1p coins as well.

Boo for the penny.

Number #2: English ATM’s. The automated teller machine is one of man’s best inventions. It is the epitome of convenience and ease of use. Well apparently that memo was not passed on to the English who have attempted to make the world’s most complicated ATM’s. First of all, they do not give out 50 pound notes. As you can only get them from the bank, it is very rare to see a student in possession of one.

(Side note: this would explain the story of when I first got here and I was at a club waiting at the bar to be served, clearly displaying my 50 pound note. The guy next to me saw this and wittily commented ‘you must either be a foreigner or a member of the mafia’. Right. Duly noted)

So because of this, when you go to an ATM and try to withdraw 100 pounds, its anyone’s guess as to what assortment of notes you will get. It is unnecessarily complicated and very frustrating!

And don’t get me started on how many more buttons you have to push too…I just want money, not to send Morse Code to Mars!

Number #3: Say it together English people, ‘WATERPROOF’. English money is made from paper. Paper that has not been laminated. This is an alien notion to us Australians, and I can assure you that yes, it is just as impractical as it sounds. Whilst I was in Manchester, after just arriving in England, I watched in amusement as a lady tried repeatedly to feed a wet 10 pound note into the machine dispensing the tram tickets. Because it was soggy the machine did not accept it and she left in search of another ticket-buying avenue, just as the tram arrived.

So that’s my rant about the complex and unnecessary problems the English have imposed upon their monetary system. Perhaps they should just take a leaf out of the Australian’s book where everything seems a lot less complicated. I mean its paper and circles of metal; it’s not rocket science people!

Is Australian money far superior to the English?

DEFINITELY

Are the two pound coins the only good thing about English money?

MAYBE (they are prettier to look at than the Australian ones…)

Will I ever miss digging around in my penny-laden purse looking for that 7p?

PROBABLY NOT!

THROWING THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATH WATER

Bath is known in England for being a place of refinement, royalty and class. It is where many a Jane Austen heroine came to frequent ‘The Pump Room’ and lunch with those in the high society. It was also where the sick and stressed came to ‘take in’ the waters of Bath, and leave rejuvenated and revived. So when two bus loads of rowdy foreign tourists exploded into town, the ambience perhaps was taken a little by surprise.

However, they have little need for complaint, Bath is a tourist town and it is not hard to see why. From the minute you drive in the architecture and general ‘vibe’ of the place is breathtaking. The majority of the buildings and houses are crafted from Bath Stone, the quality of which is still heavily maintained today. After leaving our bags in the hostel we grabbed our camera’s and set off in search of our very own Jane Austen moment.

Of course with Louise as my travelling companion, what is the one thing on our mind 99% of the time whilst travelling?

a)      How hungry we are

b)      What we have eaten

c)       What we plan to be eating later

d)      Scoping out new potential places to eat.

Lord knows how we are not broke and the size of houses by now.

So after making the compulsory eating pit stop at a quaint little café hidden in a tiny courtyard, we made our way to the Roman Baths. Easily the biggest attraction in Bath, the Roman Baths contains the baths themselves (duh), an extensive and interesting museum, and The Pump Room where the lesser folk can eat amazingly overpriced high tea and imagine themselves in a terribly riveting conversation with Mr Darcy. Took many a photo overlooking the beautiful waters, and although we were given the option for a taste, politely declined. (We were advised that the almost green, murky water, tastes about as good as it looks…)

That afternoon we perused Bath Abbey and took a stroll down the centre of town. Credit goes to the designers of the shopping ‘district’ who took great care to uphold the architecture of Bath, even in some of the very new buildings.

Saturday night we had dinner with the rest of the tour group at Salamander’s, a ritzy English pub with a reasonably ritzy price list. You only live once though right and when you’re paying 9 pounds for a meal, I still can’t help but read that as 9 dollars which is an unbelievable bargain! (please no comments about the exchange rate and how that is actually about $17 Aus dollars….ignorance is bliss!) Also, Louise and I sampled some of the local Bath cider which was commendably good.

After dinner, we donned our Halloween costumes and headed out. I was having a major stress out because I had misplaced my camera (although luckily someone had it), but once it was recovered I was intent on partying down Halloween style. That was until we got the club the tour had recommended and were greeted by a virtually empty room, except for the token creepy old guys that stand in the corner and do a very unfunny Joey Tribbianni ‘how you doing’ impersonation…

So with that, we moved on to a pub a few blocks down that was pumping. Despite the fact that it was playing SAW on all 4 television screens (it took all my strength not to scream and cover my eyes), the music was good so I was forced to overlook their interesting choice of Halloween entertainment and bear it.

 The next day saw us up bright and early for destination: Stonehenge! Now Louise and I had both heard very mixed opinions about this wonderfully weird stone circle. Some had said it was exactly what it sounded like ‘a circle of rocks’ and one of the not so lovely Eastern European guys on our trip commented ‘we have much better rocks than that in the Czech Republic’.

Uh huh.

So we armed ourselves in the only way possible – talk it down a lot and then if it’s bad you aren’t disappointed and if it’s good, you will be pleasantly surprised. And that is how we came to be standing in front of Stonehenge and commenting in awe ‘actually it is pretty cool’. It still amazes me how they even got there (not that anyone really knows). They say the stones originate from Wales. So how the hell did they get all the way to Southern England? Somehow I don’t think Bob the Builder and his team were around to lend a helping hand…

After saying goodbye to the mystifying mystery that is Stonehenge, we travelled on to Avebury; Stonehenge’s awkwardly less popular cousin. There are more rocks at Avebury and they encircle the whole village which is actually creepily cool. Whilst we were there, we witnessed a very strange procession of people walking through the rocks – they looked like they had misplaced the address of the Harry Potter convention and were chanting and banging on drums….

The strangeness of the English? Exhibit A….

On the way home we visited a quaint little farm shop, where the bus stocked up on home made goodies. I think the ladies working in the shop nearly had a heart attack, there had never been so many people in the shop!

From there we started the 2 hour journey back to Leeds (LOVE that England is so small!) tired but satisfied we had indulged the young Jane Austen, and weird rock worshipper, that lives within us all.

Was I just a little excited to be visiting the very places that have leapt from the pages of Jane Austen?

DEFINITELY

Were aliens from outer space trying to use Stonehenge to contact earthlings?

MAYBE

Could I ever be convinced to try the ‘amazing’ Bath water which looks like it had been scooped out of a muddy puddle?

PROBABLY NOT!

X

SPRECHEN ZIE ENGLISCH?

I didn’t see any hills in Austria.

Ask anyone and they will tell you, the two things that come to mind when you think of Austria is

a) The Sound of Music

b) That lady from Mary Poppins who was in the Sound of Music.

Ashamedly I did not see any hills at all, let alone those which are alive with the sound of music…And, even more depressingly, I did not see Julie Andrews….

So what did experience did Austria have to share with me you ask? Why only the best of course!

I arrived in Austria very late on a Thursday night after being in three airports, two planes and a train (its funny how I now complain about that when coming from Australia you have to travel 3 DAYS to get anywhere…) Found myself a taxi and after forgetting they drove on the other side of the road and trying to get in the drivers door (which resulted in very queer looks from said driver) we headed for my hostel. This hostel in question did not come with a name, although one would have thought that an essential part of their original marketing plan…. All I had was a very long and very German sounding address and a whole lot of hope that the guy knew where he was going. Thankfully we reached the hostel in one piece and although he completely ripped me off, after the aforementioned three airports, two planes and a train I simply did not give a toss anymore.

When I entered my room I found it to be occupied by one other girl. We started chatting and she was lovely. Unfortunately for me, her accent was that terrible combination of American and Canadian which a foreigner can never quite figure out.  As a result I employed the only tactic I knew in order to find out her nationality; ask her where in Canada she is from. It’s foolproof really, if she was Canadian she would be happy to tell me and if she was American she would have scoffed at me but have been quick to correct me and deem herself as far superior to the Canadians…it’s a win – win for everyone involved!

The city of Vienna was beautiful. The buildings were so huge and ornate, and with a palace on every corner it was hard to know which way to look. Went to the Spanish Riding School and watched the white Lippizaner’s in action in their amazing tiered arena, under the biggest chandelier I’ve seen in my life. Met up with Pete in the afternoon and spent Friday wandering around the city, stopping for the compulsory three coffee and cake stops along the way. After dinner we stopped for an affogato on the balcony of this lovely Viennese café – another one of those ‘pinch myself cause I still can’t believe I’m here’ moments. Too bad I wasn’t there with George Clooney, but you know, you make do with what you can (sorry Pete!)

Saturday saw us visit the amazing Naschmarkt: a large, open marketplace filled with every kind of produce you can imagine and even some that you can’t. After yet another coffee stop (I think we were on a permanent coffee high the whole time) we took the tube to Prater, Vienna’s amusement park and home of the world famous Riesenrad Ferris Wheel.  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t bouncing around like a little kid at Christmas in anticipation of this moment. Why you ask? Well it turns out (accordingly to Pete’s Lonely Planet which never lies) that the Riesenrad is the setting of the world famous scene from Carol Reed’s The Third Man where Orson Welle’s character Harry Lime tells Holly Martins:

‘In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.’

 And although, once you actually get on the Ferris Wheel the moment is somewhat ruined by the other ten strangers in the carriage and the distraction of the amazing view, the awe of the moment was not lost on me.

Carrying on with the child theme (must have been something in the water that day) I wanted to go on a proper ride. After weighing up our many options, I managed to twist Pete’s arm to come on the ‘Prater Turn’ with me. Not for the height-o-phobes amongst us, the Prater Turn is like the traditional circular ride where the swings hang down and you spin around. However, like most things in Europe that we have in Australia, it was SO much better as it rose higher into the air as you went around. The only downside was the Austrian air which was ah ‘crisp’ to the say the least. I remember Pete wondering why I was crying – it wasn’t voluntary people, my eyes were watering it was so cold!

After strategically planning the ride for BEFORE lunch (which in hindsight is the best decision we made all day considering how much food we ate), we headed to the Schweizzerhaus for their Austrian famous pork. Ordered beers in steins as big as my head and sat in the sun eating some of THE best food I’ve had in my travels so far (and that is a big call after the Amsterdam Waffle Eating Mania of September 2010).

Sunday morning we headed off to Schobruhn, the AMAZING royal palace. Walking into the grounds was like walking into a Jane Austen novel; I was expecting to see Mr Darcy descending from the stairs at any minute. Deciding against having a tour of the palace’s 1440 rooms (see one gold plated room and you’ve seen them all) we took a stroll round the grounds. This did, however, turn into a half marathon after we realised how big the grounds actually were. Saw our first Austrian squirrel (!) and hiked up the hill to the beautiful ‘arch thing’ (not its official royal name of course) to get a panoramic view of Vienna. 

That afternoon we left the hustle and bustle of the city behind for the quaintness of the Austrian countryside. I stayed with Pete in Andau, and over the next day and a half was treated to two things I was looking forward to the most in Austria:

a)      Schnitzel

b)      Wine

(It should not be any surprise to my readers by now that both were part of the food/drink category!) Not surprisingly, both lived up to my very high expectations. Spent all of Monday wine tasting, eating and drinking coffee (did I mention is the coffee capital of the world?!!) and left for the airport content that I had experienced the best Austria had to offer.

Here are the top 3 things I learnt from my time in Austria:

1.      As they drive on the right hand side of the road (weirdos…) it is also public etiquette to stand on the right hand side of the stairs and escalators. Which, through force of habit I did not. Having said this I learnt very quickly after getting some very seedy looks from some very seedy looking Austrians. Recommendation #1: if you value your life do not stand on the wrong side of the stairs in front of an Austrian in a hurry. Even the signs saying ‘stay to the right’ ended in an exclamation mark! These Austrians mean serious business people!

2.      The phonebook for Austria (and I’m guessing most of the German speaking countries) must be about 5000 pages long to fit in the street names of its residents. I swear some of the street signs you needed a good ten seconds to be able to read! There should be a rule that a street name should never have more than 30 letters! It’s just not practical people! Although on this subject I would like to say to the female population out there in cyber land reading this – I did our species proud in the directional department girls! Numerous times I proved that I did in fact know which way to go (much to Pete’s amazement!)

3.      And finally, I came to see how friendly the Austrian people are. Even though 70% of the time I had no idea what they were saying, they meant it in the nicest way possible!

So, although I did not see any musical hills or any yodelling (oh wait, is that Switzerland?....) there are many amazing things I can take away from my Austrian wanderings:

Did I come back with a suitcase full of tacky souvenirs? (like always!)

DEFINITELY

Will the supply of Austrian chocolate I bought last more than a day?

MAYBE (but I wouldn’t put money on it)

Will I ever forget the look on the faces of many Austrian’s we spoke to in English who had no bloody idea what we said?

PROBABLY NOT!

X