Living in a different country is a unique experience. There are weird things that happen that you could never really prepare yourself for. No amount of research, YouTube videos, or blog sites can prepare you for these things. Sometimes they cause a little embarrassment. For example, when I first moved here to Aberdeen I needed a job and ended working up at Tesco (the Target of the UK). The job consisted of filling online shopping orders by hunting them down in the store. To assist in this endeavor we had a hand held scanner that would tell the location of the item as well as a description. One time while looking for items in the fruit and vegetable isle my scanner indicated that I needed 2 ripe aubergines. Not having a clue what these were I just stood there looking confused until an old lady, that didn’t even work for Tesco, asked if she could help me. Turns out “aubergine” is just fancy English talk for an eggplant. There were similar circumstances surrounding a few other items: courgette= zucchini, crisps= potato chips (you can’t call them chips because then people thing you a talking about French fries), cellotape=scotch tape (which is a bit counterintuitive since we are in Scotland where it should just be called “tape”), plasters= band-aids, tipex= whiteout, and many many more.
The other day we went out with some friends and they asked us what we missed about the US. Topping my list was Flaming Hot Cheetos. Since my friend had never heard of them I took it upon myself to try and describe them, a next to impossible task. I couldn’t resort to google because his internet was down. How do you describe Cheetos? The best I could do was tell him it was a corn based crisp that looked like a gnarled tree limb because it was shot out of a high pressured nozzle then baked and coated with a glorious layer of dried cheese. I don’t feel I did the Cheeto justice but I tried.
Thank goodness that the UK culture is a least a bit similar to the US. I haven’t made any tremendous social blunders that have upset many people. Now I just need to remember that talking about my pants is not appropriate because “pants” is the term for underwear.
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