You know how radio
stations are really annoying in the U.S?
They tend to play the same top 40 crap on repeat, or they play all the same
oldies over and over again, or just terrible soft rock. No matter what radio station you find,
they tend to repeat songs and not venture into other genres than what they
advertise. Well for the past three
weeks, my work has been listening to the same radio station, Absolute
Radio. I think I have only heard
about three songs repeated. Also,
it is a really awesome miracle station of the greatest music from both past and
present. In one hour I heard Pink
Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”, Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs”, The Beatle’s
“Revolution”, and Mumford and Sons’ “Ghosts That We Knew”. They also play covers of songs that you
would NEVER hear on the radio in the U.S.
The played covers of both “Layla” and “Mrs. Robinson”. I’m not always a fan of covers but
these were particularly good. They
play the originals as well, so that’s a bonus.
I’m
really only mentioning this because I get so frustrated with the radio back
home spitting out garbage. I only
ever listen to the radio at home when I run out of CDs. Here, I could listen to the radio all
day long and be perfectly content with life.
This
post has actually been a long time coming because I’ve been taking notes around
the work place for the past three weeks.
The radio was the big thing I wanted to touch on, because I’m still in
absolute awe of its awesome properties.
The other thing I’ve noticed around the work place is how, although
everyone is nice and likes to chat on breaks, no one gives out any personal
information. When I first started
working, my coworkers asked me about my program and such. I was so ready to lie out my entire
life story of living in England and being an Air Force brat, but if you could
feel the vibe in the room, you would know that it would have been terribly
inappropriate. I kept my answers
to one sentence at most. Now, my
supervisor is Canadian, so naturally I want to know when she came to London,
and all this information about her life, but people just ask those kinds of
life story questions here.
I feel I may be
the only one in my London program that has NOT gone out with coworkers for
after work drinks yet. If that
ever happened , perhaps, I would be a part of some more relaxed dialogue. But for now, we stick to complaining
about the tube and London real estate.
Also,
the English love their dogs. Americans only pretend to love their canine
companions as much as the English do. In the states, we have designated “dog” parks. If you know the states, besides Central
Park, these parks are pretty difficult to come by. I know at least in my University’s town of Columbia, and my
hometown of O’Fallon, dog parks are a rare entity. If you have a dog in a non-dog park, someone will most
likely yell at you, as my mother has discovered on many occasions. In London, this is not the case. All parks are considered “dog”
parks. Since people are more
mindful and self-aware, there is really no reason to be concerned about dogs
leaving behind unwanted “presents”.
In the states, people are not so responsible, so THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T
HAVE NICE THINGS.
Anyways,
I went for a run today and it amazed me how many dogs were in Regents Park
today. It was quite an excellent
site. The love of dogs does not
just apply to the parks. People
take their animals everywhere. I’ve seen dogs on the tube, in
restaurants, and in other working locations. The owner of Quintana Couture brings his little Boston terrier,
Bette, into work all the time.
It’s just not a big deal.
Dog’s in restaurants in the states, would get the place shut down.
The
last thing I wanted to mention was travel. Since we are so close to the European continent, we plan on
going to France and Spain. (Others
are eager to go other places, but that is where I’m going for my Spring
Break). As we plan our trips to
France, Spain, Scotland, and Ireland, we all wondered why we never traveled
this much when we are back home.
We are planning a four-day weekend trip to Scotland, well why do we
never take a weekend trip to Canada? Or even to another state? There are a lot of cool things to see,
right in our own back yard, but we never take advantage of them. The funny part of this is that the English
have the same sort of issue. They
have access to all these cheap tickets to different countries, yet the girls I
work with said they have only been to Scotland once. They also barely venture around England at all. I guess we are all really bad at being
tourists in our own country.
Sooooooo……
No. 4 BE A TOURIST IN YOUR NATIVE LAND
Take
advantage of all the things in your own backyard. Go on trips to different states. The U.S. is made up of so many diverse areas and cultures,
so it seems a shame if we only keep ourselves to the Midwest. Road trips can be really inexpensive so
pick a place and just GO. Sadly, not
everyone has the opportunity to travel to other countries, but that doesn’t
mean that you have to miss out on adventures. Be a tourist in your own country. I know I plan to when I get back.
But
as for tonight, I think I am going to take myself on a date. There is a place where you can get
inexpensive theatre tickets on Leicester Square. I’m going to try and find something for The Lion King, but since it’s Saturday night this may be
difficult. If that’s the case, I
plan on seeing 39 Steps. I hear it’s supposed to be really
funny. I’m really excited to see
some professional theatre. It’s
been too long.
Well
this post has been really long and is probably riddled with grammatical
mistakes so I need to fix that promptly.
Cheers,
Janelle
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