5. Honesty at Bad Times

I've also noticed that the UK seems much better at communicating issues honestly.

For example, when taking the train to Chepstow as a class trip, the train was delayed while we were riding. They announced that the train was delayed due to signalling problems, we'll probably have to go back to the previous station. Then after we waited a while, they said that the signalling problems have been fixed, but now we'll have to wait for the captain to go back to the other side of the train. And then every time more people got on at each stop, they announced that the train was delayed prior to this stop because of signalling problems, and it is running exactly [this many] minutes behind schedule, and so on.

I feel like in the US, such issues would be summarized as, "the train has been delayed," with no further details.

When I was conducting my interview for the ethnography paper, my interviewee mentioned that she felt that the US tried too hard to make things happy. That they always wanted things to have a happy ending, and that the UK was more willing to just tell things as it is. I wonder if that is part of why the UK is better at simply telling it as it is. There's no point in covering up the bad news, because it's happened and will affect people. But in the US, maybe if we don't tell people then they won't think anything is wrong and everything is all okay.

Later, when travelling home from Cardiff, the train was cancelled. We had to take a separate train, changing at Bath. Everyone was kind and explained simply the problem - the train broke down, just take this alternate route, they'll accept your ticket.

4. Religiousness

One thing I've noticed that's come up a couple times is religiousness, or perceptions on religiousness.

When I was conducting my interview for the ethnography project, I asked her if she considered herself religious. She replied "semi-religious," adding that most people in the UK are in that semi-realm, unlike Americans.
Similarly, when the class went to the talk at the Herb Garret, the lecturer made a comment that most people in England are secular "unlike most Americans," hoping she wasn't offending anyone as she lectured.

There are a couple things I draw from this.
One, I think it is interesting that people from the UK seem to think that most or all Americans are fairly religious, and go to church. I grew up non-religious in a fairly non-religious area, so I guess it's easy for me to forget that there are definitely areas of the country that are very religious (comparatively, anyway). The US is so much bigger than the UK, it's hard to say that they're wrong or right. I think if you specified the western coast of the US, the religiousness would be similar to what's found in the UK. But if you are looking at the US as a whole, we're kind of the odd country out in terms of religiousness.
Also, I think it's kind of odd that our country, which was founded on a separation of church and state, is so much more religious than the UK, while it is the UK which officially has the Church of England.

I wonder why the US has clung to its religious ways, when the UK has hardly remembered theirs.
I also wonder why the UK people think of the US as a whole as being so religious. Is it because we still have "In God We Trust" on our money? Because we won't elect a secular president? Because the extremists like the Westborough Baptist Church come from here? Something else? I think that would be an interesting thing to study.

3. Restaurant Service

The service at restaurants seems to be remarkably slow here. Or rather, slower than what I'm used to where I'm from in America. Perhaps service in America is remarkably fast, I don't know.

Regardless, every time I've eaten at a restaurant here, the waiter has been slow to seat us. Once we've been seated, they take a while to give us a menu. Once we get a menu, they take a while to come take our order. After they've taken our order, they take a while to give us the drink, even if I've just ordered tap water. Then it takes a very long time to get the food. And then it takes a long time before they realized we've long finished the food and need the check. And then it takes a while to process the check.

This has been the case in both crowded and nearly empty restaurants. Maybe it's because we're American. I swear I've seen other people get served faster than I have. I don't know.

They also seem less familiar with the idea of splitting the check here. At one restaurant we went to, they came back to the table four times after we asked to split the check, asking each time, "So, you want to... split the check?" Each restaurant has managed it, but it seemed like a somewhat foreign idea to them.

2. Ways of the Road

Another thing I've notice is that the ways of the road seem rather different here than where I'm used to. And I don't just mean the obvious fact that they drive on the "other" side of the road.

One of the main things I see is that pedestrians don't seem to have the right of way. The fact that pedestrians have right of way was stressed, to my memory, in driver's ed. Even if a pedestrian is illegally jay-walking, you slow down and wait for them. If they're crossing at a crosswalk, you definitely wait for them.

However, here this seems not to be the case. For example, the very first morning I was here I nearly saw a man get run over. He was crossing the road at a designated crossing point. A car was turning right onto that road. Both kept going, and finally the car stopped, honking and clearly upset, probably hardly a foot from the man. I think in the US, the car wouldn't have even started turning, because there were people crossing.
But I see this repeatedly. If a pedestrian hasn't quite made it across an intersection while a light is green, cars will start going anyway. Hopefully the pedestrian runs out of the way in time. While jay-walking seems common, it seems very unclear as to whether a car would actually stop before running into you.
Marked intersections for pedestrians to cross at on major streets don't seem to be an obstacle for cars, either. The cars will be stopped, because they have a red light, but they'll be stopped in the middle of where you're supposed to walk. I find myself walking around stopped cars, hoping I make it across before my light turns red, because I can't trust that they won't start up immediately given a green light.
However, cars do seem to be very good at stopping at the pedestrian cross walks with yellow light up balls. Not everyone, of course, but this seems to be the safest place to cross - if available.

The top of one of the pedestrian cross walk signifiers, which someone had humorously drawn a smiley face on.

While writing this post, I Googled whether pedestrians have the right of way here. Seemingly, they do, at least at designated crosswalks. It also specifies that they do when crossing a road and the car is turning into the road. However, that exact situation almost got a man (and probably others) run over, so it seems that what's written may not be what's practiced.

This article mentions that while pedestrians do have the right of way, in car-pedestrian collisions, the pedestrian is considered at fault, because they were the ones "heedless of on-coming traffic." I believe that in the US, pedestrians are essentially never at fault. So perhaps that's part of the difference in practice.

I'm not exactly sure what's going on concerning cars vs. pedestrians, but I simply hope to survive this trip, and not be run over.

1. Popular Advertisements

I don't know if it's a UK thing or a big city thing, but I feel like the advertisements here are different than the advertisements I often see at home.

I'm fairly certain that the sheer magnitude of advertisements is more of a city thing. There seems to be no wasted space. Lining the Tube stations, the Tube stairwells or escalators, covering cars with unique paint jobs, rotating posters at bus stop, etc.

But what really strikes me, as someone who enjoys the theatre, is so many advertisements for live shows. Perhaps it's simple because there are so many theatres here in which the shows could be performed in. Perhaps the rumour I've heard, that the UK is more supportive of the arts, is true. I don't know. But I feel like I see more advertisements for live theatre than anything else. Ranging form giant posters to smaller flyers, advertisements for Once, The Lion King, Book of Mormon, Potted Potter, Rock of Ages, We Will Rock You, A Chorus Line.. I could go on, but those are the ones I remember from the top of my head. Often these are alongside other, more expected advertisements, like for various government programs or tourist-y locations or some new product like a watch or perfumes. But sometimes there's just theatre ad next to theatre ad, and it makes me happy.

A random selection of ads from the escalator shaft, which so happens to only include live theatre type events.

Introduction

Hi anyone reading this!

This is my blog for the blog assignment in the course I'm in right now. For clarification, that class would be one nicknamed Harry Potter in the UK, a study abroad program focusing on fantasy literature and folklore in the United Kingdon. We're spending three weeks in London and one week in Edinburgh.

For this assignment, we must keep a blog with a couple posts a week discussion observations of popular culture while abroad.

The  guidelines are pretty vague, so I'm not quite sure what will get posted, but that's the gist of it. :)