We Have Met the Ugly Americans…

…and they are… Us.

Fear not: we have not gone off the deep end and started screeching at cash machines and kicking taxi tires. No. But we’ve at least discovered the font from which the Ugly American ideology floweth. Deep down, ugly behavior comes from… frustration.

Truth: We ARE having an adventure. We are enjoying ourselves mainly because we’re together, and we generally have fun as long as we have the ability to glance over and roll/cross our eyes at each other and know that we’ll ‘Talk About It/Them/Him/Her Later.’ Just having the other person there guarantees that sort of amusement. But another truth is this: Some Things Have Not Been Fun. Some things have been downright… annoying. And the human psyche doesn’t do so well with ‘annoying.’

It’s like our inner children woke up from looking around in wonder and said, “WHAT!? You mean nothing works like it does at home?” And the reaction of a child — inner or outer — when faced with being confounded is…baffled rage. I think that’s the secret to why toddlers who are big enough to get around on their own spend so much time screaming. WHAT?! A gigantic hand is not going to swoop down at us and save us from falling on our faces?? What? WHAT!?

One of the little reality checks of living abroad has been that we ARE like toddlers here, like fish out of water, unable to just go with the flow. We feel like we ought to be able to get on more easily, and we Just. Can’t. And it’s enormously difficult not to scream sometimes. When you can’t just look at the coins in your hand and pay the cashier, but you have to read them, it’s frustrating. (Add to that a country whose Parliament changed hands, and they couldn’t decide on whether or not to change currency as well — and so they just said, “To heck with making sense; we’ll just use everyone’s currency. Yay!” — it doubles the confusion.) When you have lovely, friendly, helpful people give you directions somewhere and say, “It’s just a ten minute walk,” and you find yourself having walked for ten blocks and twenty minutes, and you’re hopelessly lost, it can be frustrating. (Add rain to that. Please.)

There’s a part of us that kicked and fought when changing our watches from Pacific Standard Time; there’s a bit of us that just hates the angle of the sun, since it constantly confuses us directionally, there’s part of us that resents having to say, “Sorry, what?” over and over and over again…

Mostly, though, there’s a part of us that finds everything — almost everything — funny. Terribly. We decided to have Indian food on Thursday, because walking home from the library we smelled some delightful fragrances on the breeze, so we thought we’d use the coupons the last renter left, and order in, and feel like real ‘urban’ people. But first — we had to find a ‘real Indian place.’ Yes. A real Indian place… that is, an Indian place where they only served Indian food. Um. Yeah. We’re still looking.

I think it’s a country-wide phenomenon — one place that fills umpteen needs. At myriad Indian food restaurants, along with your curry and naan, you can also have… um, pizza. Baked potatoes. And the ubiquitous chips. (French fries.) You can, alternatively, have chips and curry. (Euugh.) Or Tandoori Pizza, served with a yogurt dip. (Wait, why are you cringing?!) At Black & Lizars, you can get astroscopes (? – I’m assuming they’re telescopes?), cameras, digital cameras, binoculars, and… eyeglasses and contact lenses. Seriously. I’m guessing those people know from lenses, but to us, the jack-of-all-trades approach was a bizarre discovery.

Conversely, there are other places that fill one need, one tiny need, at that. Grocery stores. Grocery stores are not places to shop for groceries, and please don’t mistake the difference. You can buy food there, yes. But food… well, let’s say its nutrition is…relative? Grocers are the equivalent of a 7-11 in the States; you can buy pre-packaged convenience types of foods and lottery tickets, and such. Imagine a market attached to a gas station, and you’ve about got it. Meanwhile, the POST OFFICE, yes, the offices of the Royal Mail are in the back of these types of markets. You can get a bag of toffees… some post cards… some soda… oh, and can I send off this package as well? Because the Royal Mail is also a …bank. These postal people are NOT a group who worry about the mail or if any germs are being sent through. Not in the least.

In direct contrast to the American style of dealing with mail, the post office ONLY handles the post; you can’t buy cute stuffed animals and commemorative doo-dads from the Royal Mail. But it still gives me a chuckle to go into a convenience store, to the back where the clerks wait behind Plexiglas. It’s all so much more casual. But I must say this: the post arrives every morning at 8:30 sharp. Oh — and before I forget, we do have places to shop for real food. They’re called supermarkets, and they exist so people can buy fresh vegetables. But, I somehow doubt the cashiers there will offer you stamps like they do in the U.S….

The phone book carries its own brand of quirkiness. Walking down the street, we see ‘surgeries’ with doctor’s names on them. So from this (and reading lots of James Herriot) we understand that a ‘surgery’ is a doctor’s office… until you look in the phone book. Under ‘surgery’ is: See Clinics, Cosmetic Surgery, Doctors (Medical Practitioners), Eye Laser Surgery, Tattoo Removal. And no doctor’s names or numbers.

I’m telling you — I give up. It’s just not going to make sense, is it?

Probably the most disappointing thing this weekend was our trek to church … it was a trek. We called ahead (and no one answered — hmm) and followed directions; we took our map, asked train attendants, and still ended up — in Heroin land, as our friend Nicole describes some of the Eastern parts of Glasgow. Again, we had to laugh — it was like our tendency, every time we go to San Francisco to somehow get lost in the Mission/Tenderloin District. Every time!! So we kept our eyes open for odd people and retraced our steps and went home, deciding to find an evensong or something later. “Later” never materialized, and we were both a bit glum, but it was just a setback… next week we’ll jaunt off to someplace thoroughly new, and try again. (We fall down, we get up, as the song says…)

Meanwhile, the metal meets the road this week (or something); D. is off to registration and classes begin week after this. Nerves and expectation abound. Although we are equally sure all will be well.

We have christened the oven — made some applesauce cake instead of cookies — using random ingredients and no measuring implements. Quite tasty, and we could probably never recreate it again!! And a few exploratory onion rolls have been created — more to come, with pictures, soon. Cheers to those of you who have written such lovely notes, and blessings on you all,

– D & T

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