The three W’s: Weather, Words and what you Wear

                 I supposed the first thing I should mention about my new life in England is the weather, the usual thing that first comes to mind when discussing the UK. And yes, it’s true. The weather is bloody awful but it’s not as bad as I imagined. Now Sunderland is in the north east of England, just a bit south of the boarder of Scotland. It’s right on the coast; I see seagulls all the time.  But the sun….well, what sun? I can’t see it. It’s basically always cloudy here. Of course, I am here during the fall season so I can’t speak for the rest of the year, but so far the sun has only come out to play a few times now. Yes, it does rain a lot, but it’s more like a on and off sprinkle. That, I can handle. With the sun trying to get through the wall of clouds at times, it can be warm in the sun. But it’s chilly in the shade. Basically, you must always carry an umbrella, jacket, and sunglasses on you at all times. A bit of a pain if you ask me. On a sad note though, it’s really cold at night. The first night I was here I turned on the heater!

                Another thing is the accents. I generally understand everyone except when they speak really fast or use their slang. For example, I hear people refer to chavs. I had no idea what they were so I asked. Apparently they are a working class youth that is associated with aggression, poor education and have “common” taste in clothing and lifestyle. And, depending on where you’re from, you’ll say it as charver. So these chavs are kind of like the bunt of every joke really. British also call pants as trousers, sweaters are jumpers, cells are mobiles, fries are chips, chips are crisps, duvets are comforters, and the list goes on. You will also hear them say cheers a lot. It can mean what we know as cheers when drinking, but commonly used as a way of saying thank you or good bye. My favorite encounter so far was when I held the door open for this decent looking British bloke and he said, “cheers, love” I about died!! Loved it! The British also spell things differently, but it’s quite close to the American spelling so it’s not hard to figure out. There’s colour, flavour, neighbour, favourite, centre (center), tyre (tire), fayre (fair), and so forth. Europeans learn British English, not American English so they also learn these spellings and use of words, but they do know American slang from our Hollywood movies.

                I hate to touch clothing style since I don’t really have much of one back home anyways but I will say a bit about it. Europeans, for one, do NOT wear sweats out in public like Americans do. They always look nice. Even if it’s for a short walk to the gas station to get a can of soda, they will look nice doing it. The main fad I’ve really seen is girls wearing skinny jeans or leggings/tights with boots, flats, converse or sandals (NOT flip flops!). They also don’t wear t-shirts or tennis shoes. Everything is generally fitted. Here I’ve seen locals wearing belly showing shirts, which is absolutely ridiculous considering how cold I think it is, but I’ve also heard that people outside the area makes fun of these people so I’m glad to hear it’s not a normal thing in the UK. I can’t really say much for guys. I can’t really tell the difference except for no sweats as I’ve said before. Less casualness about them, they’re more retro I think. But really, as usual, guys can get away with whatever really without standing out too much.