Primary School Discos and Birthday Parties, oh my!

Picture of disco ball from Wikimedia Commons.

Just last night I didn't know what to write about.  But today when I picked Audrey up from her second birthday party in 2 weeks, it hit me. Discos and birthday parties, of course.  The disclaimer is that the information I have on primary school discos is secondhand.  I didn't actually take Audrey to this event - Paul did. But he told me a few things, which I pass on here.

I don't know about you, but in the U.S., the first dance I remember going to was about seventh grade (age 12 or so).  Not so here in Scotland.  Last week, the school that shares space with Audrey's school threw a disco, with everyone invited - P1-P3 (ages 5-8) from 6:00 to 7:15, and the older kids (up to age 11) a bit later. Paul said they had a real DJ, who played such crowd-pleasing favorites as "Let It Go" from Frozen (you should have seen it, said Paul - every little girl in the room started singing along) as well as things you could dance to.  The organizers also served typical "party food" - crisps (potato chips), sweeties (candy) and juice (blackcurrent and orange, the two juice flavors you see everywhere for kids). Apparently discos are not just for school, though - our friends who went to a family-friendly vacation park in northern England said there were kid discos there too - their 5-year old got dressed up and went out to dance.

Clipart of cake from Wikimedia Commons.

Discos I can see as a cultural difference - chalk it up to European influence. But kids' birthday parties should be the same, right? Wrong, and I'm beginning to understand the typical structure of a Scottish kid's party. though I don't understand the reasoning behind some of the party choices. First, the attire.  "Dressed up" seems normal to me (which is how some kids, including Audrey, dress for parties), but "Wear your Halloween costume?" It's called "fancy dress" here, and today there were three Meridas (from Brave, as you might imagine, a popular Scottish heroine), two Alice in Wonderlands,  one Sophia the First (the birthday girl), one or two who might have been Elsa , one possible Ariel and one possible Jasmine, plus assorted pirates, nurses, etc.   There's also the tradition (also present in Rhode Island) of not opening the presents at the party.  This seems odd, because if everyone brings a present, isn't it nice to open them and say thank-you? We always did this at my parties as a kid (at least that I remember), but maybe we were different from the norm in the 80's too and I just don't remember it. The final thing about Scottish birthday parties that I can't figure out is this: they always send the cake home in the goodie bag.  Granted, kids are eating the typical party food like crisps, sweeties and juice, so they're probably not hungry for cake.  But all the parties Audrey has been to, the cake is wrapped up in a napkin and either handed to the party guest or put in the goodie bag. They sing Happy Birthday, cut the cake, and then don't eat it. Audrey is quite sensitive to these norms, and when we have her party in a few more weeks, she may insist that we too send home the cake.  But right now we're thinking of putting a disclaimer on the invitations we're soon to hand out to her friends: Caution: Cake Will Be Served!

Four American Habits that Die Hard

So we have been in Scotland for about seven months now.  This is long enough, for me at least, to feel like we live here rather than just being temporary visitors.  I have adapted in a lot of ways, especially linguistically. I now talk about my garden instead of my yard, almost always remember to say trousers instead of pants, ask for a bus ticket to the city centre instead of downtown, and ask for my soup or cake "for takeaway" instead of "to go."  But it was that last bit (to go) that recently reminded me that there are a few American habits I have that die hard. I stopped into a coffee shop in the city centre to get a scone for takeaway, and the guy standing behind the counter said, after I ordered, "One scone to go." I was shocked, and told him he was the first person in Scotland I had heard say, "to go."  He was nonplussed, and his co-worker gave me my scone to go, and I went.

Inspired by "to go," here are four American habits, linguistic and otherwise, that die hard:

1) Chips vs. Crisps

Thanks to the Oxford Learners Dictionaries I can illustrate my problem (NAmE in the image  refers to North American English, by the way) . Despite picking up a variety of different terms, I have a very hard time calling potato chips anything but chips, and since I already have a reference for the word "chips" I find it very difficult to call French Fries by their British name.  Audrey has totally adapted, following her school friends' lead, but to me, a chip is a chip, and a fry is not a chip.

2) Walking the wrong way

I have finally mastered looking in the direction that the cars are actually coming before crossing the street.  This is not intuitive, it takes re-training of your mind and instincts, but since the consequences are relatively dire (being hit by an oncoming car you didn't see because you were looking the other way) I have been motivated to change my behavior.  However, walking along the sidewalk (or pavement, as they call it here) is a different story. I constantly find myself walking on a collision course with other pedestrians.  I stay to the right when I should be walking to the left, only being reminded to move by people walking straight toward me. Sometimes they just move to the side sympathetically, eyeing me as you would someone about to turn their car into a one-way street.  This is especially a problem on staircases - I come wheeling around the corner and nearly smack into people. And then I go back to trying to re-train my brain to walk where I am expected to walk.

3) Saying Good Morning or Hello

This is one both Paul and I run into every day.  For people that you see on a regular basis (work colleagues, church friends, singing acquaintances, people at playgroup, the local crossing guard) the Scottish form of address is generally "Hiya." But neither of us can really get our heads or mouths around "Hiya."  I usually say Good Morning, or Hello, both of which provoke a pause from people I'm addressing.  Paul points out that it might just be people reacting to our funny accents, but I think it's also a mental shift - she said Good Morning, not Hiya, so what do I say next?

4) Celsius vs. Fahrenheit

For this one it's not so much the day to day weather - if I read that it's going to be 9, for example, I have kind of an idea of how much chillier it's going to be in the morning than if it's going to be 13. But when you start telling a story, especially a story about Arizona, and it starts with "It was summer in Arizona, and it was 110 degrees..." and then you realize your listener has no idea what 110 degrees means, and you wonder, should I try to convert this to Celsius? Or just say it's really hot? I usually opt for the latter.

These issues may resolve as we're here longer  - who knows, by the time we come back to the States (or America, as they say here) we'll be totally Scottish and have trouble adjusting back to American terms and norms!