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!

Tales from the Train: Scotland and England

Compared with the US, Britain has a fabulous rail network.  You can get to places small and large by rail in Britain, far more than you can in the US, where your options are really limited to the Northeast corridor (Washington DC to Boston) and perhaps the odd train to Chicago.   Over the past two days, I have gotten to know the rail network much better, traveling from Dundee down to Nottingham for a quarterly research project meeting.  Over the course of two days, this has meant approximately 10 hours in the train, and thanks to travel agents who apparently didn’t both checking that we used the most efficient routes, a lot of changing trains. I don’t really have sour grapes about this – we made all the changes with relatively little effort, as it was just myself and my boss, Wendy, traveling (with the addition of our colleague Mike from Edinburgh on the way back). But here is the synopsis of our travel (with the long, boring parts removed for readability).

10 am Thursday: we are on the platform at the Dundee station, drinking tea and coffee and eating pastries.   The weather is sunny – if you stand in just the right place on the platform, the sun filters down from the street above and warms you up.  I am amused by a sign posted on the platform encouraging people to clean up after their dogs – something Dundee citizens need to be reminded of, given the frequency with which I run across dog poop on the street, left as a little present to passer-by. 

Until they have their own toilet...priceless.

The day’s journey starts smoothly, and then we begin the string of train changes.  First in Edinburgh, then in Newcastle, then in Sheffield, then finally arriving to Nottingham close to 5 pm.  Not too tiring – we have managed to read and work pretty much the whole way. We walk around the corner to the ticket office on Nottingham (literally, around the corner, since the whole station is under construction) to see if we can get better seats for the train home the next day.  The ticket agent says, “it’s a good thing you stopped in” because the time of our train has been moved up 10 minutes, due to a landslide and poor track conditions near Sheffield, with no notification to us.  Good thing we did stop in.  She can’t really help us with the seats, only about to give us a different seat for the very last leg of our journey – Edinburgh to Dundee. Before hopping in a taxi, we stop in at the sweet shop to buy some “sweeties” for the kids in Scotland.

After the meeting the next day, taxis arrive slightly earlier to get us to the train station on time.  Although things are only a few miles apart in Nottingham, it seems to take 20 or 30 minutes to get anywhere, sitting in traffic for an interminable amount of time, waiting to turn right across traffic, taking many detours that seem to point us away from the station, until we finally arrive.  I am in a mild panic, thinking it’s nearly time for the train, but in fact it’s only 16:16 and the train doesn’t depart until 16:38.  As the time for the train draws closer (16:37 and still no sign of the train arriving on the platform) the number of people waiting grows, and we realize that because of the track problems, they’ve put two trains-worth of passengers of one train, and any hope of having a reserved seat flies out the window. We muscle our way on and grab a seat, leaving the unlucky Nottingham students to stand. Although we leave late, we make up enough time to catch our connection at Sheffield – even having to a wait a bit for it, time to take a picture of the Victorian bar, the Sheffield Tap, a World Beer Free House – not, Wendy explains, that the beer is free, but that the bar is not connected with any particular brewery and can serve whichever brands it pleases. 

Sheffield Tap, a Victorian bar in the rail station.

Colleagues Wendy and Mike waiting for the train in Sheffield.

 Our train arrives and we board, finding our seats in the front coach (coach F…not the most intuitive one to put first, but I spy the letter as it goes flying past, leaving us scurrying up the platform to board). This a long haul. After the first train, I am ready to be home. Forget flying cars – I want to skip straight to teleportation.  We stay on the train for a long time. I finish my book, and we are still an hour and a half from Edinburgh. To make matters worse, the train is slow – 12 minutes slow, to be precise, shaving our comfortable 10-12 minutes change time at Edinburgh to a perilous 6 minutes or less. If we don’t make the 21:40 train, there’s another on at 22:08 but it’s the “milk run” – stopping at every podunk station between Edinburgh and Dundee. C’mon train, speed up! Just a few minutes will make a difference between making or missing that connection. A few minutes, and the luck of where the trains happen to be parked…if we step off one and just have to cross the platform to the other…       

Divine intervention – and the nicest train conductor ever…intervene. They identify eight or nine passengers (including Wendy and I) hoping against hope that we can make the connection to the 21:40 train.  Although we’re due to arrive at 21:35, the conductor talks to Edinburgh Waverly and gets us a track as close to the departing Aberdeen train as possible. They also talk to the other train and they agree to hold the train for 2 minutes. The conductor gathers us all in the end of the First Class carriage and gives us directions on how to go from track 11 to track 15, and says maybe the staff will even open the ticket barriers for us. We pull into the station, and Wendy says “Ready, set, go!” The first man opens the door and sprints out of the train, followed closely by the other 7 or 8 of us. We run flat out across the platform, crossing the road in front a bewildered taxi driver, not used to seeing eight or nine people dashing across his path, even at the train station. We race toward the ticket barrier, and the staff open up the handicapped gate, allowing us all to flow through at top speed.  “The end of the platform for Aberdeen” they yell helpfully, as we dash pell-mell down platform 15, finally reaching the still-open door of the train. We pile in, breathless. I was tired before, but now I am awake. We made it! After catching our breath, I enquire what carriage we are currently in, and realize our carriage is just one up, so we walk through and sit down just a half a minute before the train departs from the station. And the boredom resumes. But only for another hour.  And then I don’t have to take a long train journey for another month….    

Thank You Asli! Turkish Delights By Post

 So I arrived home from work today, and Paul said, "Your Turkish delight arrived today, and you owe Asli a very nice thank-you note because she sent a lot more than that!" So: a full blog post to say thank you!

Some of you may remember me complaining about the British version of Turkish delight in a Facebook status (although the ladies in my singing group tell me I haven't given it a fair chance, having only tried the "raspberry goo" flavor - there are apparently others). Anyway, Asli's response to my complaint was to say, "give me your address in Scotland, I'll send you some real Turkish delight." So what could I do? I gave her my address and cautioned her about the vagaries of Royal Mail (stopping anything that seems to be worth more than a few dollars, or pounds, or in this case lira.) She assured me she was a mailing pro.

 So today, I come home and there it is, a veritable Turkish confectionery feast. Two flavors of Turkish Delight (raspberry-ish with pistachios, and something Paul and Audrey claim is ginger, but I think might be "plain"?) that are both yummy (Paul says "Like a gummy. But a really GOOD gummy.") In addition, candy almonds (in the US we would call them Jordan Almonds but I guess Turks would not call them that). Plus chocolate-coated pistachio-something. Plus a wafer-y pistachio thing. Plus three kinds of hard candy, one of which is cinnamon and two of which I haven't tried yet, though Paul says the yellow one with the inclusions (nougat? I say, but he says no) is his favorite.

Audrey (5) liked the pistachio Turkish Delight. Claire (2) preferred the maybe-it's-plain-or-ginger flavor. We didn't show them the other treats...yet.

So thank you, Asli. you have definitely changed my mind about Turkish delight, and at the same time made me want to come visit Turkey even more than I already did (although Paul told Audrey that Turkey is where all the turkeys come from so she may be somewhat disappointed if we make it there and there aren't a lot of gobbling fowl about).

I want to close with one word about the power of Facebook. I currently research technology and social media and there is much hue and cry about how Facebook is declining with teens (and intimating that it is declining overall). But if I didn't have a connection to Asli on Facebook, my lament about Turkish delight would have fallen on deaf ears (or at least the ears of people who didn't know what I was talking about) instead of turning into a delicious Turkish confectionery surprise for all of us!  

What's Up, Scots? Sweeties and Biscuits!

Tunnock's Biscuits: Scottish and delicious

After the surprising success of my Facebook post of a scone with butter and jam, I've decided to move straight into sweeties and biscuits for my next post.  For the American audience, a sweetie is any kind of candy (chocolate or hard candy) although when our kids say "Can I have a sweetie?" they usually mean the chocolate kind.  Biscuits are what Americans call cookies, so I guess the Tunnocks tea cakes above aren't strictly "biscuits."  I started my sweeties and biscuits "research project" almost on arrival in Scotland.  I was helped on the biscuit end by a link my mother sent me, something along the lines of "Best British Biscuits" which of course I now cannot locate on Facebook.  It was this document that led to me buying and trying some common British biscuits like Bourbon Cremes (not really bourbon at all, but a chocolate biscuit with a chocolate centre), Custard Cremes (again, not custard, just a vanilla - or maybe lemon, it's been a while since I tried them - version of a Bourbon Creme).  I also tried Jammy Dodgers, which also come under different names - a vanilla cookie with raspberry jelly in the middle.  Although friend Amanda on Facebook was enthusiastic about Wine Gums, I have not yet tried them, although they are available as a movie-theatre candy at our local art house theatre (Dundee Contemporary Arts).  All the above-mentioned biscuits are available at local markets like Tesco or even Nisa (which is halfway between a supermarket and a convenience store in terms of size and selection).  I have also become a fan of chocolate digestive biscuits, sometimes called Hobnobs, but more properly made by McVities.

McVities's dark chocolate digestives

The dark chocolate digestives are best - a bit like a graham cracker with a chocolate side. I tried serving them to my interviewees, but didn't get any takers; a few people later told me they are more like "granny biscuits" (ie, what your granny would serve to you, not what you would choose yourself).  But I still like them, and they serve them at church, much to Claire's delight - we walk into the church hall and she starts saying, "Can I have a chocolate biscuit?"  Plain shortbread is also tasty too, and Paul's favorite thus far of the biscuits I have brought home for the family to try. I'm also partial to the Cadbury Fingers, which are thin shortbread "fingers" coated in chocolate. Okay, running out of time...More Sweeties will have to be the next post!