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!

Three Things Scotland Does Right, in my humble opinion

Many of the entries in this blog are devoted to questioning things in Scotland that seem strange and different.  Although this often means different-bad, there is also different-good. Things that would probably never fly in the United States, but that Scotland - as a small country, and as part of the UK, can pull off. Despite the last sentence, this is not going to be about Scottish Independence. I'll wait until closer to the Referendum for that (for those of you who are not aware, Scotland is going to vote on whether it should be independent from the rest of the UK in September 2014...this is a huge story in Scotland that the US couple probably care less about.)

But, for today, a quick list of things Scotland (and the UK more generally) does right:

1) Health care.

Yes, there is grumbling about long wait times and the fact that people may not be getting top-line care from the National Health Service. But here was our experience of getting health care in Scotland:

• We arrived in Scotland for my job
• Human resources told me to go check in at my local health centre
• We checked in at Ryehill Health Centre, just up the hill from our house
• We gave them a little bit of information (our passports and visas and immunization records for the kids)
• Now we can call them whenever we need health care.
• It costs nothing out of pocket. No out of pocket costs for prescriptions either. 
• If you need care on the weekend, you call a national number that does triage with you and tells you where to go to get help.    

We can't really complain, especially given the shaky nature of health care in the US when you are unemployed/underemployed. Dental care was similarly easy to access and much cheaper than US care - preventative care is free and more extensive care is about 7x cheaper (in my tooth repairing experience so far - $250 in the States and about $35 here)

2) Fresh, local food

This was a sign I took a picture of today outside the larger Tesco (large UK supermarket chain) in Dundee city centre. It's really common to see meat and dairy labeled as Scottish or British.  There is a local butcher and a local grocer just a few blocks up the hill.  When Paul asked where the Christmas turkey we ordered was from, the butcher pointed across the River Tay, approximately 15 minutes away by car.

Things also have a more limited shelf life.  I told my (English, but has lived in Scotland 20+ years) boss that milk in the US will stay good in your refrigerator for a week. She was appalled.  Milk is really only good here for 3-4 days after being opened. Fewer preservatives, I guess.  Organic food is also common, and often as cheap (sometimes cheaper) that the non-organic item.

Even the small market just up the hill (which is bigger than a US convenience store, but would probably charge premium prices in the US anyway) advertises their Scottish/British foods (and the prices for most items are comparable to the large chains like Tesco).

3. Walk-ability

We do have a car here, which is convenient, especially when traveling around the local area.  But like most of Europe, Scotland is much more walkable and accessible by public transit. I can  walk to work in about 10 minutes. Walk Audrey to school in about 15 minutes. Walk to the city centre in 20 minutes. And I could take the bus to these places even faster.  I can really get everywhere I need to go, and many places I want to go (singing rehearsal, the cinema) by walking. And everybody walks. There is no such thing as a school bus...literally everyone walks to school, or takes the city bus there. And in the city centre there are always scores of people (proper Scottish would be "loads of people") walking around, shopping, visiting the library, having coffee, all walking from place to place. Don't get me wrong, Dundee does have shopping centers and strip malls - but they are not the norm, and you have to work a bit to get there. I kind of like that (although I do miss Target for one stop shopping...not really a familiar concept around here).    

Happy First Birthday, Audrey!

Audrey is one today. Today at 1:09 pm, pacific time, to be exact. I will probably be at mom-baby group at that time, although our group days may be numbered because most of the babies are so much younger and Audrey's favorite thing to do is to dash off into nearby rooms where she is not allowed to go, meaning that I spend the whole group chasing her down. She is now a full-fledged toddler, though she still looks too tiny to be walking around and getting into things.

Motor-skill wise, walking is the big thing. She still scoots across the floor when she wants to move fast but she walks well and only starts tripping and falling when she's tired. She can climb stairs (although getting down is more challenging) and can go down small slides at the park by herself. Verbally, she's making lots of sound that might be words, but they're still in "baby", so we don't understand most of it. Sometimes she gets frustrated because she'll walk up to me and say something like "Bob" and I won't respond, so she says, louder, like maybe I'll understand her if she speaks up, "BOB!" Socially, she's still the same social butterfly. She feels it's her job to greet everyone and make them feel welcome. She waves and smiles. For all I know she's saying "Hi, my name is Audrey, what's yours?"

Her sleeping is getting a little better, she still wakes up a couple of times a night but only eats once. We've run into a few people who said 13 months or so was the magic "sleeping through the night" age, but we're still dubious since people have been telling us since 6 months that she's supposed to be sleeping through the night. Oh well. She's napping now but may be up soon - I think I hear her moving in the crib on the other side of the wall. Happy Birthday, Audrey!

First Conversation with Audrey

So today, Audrey and I had our first two-way conversation. She is now 11 1/2 months old, and has a few words that are intelligible, at least to Paul and I. She says Da and Dada for Paul, Mei-mei and sometimes ma-ma for me, and Ah-da for herself. Also sometimes "up" and "eat." Today at lunch, however, I was feeding her turkey and vegetables, which she did not want. She showed me she did not want them by trying to sweep them off her tray onto the ground. I said to her, "Okay, so you don't want your turkey and vegetables, what do you want to eat?" And she looked right at me and signed "milk."

She is now also walking about 90% of her movement time, as this 10-second video clip shows...

Audrey, 9 months

So I feel perhaps that I'm part of a new trend here. Instead of filling out the traditional baby book for Audrey, instead I (and other parents who blog about their kids) will have the "Baby Blog," an intermittent recording of baby's accomplishments, archived on the Blogspot server, at least until Blogspot goes out of business or otherwise tells bloggers they need to move their content somewhere else.

Audrey is now a little over 9 months and her development is proceeding apace. She can do three signs in conjunction with appropriate activities (milk, potty, and more) although her use of "more" has dropped off rapidly since grandma Mary left and she now has only an audience of mommy at meals. She also responds to commands - she pulled the pig's tail in a barnyard book when asked on three separate occasions for me, grandma, and grandpa. This also has more practical applications - when asked, she can often sit back in her highchair to make it easier for me to feed her, or sit up/back on the potty so she doesn't get so engrossed in the bathroom linoleum that she falls off the potty onto her nose. She has also started pointing, which can help some with communication too - she can point in a direction she wants to go, although she's not quite to the stage where she can point for "I'd like some toast rather than the apples."

Motor-skill wise, she is walking well with support - one of her favorite games is to hold daddy's hands (or if she's feeling brave, just one hand, using the other to grasp the wall or furniture) and walk around the house. Her balance is good and she can "cruise" along furniture, though she still takes the occasional tumble. She has also started "scooting." I wouldn't even call it crawling, and I'll have to get a video of it - basically, from seated, she walks her hands forward so she is up on her hands and feet and scoots forward a couple of inches and sits down again. It's not very efficient but she can cover a few feet when motivated. The big thing though is that she can now go from her belly up to a seated position. She doesn't like to do it, since it's a lot of work, but now she is no longer stuck on her belly when she starts to scoot/crawl and doesn't quite make it.

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of for the moment!