I will not get an American accent!

In light of my recent blog posts being a little on the intense side of things, I thought I’d lift the mood with this next one. While I was in the UK over Christmas, it reminded me just how much I’d missed it. Not in a way that makes me homesick while I’m not there, more in the way that makes me appreciate it a lot more when I am. There are those little differences that you don’t tend to notice until you have to get used to them again, and now that I’ve returned to the US for part 2 of my year abroad, here’s an updated version of the Culture “shock” post I uploaded a few months ago. The downsides of being patriotic to the other red white and blue:

• When they [Americans] first hear you speak, almost everybody will try and show you how good their British accent is, whether you ask them to or not.
• My drivers license is seen as some very extravagant form of fake ID. Even by bouncers?!
• Nobody can pronounce Leicester, despite them having places of the same name in Massachusetts, North Carolina and Vermont…
• Biscuits and gravy are not what you think (which is probably a good thing, because that sounds horrible).
• When I fancy some chips, I still get surprised when crisps appear.
• There are way more exams and assignments, and no way of avoiding it. (On the bright side, this also means no January or summer exams!)
• Requesting a DJ to play “something British” when you’re out at a bar almost always means that they play One Direction.
• EVERYONE THINKS THAT “YEAR 3000” IS BY THE JONAS BROTHERS! (This offends my childhood nostalgia).
• There is no £ symbol on the keyboard!
• And come to mention it, the @, # and ” are all in different places (which took me a bit longer than is acceptable to realise).
• Autocorrect keeps taking the u’s out of everything, and changing my s’s to z’s.
• It’s zed, not zee.
• Healthcare is not free. You even have to pay for a check-up.
• Some of the pronunciation will make you laugh though (well, it made me laugh anyway… buoy, wolf, vitamin, jaguar).