Category Archives: Cultural Differences

The Bloke Who Brunches, Installment 1

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From Jock:

Wow, no pressure then!

I tentatively said I’d write an article ages ago deriding the bus load of Americans that invaded our romantic lunch I’d specially organised when we were in Ireland over a year ago. Then I find myself here.

See now straight away I’m thinking -  should I have put in more comma’s or full stops in that previous sentence?

You have to understand I’m new to this constructing sentences thing!

I’m surprised ‘the lady who lunches’ came up with this idea. MAL takes 2 years building up an outstanding portfolio of blog-tastic material and then she hands it over to little old me, a 33 year old numpty who’s only previous writing experience was on a toilet cubicle wall for a certain friend of his (hi Bez).

Unlike many of you, I’m not much if a writer you see, there will be no dalliances with Shakespearean grammar, I hasten with endeavour to maintain an ornate linguistic poise!

Basically it just took me 5 minutes to Google all that! Throw in a thesaurus – 10 minutes. Just to try and look clever , and it makes no sense whatsoever. Anyhow, what I mean is …………I’ll keep it simple, it’s best that way. For us all. (too many full stops and comma’s?)

Now for those of you that think I am here to ‘bash the yanks’ (sorry bro!) [bro as in brother, not 'my bro' as in 'my homi' or 'my dog' as Americans might say] I will merely comment on what I see (no bro, there will be no mention of the ridiculously over-sized petrol guzzling vehicles that line the city centre (centre spelt correctly thank-you Mr American spell-check on computer), nor the plethora of slightly rotund children hoovering down burgers (all my own big words, I must be easing in to it) Nope, none of that, I’ll be keeping it simple remember, I’ll just say what I see.

Now straight away I am sure there are a few of you that have noticed my organisation of sentences and use of brackets is way out of hand, and yes, i did notice some anti-American material in there, but that’s it. No more. I promise (ish)

I hope that you are able to understand my English-isms, and do not worry, I too hope MAL and the ‘lady who lunches’ is back soon.

Kind regards

Jock/Bloke that Brunches

PS – not that there’s been too much brunch of late with the cleanse thing.

PPS – the Gorilla on MAL’s intro was cool, but not as cool as Jock the Gorilla in Bristol Zoo, UK. No really, there is a Jock the Gorilla in Bristol.

http://www.bristolzoo.org.uk/gorilla-island

Jock, male, born May 1985
Jock weighs 220kg (about 34 stone!), is all muscle and stands over 1.8m (6ft) tall when on his back legs. Despite his impressive size, Jock is a gentle giant who still loves to drink his juice from his keepers out of a bottle. Jock has fathered two youngsters with Salome and Romina: Namoki and Komale.

Jock - Photo taken by Peter Budd

The Start

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The shades are closed in our apartment. Our apartment. Did you catch that? And the clothes are put away in drawers, hung on hangers, paperwork is on our desk, bed is made with our sheets and the fridge is filled with our food.

Oh how good it feels to be home. To be in a home that we can call ours – for three to four months. We are here temporarily – until either he or I find a job and we can afford somewhere nicer.

Don’t get me wrong – this is the location we want – on the corner of State St and Division, but we’d prefer a place where it isn’t mostly students living here.

(Side Note: We are on the 12th floor and the building across from us has a man hanging on outside cleaning windows. That is freaky. Just had to mention it.)

Joan, a squirrelly, talkative older woman, showed us three studios on Saturday to choose from. One had a separate kitchen but an old bathroom, one was nasty and dirty and the third one had high ceilings, new tiles in the bathroom, fresh paint and new carpets. I think she showed us the other two to put the third one in good light. Since Labor Day was happening, we couldn’t move in until Tuesday.

Luckily, two amazingly generous friends let us stay at their place over the weekend while they visited their parents in Ohio. They saved us. Their gorgeous two-story place in Bucktown was exactly what we needed to relax in after our big night out on Saturday.

Our big night out with friends from England – one who was dating a girl who happened to be a childhood friend of another friend who lived in Chicago, but they didn’t meet through each other. Make sense? So, we all went – all the incestuous group of us and we headed to a bar called – just guess. Go ahead. The English – I swear to God, the bar they took us to was called The English. I don’t invent this stuff.

Sometimes I wonder if I ever really left England with all these Brits around. I love it – I get the best of both worlds.

The Romanian cocktail waitress served us well, Englishman Matt Hoy kept the shots coming and the random raucous joke while Ella (his American girlfriend) and I compared notes on dating these Brits, the new couple said their first set of “I Love You’s,” we all jumped up and down, Jock and I kept up our American version of overdoing things and I half-heartedly attempted a dance-off with a set of men clearly out of my dancing abilities. Didn’t realize it at the time.

Look, not even a week and we made on the Chicago Scene! (Last time we’ll be doing that for a couple of months – that’s for sure. Now is time to settle, be quiet inside, save money and find a job.)

My next post will be something more philosophical about change, about finding jobs, setting up shop, starting new. Possibly about this cleanse Jock and I have started today.

In the meantime, Matty Hoy – here’s your shout out. (He’s the guy third from left with the dazed expression in his eyes.)

Travel and A Book

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Just finished writing fairly long post from jock’s iPhone, which probably wasn’t that long but considering the tapping on one finger – it was long enough.
I left my laptop at home to be more “in the moment” during our road trip. So far it’s worked fairly well besides downloading the twitter app and borrowing his iPhone for that. Anyway, while jock is out running a disgusting distance in the searing heat at way too fast a pace, I’m being in the moment with my blog (dirty word, according to Grampy).

To summarize, 2500 miles in less than 7 days in our 1997 gold Toyota Camry. Traveled from North Carolina log cabin in the mountains with grandparents to dinner with third cousins, (or is it first cousins twice removed?) in Chesapeake, VA, beaching it with my best friend, her boyfriend and incredible family in Rehoboth Beach, DE.

Now in hotel after 14 hour drive through MD, PA, IN, IL. Wedding tomorrow of the beautiful Katie and Jim! Really looking forward to it!

Reading the book, “The Help” because my mom handed it to me on my way out the door. And it’s good. Too good. I realized when I finished my workout today and endorphins were replaced by tears at the end that it was because I was in Mississippi in 1965 and my white boss just told me I could no longer pee in her bathroom, but had to go outside and the boy who cuts my lawn got beat up so badly by his white boss that he went blind.
Intense reading. Makes me want to write something that will transport people.
Now off to pick up two friends from O’Hare.

From One Extreme to Another

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Moving back to the United States, the one thing I’ve noticed are the extremes. Extreme fat people versus extreme skinnies. Extremely large cars versus Segways. Extreme hicks versus extreme snobs.

Then there’s the food portions. Two nights, two extremes.

Thursday night – Tapas night! This isn’t Spain, it’s Federal Hill in Baltimore, but oh how I craved some Spanish tapas. Mixed with having dinner with my best friend and her new English beau, the evening couldn’t go wrong. And it didn’t, with the company. I made the mistake of going to dinner starving and somewhat penniless after splurging $2,500 more than we originally intended to do on a car. But oh, the 1997 Toyota Camry in Champagne color is a beauty – a grandpa beauty, but with 115,000 miles and one mechanic in its lifetime, we are happy to have a reliable car (pictures soon) with a sun roof, oh, and did I mention it has leather seats? Who cares about the hail pellet indentations on the roof when you’ve got automatic leather seats!! Woohoo. (More importantly, we have something to drive to North Carolina next week).

Anywho, at an average of $9 a plate for half a bite of food that was mildly delicious, all four of us opted for some french fries at the local bar down the street afterwards. And I’m all for gourmet food, but Centro Tapas was good, but not amazing for the small portions they fed us.

Then I come to last night’s dinner at Carmine’s in Washington DC. It was the largest portions I’ve ever seen with tasty big morsels of seafood, veal, pasta, calamari, cannoli’s, caesar salad, lasagna – and that was just for the five of us. It brings me back to the beauty and the curse of American society – our love of extremes.

What do you guys think? What are your views of the extremities of American society?

Stag/Bachelor Weekend Done

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Weekend in Chicago is now over and we’re headed back to Baltimore.

Things accomplished these five days in Chicago:

1. No flight delays into Chicago

2. Six miles of walking around Chicago on hottest day of year. Burned those calories!

3. Figured out area we want to live – Old Town, here we come!

4. New black pumps and 2 purses bought. My wardrobe is coming back together after the 4 garbage bags we got rid of in England.

5. Jock gets lost for two hours on Stag Do/Bachelor Party. Or rather, the party loses him. He describes it as “the worst two hours of his life.” He eventually finds them and continues the drinking and partying. Oh, but before that, they get on TV at the Cubs game.

6. First Mexican meal in the states in Potter’s Bar in Naperville and some raw cookie dough with ice cream to finish it off – only in America.

7. American television – the amount of prescription drugs advertised baffles me. I forgot how much we over medicate and then brag about it on TV. Deal or No Deal, as much as I loved it in England, I will NOT be watching those annoying, loud, screaming people in America. Don’t we understand the joy of subtlety at all? Watched “Monster’s Ball” for the first time as well – Halle Berry clearly doesn’t in her over-the-top performance sex scene. She won the Oscar for that? Really?? Heath Ledger should have gotten it.

Back to Baltimore for a week to finally work on getting my book sold. Will let you know the progress of that! Finishing the query letter, finding the right agents and stepping towards the future for Jock and I.