Misconceptions in Manchester
Hello all, figured it was finally time I (zeke) started contributing something to our blog. We’ve been here almost 2 weeks now, and I wanted to sit you kids down and share a few things I’ve noticed about this fair country. Particularly, misconceptions about it:
Misconception #1: The English accent makes you sound more sophisticated. Now, if any of you out there are like me, you’ve been raised on American TV and movies, which clearly indicate that if someone speaks with an English accent, they are automatically more intelligent and suave than anyone else on screen. Thus, when I moved to the UK, I had automatically assumed that any time I spoke in my American parlance people would laugh and snicker. This problem was compounded by the fact that, being a kind of vocal imitator of sorts, I unintentionally tend to imitate the cadence and accent of whoever I may be speaking to at that particular moment. So since arriving here, Wendy has called me out numerous times on slipping into an English accent myself when trying to talk to people. As you can imagine, this American-glish makes me sound even more ridiculous, changing accents mid-sentence when talking to customer service people at the mall asking questions like “Excuse me, ma’am (slips into English) can you ‘elp us foind some kitchin ewtensils, govnah? cheers!” However, I had a couple of revelations recently. First, unlike movie British-speak, the Manchester accent doesn’t make people sound more sophisticated. In fact, it makes them sound like they’re talking with a mouthful of shepard’s pie and beer, which, given the size of a lot of people we’ve seen here, is entirely likely at any given moment. Second - here’s the big secret they don’t want us to know - the Brits LIKE OUR ACCENTS! Wendy and I were getting some cookies to replenish our strength at the UK equivalent of Auntie Anne’s (without cookie cakes, unfortunately) recently and two ladies next to us turned in surprise, saying “Ohw! We jost love ewr accents!” Imagine our surprise. And throughout our time here, we’ve gotten many more smiles than scowls when revealing our American accents. We’ll keep you updated.
Misconception #2: Lowering the drinking age to 18 is a good idea. There’s always been some talk back in the States about how lowering the drinking age might be good for kids, that it actually wouldn’t have as much appeal to college-age kids if it weren’t illegal, they could learn to drink responsibly at home with their families, blah blah blah. After seeing it in action I’m calling bogus on that one. Seriously, the combined freedom at 18 years old of going off to college and being able to drink legally is way too much for these kids. They are going crazy in the streets. There are huge party buses that drive around here picking people up and putting them in Corona costumes. Not to mention the fact that local grocery stores advertise student savings on vodka and red bull:
Plus, those undergrads (or “freshers”) as they’re called here are crowding up all the cool pubs Wendy and I want to visit. Lay off, freshers!
Misconception #3: When buying a hair shaving kit in the UK, a #1 guard isn’t the same length as a #1 guard is in the US. I feel like this one’s pretty self-explanatory, as you can see by this recent picture. Um, my hair is kind of short.
However, I do feel the need to mention one thing that isn’t a misconception: English beer is mostly good, English food is mostly bad. Had a great pint of a Manchester-made beer called Rocketeer at a local pub called the Whitworth that’s right down the street from our house when we swung in there for the last part of the Man U - Stokes game. 
The tastiness and variety of the beers we have tried can only be equaled by the weirdness of a variety of foodstuffs that we have seen in local grocery stores, incuding these two recent varieties of chips: 
Fortunately, to save me from having to eat things like prawn cocktail chips (which I will undoubtedly still try at some point, rest assured), I have an amazing wife who spent several hours cooking up the most awesome shepard’s pie ever the other night. Ever since discovering we have a surprisingly nice kitchen here in our flat, she’s been making the most of it. Here’s her pulling the masterpiece out of the oven:
Thank goodness for my amazing cook of a wife!
