Stepping on the gas

I had always considered that the US and the UK shared a common language – or do we? The folks of Columbus are very friendly and it did not take long at all before I had met our wonderful neighbours and was being warmly welcomed at the local supermarket. However, there were times when they would look at me with a blank look as though I was talking a foreign language – and it seems that maybe I was, and still am!

It all started when I invited my dear neighbor for tea. I intended for her and her family to come over for a meal in the evening but she politely declined my invitation. It was not until over a year later that she told me that she thought I was inviting them over to drink tea – something that none of them like whereas of course I meant a meal.

Another friend invited us for dinner one Sunday and I gladly accepted knowing that we were free around midday and it would be lovely to have a long afternoon with them to enjoy their company. It was only when she rang me late on the Sunday morning to tell me that she was going grocery shopping that I thought to ask what time we were expected. Of course, what I didn’t know was that the meal at midday is always referred to as lunch and dinner is always in the evening, so I was very embarrassed to have to cancel as we had other plans booked that evening.

A trip to the supermarket is a confusing time since there are no supermarkets, only stores. My sturdy trolley turns out to be a cart and the car park has turned into a parking lot. The tills are now checkouts and the entire layout of the store is designed on a completely different philosophy to the UK. Who puts tinned tomatoes in the Italian foods aisle instead of in the tinned food aisle – and of course, they are cans and not tins. All the familiar brands that I have grown up with are nowhere to be found. No Cadbury’s, no Heinz and – no Marks and Spencer, one of the most commonly missed stores amongst British expats. How we miss good old M & S! Don’t bother looking for bacon and sausage for breakfast at the weekend; at least not how you remember it. Bacon is essentially streaky bacon and sausages are coarse – no Bowyer’s or Richmond sausages here. (Don’t panic! There are plenty of online stores that you can buy these delicacies from – we usually order as a group from Tommy Moloney’s who supply a wide range of your favourites.)

Language just fascinates me and I have actually enjoyed learning what sometimes feels like a new language. I have learnt not to snigger when I refer to someone’s pant instead of their trousers and put things in the trunk of my car instead of the boot. I call the toilet a ‘restroom’ or ‘bathroom’ (since referring to it as the ‘toilet’ seems to shock most Americans who find it rude though there often isn’t anything restful about the restroom or a bath in the bathroom.

My funniest challenge has been learning to ask for something really simple – a bottle of water. In the first few weeks of being in Columbus we visited Easton Shopping Mall and Polaris on many occasions. It was the middle of a really hot summer and I love to drink water as well as needing to do so. I didn’t think anything of it, but I went to an Auntie Anne’s counter where they sell pretzels of all sizes and shapes to ask for a bottle of water. The girl behind the counter didn’t understand me so I repeated it several times. What was so difficult? I tried pointing to the board with the list of items for sale but she still looked at me blankly. She called over a colleague who asked me what I wanted but also had no idea what this mysterious bottle of water could be. The queue behind me was growing, my daughter was dying of embarrassment but I was so thirsty. The girls called over the manager who listened very carefully, then turned to his colleagues, shook his head and walked away. I suggested that I wanted the item under the ‘Orange Juice’ listed on the board; I pointed at the fridge; I mimed opening and drinking from a bottle but all to no avail. Finally, a frustrated customer leaned forward past me and announced firmly ‘She wants a boddle of wader’. Smiles all round. The girl hurried to the fridge, handed me the ‘wader’ and there was a collective sigh of relief behind me from the other customers who would, at last, be able to order their pretzels.

Its become something of a family joke that I am unable to ask for one of life’s basics. I often ask the American children with me to order ‘wader’ at the drive-thru McDonalds or get my daughter to ask for ‘iced wader’ in a restaurant. I just cannot get myself to pronounce ‘t’ as  ‘d’ and it sounds very silly when I do, though it is getting easier.

Last year we had an horrendous storm which took out power to hundreds of thousands of homes. We were lucky that when the first storm hit, we did not lose power although many of our friends were without electricity for over a week. When the second storm hit on 4^th July we lost power for a few hours. We’d been out watching the Independence Day celebration fireworks and it was very dark by the time we drove home only to see lightning hit a transformer at the end of our road and take out the power to the whole sub-division. Unable to get into the garage, we had to enter the house through the front door. It was so dark! Fortunately we had a storm lantern and a couple of small torches which we managed to make last until the power returned about 2am (and it was so hot and humid without our wonderful air-conditioning!). Determined not to be caught without light and needing to replenish our battery supply, I hunted online for cheap torches and power supplies. I was a little confused as to why a search on the Home Depot and Lowes websites only displayed tall garden torches that have a real flame. I headed to the store instead where I searched and searched but could not find a single torch. Asking the staff led me back to the garden section for more garden style torches. Eventually, the young American girl that I was looking after that day piped up ‘they are called flashlights here’! Ah, another miscommunication.

Here’s a list of words with their translations!

UK English	American English
Advert	Commercial
Amber (light)	Yellow
Aubergine	Eggplant
Autumn	Fall
Bill (in a restaurant)	Check
Buggy	Stroller
Bum bag	Fanny pack
Candy Floss	Cotton Candy
Car boot	Trunk
Car Park	Parking Lot
Cashpoint	ATM (Automatic Teller Machine)
Cellar	Basement
Chemist	Pharmacy
Chips	Fries
Coach	Bus
Coriander	Cilantro
Corridor	Hall
Crisps	Potato chips
Dummy	Pacifier
Duvet	Comforter
Estate Agent	Realtor
Fire Engine	Fire Truck
Flat	Apartment
Football	Soccer
Fortnight	No equivalent
Fringe	Bangs
Full Stop	Period
Garden	Yard
GP	Family Doctor
Grades	Marks
Hairgrips	Bobby pin
Handbag	Purse
Hire	Rent
Hockey	Field Hockey
Holiday	Vacation
Ice Hockey	Hockey
Jacket Potato	Baked Potato
Jam	Jelly
Jelly	Jell-O
Joggers	Sweatpants
Jump Leads	Jumper Cables
Jumper	Sweatshirts
Letter box	Mail box
Lift	Elevator
Lollipop	Sucker
Lorry	Truck / Semi
Main course	Entree
Maths	Math
Mobile phone	Cell phone
Nappy	Diaper
Off-licence	Liquor Store
Pavement	Sidewalk
Petrol	Gas
Plait	Braid
Postman	Mailman
Prawn	Shrimp
Pumps	Flats
Queue	Line
Revise	Study
Rubber	Eraser
Rubbish	Trash
Skip	Dumpster
Spanner	Wrench
Spring Onions	Scallions
Starter	Appetiser
Study (room)	Den
Supermarket	Store
Swede	Rutabaga
Sweets	Candy
Take away	Take out or carry out
Tank top	Vest top
Telly	TV
Tick	Check
Tights	Pantyhose or Nylons
Till	Checkout
Torch	Flashlight
Trainers	Tennis Shoes
Trolley	Cart
Waistcoat	Vest
Wardrobe	Closet

Money Troubles

It might be my age. I have become one of those people that show a palmful of coins to staff in the store (no longer a ‘shop’) and ask them to take out what they need. Despite living here for all this time, I am almost too embarrassed to admit that I am not very good at trying to work out what is a ten cent coin or a five cent coin. And they have strange names like nickels and dimes. A one cent coin is called a penny and looks suspiciously like the pennies that I am used to. At least I can spot that one since it at least it is a different colour (or ‘color’).

Until recently, all of the notes (oops, a ‘bill’) have been the same color and size. Trying to figure out whether you have a one, ten, twenty or fifty dollar bill has been a matter of checking each one. I have not been lucky enough to worry about figuring out a hundred dollar bill. It seems that the newest notes now have different colors but they remain the same size and predominantly green  so in a hurry I still have to check the denomination on each one.

Cheques (okay, ‘checks’) also caused us some problems in the early days. It was nerve wracking figuring out how to write a check to make sure that it was made payable to the correct person, showed the correct amount in figures and was signed in the right place. Okay, so in that respect they aren't that different to UK checks except in one important aspect – they aren’t crossed ‘A/C Payee’.

In my ignorance I hadn’t really paid that much attention to why this appears on UK checks and I suspect most Brits don’t know either. What it means is that it can only be paid into the account of the payee so no one can take your check for 8 million pounds and pay it into their own account. Not so in the US. You can pay a check made payable to someone else into your own account provided the payee has endorsed the check on the back.

If only we knew this before we paid in our first check. Within a week of Stephen taking possession of our first American car, someone drove into the back of him. Fortunately it was all covered by our auto insurance (and he wasn't hurt). He had to pay the body shop and then reclaim the cost from the insurance company. They sent him a check which he paid into his bank account. A few days later, he received the check back in the post with a letter telling him that it had been rejected because he had not signed it on the back and charging him ten dollars for the privilege of returning it. Apparently even if you deposit a check made payable to you into your own account, you still need to endorse it. It’s a pity that the Bank that he works for did not think to tell him this as part of our relocation information! 

The Wrong Side of the Road

When we made the decision to leave the UK and move to the US in 2010, we were really excited to be finally fulfilling our long time goal to work and live in America. Our first concerns were mostly with getting the move approved by my husband’s employers, then getting our visas sorted. Our daughter was initially worried about taking the leap but eventually, and with little persuasion needed on our part, decided that this was something she really wanted to do.

Looking back, I laugh at the things that I was concerned with. I wasn’t at all worried about leaving friends and family, moving several thousand miles from everything that I had ever known or finding my way in a new country. Packing up the house and selling it was stressful, but we’d done that several times before and was more of a pain than a problem.

No, my biggest fear, the one that kept me awake at night, was learning to drive an automatic car and, heaven help me, driving on the wrong side of the road. I scoured the internet for advice, for others that shared my concern, for driving schools that would take me out for some lessons but although I found others that had had similar fears, the comments that were given in response were less than helpful being more of a condemnation of American drivers than reassurance that I wouldn’t die the minute I got behind the wheel. My imagination ran wild with visions and dreams of me forgetting which side of the road I should be on, hurtling headlong into the path of a lorry (which I soon learned was no longer a lorry but a truck). A friend in the UK offered to let me drive her automatic so that I could see how easy it was but I was convinced that it would be a suicide run.

On arrival in Columbus, I was happy for my husband Stephen to take our only car to work. Lizzy and I walked everywhere, even through the summer heat and humidity, as we went shopping and to the cinema. We were used to walking in our home town Bristol but this was a whole different ball game. Not only was there the weather to contend with as the temperature climbed into the 90’s (Fahrenheit of course, not Centigrade), but it was a very stormy summer with severe storm warnings and tornadoes hitting the area on a regular basis. With the imminent arrival of a second car and after a particularly exhausting walk to the cinema which resulted in me having to get Stephen to fetch us to take us home, he insisted that I finally get over myself and learn to drive the car. 

Knees knocking and with the feeling that I did not have long to live and would die in a tangled mess of a car, I finally sat behind the wheel and we set off. I started off badly by trying to pull the seatbelt over my right shoulder. Then there was no hand brake and where was I supposed to rest my left foot? We crawled along the road at a frightening 10 miles an hour. I cautiously eased past a car that was parked on the right hand side of the road, not sure whether I was leaving enough gap. There didn’t seem to be an awful lot else for me to do but grip the wheel so that my finger nails left little half crescent marks in my palms and try to stop my teeth grinding as my mouth was clenched tight shut. I remember very little else of the journey other than someone hitting their horn when I stopped at a four way stop and had no idea how to work out whose turn it was to move forward. The guy behind me was not happy but there were too many directions to look in. We made it home in one piece though, and although it took me a few more trips to be comfortable, I was soon able to face the highway and travelling further afield on my own.

Here we are almost three years later and I love driving an automatic car. When we do return to the UK and I have to drive a manual, I find driving a lot more tiring and for the first day or so keep stalling the car. I still do silly things like getting into the passenger seat instead of the driver’s seat, trying to pull the seatbelt over the wrong shoulder and I have lost count of the number of times I try to put on the handbrake on the left hand side. I have never driven on the wrong side of the road and even manage to navigate the increasing number of roundabouts that are appearing around Columbus (referred to by my GPS as a ‘traffic circle’).

Now I am helping my fifteen year old daughter learn to drive. Now that’s a whole ‘nother story.