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Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 11:04 am (UTC)(link)
i have some vague ideas for a fic where Matt and Foggy move to England and it would be really useful/interesting if anyone from the US who has visited the UK could tell me what they found strange/different about it? Were there comparisons you made about language/food/lifestyle/architecture? Literally anything. And also, if you met people over here, how did they react to you? Did they say anything about your accent/were they particularly eager to introduce you to certain things?

And if you haven't visited, do you have any preconceptions about the UK?

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 01:11 pm (UTC)(link)
I've only been to London (and I've also been to NYC, to be able to compare), but I think they'd be really comfortable in that city. I couldn't imagine them being comfortable in the country.

Both London and NYC are a city of immigrants; there are so many people there from different cultures, it's awesome. But that also meant that no one treated me like a curiosity for my accent.

London doesn't smell as bad as NYC, and it's a little cleaner (I don't remember seeing trash bags piled on the sidewalk like I did in NYC).

Matt might get tripped up by how many random one-way streets there are (he couldn't be able to see the "Look Left/Right" sign spray-painted on the ground).

The Tube system is also a hella lot cleaner and less scary than the new york subway (though Matt might get lost a bit; some of the stations go very deep underground)

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 04:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Matt would probably find it easier to differentiate between GBP than USD, once he got used to it, because of the different sizes of the bills (American bills are all the same size).

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 07:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Haha, I just got out my UK pounds I still have left from my last trip. The coins should be easy to tell apart. They're all different sizes and thickness. The 20p and 50p coins have sort of angled edges (not sure how to describe it -- they're not perfectly round).

The notes don't only have different sizes, they also have kind of a silvery spot that has a different texture than the rest of the bill. These spots are in different places for the different bills, so I'd like to say a blind person could easily tell them apart not just by size but also by these spots. The 5 pound bill has it more to the left than the 10 pound bill, and the 20 pound bill has two of them even further to the right. For sighted people, these spots look silvery with a fancy, holographic number in them. :-)

Since I'm not American, I can't really help on all the other questions, but I've been to the UK a lot (my best friend lives there) and probably know quite a few things about how life over there works.

Big thing probably for Foggy and Matt to get used to is the driving on the left. That also means people often walk on the left side of the pavement, or step to the left to avoid you. I can see how that could lead to a few near collisions for Matt.

If you ride an escalator, particularly the London Tube, you need to stand on the right so that the people in a rush can pass on the left. Blocking the escalator because you're standing next to each other and don't leave room is NOT COOL and will be frowned upon.

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 07:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Same anon as above: A few more things that just came to me.

1) Pubs:
When you go to a pub, you need to order at the bar. No matter if it's food or drink. Even if the pub has tables and you sit down (you don't usually have to be seated, you just pick a vacant table and claim it), you're still expected to get up and order at the bar. They don't have waiters who will come and take your order.

When you get a drink at the bar, you order it and wait until they give it to you. You also pay for it right away. Like I said, there usually isn't any waiter service. If you order multiple drinks, take a friend along so you can carry all your stuff back to your table.

If you order food (also at the bar, obviously), they will bring that to your table when it's ready. Sometimes they give you a sign of some kind with a number that you put on your table, so that they know which table to bring it to. Or sometimes the tables have numbers and you need to tell them which one you chose when you order.

2) Restaurants/Cafés:
From my previous trips to the US, I have made the experience that eating out is a lot more rushed than it is over here (and I mean most of Europe). So in the US the patterns is usually that you wait to be seated, a waiter comes almost right away, takes your order, maybe tells you their name and that they're happy to serve you tonight, and by the way, the specials of the day are carrot soup with a hint of ginger and they can also really recommend the spare ribs because they taste fantastic. :-) You get your food fairly quickly, you eat, you're asked at least twice if everything is okay and if you want anything else, and quite soon after you finish, the waiter comes with the check and you're supposed to pay and leave.

This is a lot more relaxed over here. The waiters might be more gruff, they don't usually tell you their name, and some don't particularly go out of their way to make you feel like the customer is king. Also, it's not unusual if you have to wait for quite some time until someone even notices you and comes to serve you.

Then you order, eat, maybe get asked once if everything is okay, and then you just.... do whatever you want to do. The waiters will not usually bring you the check (it's called bill in the UK) unless you tell them to. And even after you've paid, you're free to stay for quite some time.

At least that's been my experience, so I hope that's helpful for you. I'll post more if can think of anything else.

3) Restroom/bathroom:
If you have a certain urge, you don't ask for the restroom. You ask either for the toilet or, more informally, the loo. This applies to both public places and people's houses/apartments (the latter of which is called flat).

4) Chips with vinegar
The Brits have a thing for vinegar. Fries (which are called chips) are usually consumed with vinegar sprinkled over it. It either comes in sachets or bottles on the table/counter. An acquired taste, probably, although I actually quite like it.

5) What the Americans call chips (you know, the crunchy, deep fried things) are called crisps in the UK.

6) Pedestrian zones in the city center are sometimes called precinct. Although in the city I usually visit, they call the small city centre mall the precinct.

7) While Starbucks also has a strong presence in the UK, there are two well-known, local Starbucks-type coffee shop chains. One is called Costa Coffee, the other Café Nero (the best espresso this side of Milan). They're both comparable to Starbucks in terms of choice of drinks, prices and quality.

8) The biggest drugstore chain is called Boots, big supermarket chains are Sainsbury's, Tesco and Morrisons. The bigger stores are usually outside the city centre, but they usually have 7/11-type smaller, 24h ones in the centre. Often they're called "Express" (as in Tesco Express).

9) Don't know if you're gonna have them drive a car (well, not Matt, obviously), but petrol is sold by the litre (not by the gallon). It's a *lot* more expensive over here. Diesel is more expensive than unleaded (other way round in Germany).

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 08:02 pm (UTC)(link)
OP - wow thank you so much!! I'm from the UK (should have clarified that oops) so I know what life's like over here but all of this is definitely helpful. Especially the stuff about tubes/money/restaurants. Walking and driving on the left is another big one I hadn't thought of. Seriously thanks so much *screenshots all of this*

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 09:42 pm (UTC)(link)
SAYRT: Haha, so I've been explaining your own country to you. *facepalm* I hope I got it right, or at least mostly right. I'll let you know if I can think of anything else since I've been to both the UK and the US lots of times.

And also... Deep-fried Mars bars. I don't think they exist anywhere other than in the UK. It would be fun to have Foggy try one. (I've always wanted to but never got around to it.)

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 10:46 pm (UTC)(link)
If anything, you just told the OP what Americans would find different about the UK.

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 09:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, and also.... ROUNDABOUTS! They don't really have them much in the US, and certainly not the kind where you need to pick a lane prior to driving in, depending on where you want to turn.

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 10:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Another thing: aircon. That's standard in the US, and rare in normal homes in thethe UK. I think both would suffer a lot during one of those heat waves without aircon.

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 08:13 pm (UTC)(link)
totally off-topic, anon, but: i thought the EU was switching over to biodiesel nowadays? y'all still on regular diesel?

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 09:38 pm (UTC)(link)
How would I know, I drive unleaded... ;-) Honestly, I'm not sure. But we've switched to something called Super E10 in Germany, which is unleaded with a higher bio-fuel ratio. Not all motors can handle that, though, so you get both normal and E10 unleaded at German fueling stations.

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 08:09 pm (UTC)(link)
OP - I'm a Londoner and I agree with all of this, although I'm surprised you found it cleaner that NYC haha and omg good point about the signs on the ground. Are there hardly any one way streets in the US then? You just always look both ways? (I guess this isn't THAT relevant for Matt but would still make it a little confusing/disorientating. Foggy would probably trip up over it as well). Thanks a million!

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 08:52 pm (UTC)(link)
*wiggly hand motion* eehhhhhh

(california: one-way streets in the downtown of big cities - there's a lot of one way streets in sacramento and san francisco/berkley - actually, now that i think about it, up in eureka there's a bunch of gross unmanageable one-way streets too? but i think that might be an...older method of urban planning, because i don't see them in newer neighborhoods, it's all two-way streets. damnit, now i'm curious.)

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 10:50 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm a sighted person and I found all the one-way streets to be confusing. Like, it's already grippy because you have to look for traffic in the opposite direction you normally would because the traffic drives on the opposite side than in NA, but then they throw in random one-way streets and all of a sudden the traffic is coming from the opposite direction you were anticipating (I almost got run over by a lot of bicycles and motorcycles lol)

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 10:52 pm (UTC)(link)
*trippy

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 10:56 pm (UTC)(link)
ALSO, I seem to recall finding it difficult to anticipate when traffic lights would change. Like, they did it in a different pattern than I was used to. Not sure if that was a UK thing or just something unique to that particular city, but I can see Matt having trouble with something like that. Like, accidentally stepping out into traffic.

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-22 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Although I think a lot of the pedestrian traffic lights have the audio signals in the UK now.

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-22 03:36 am (UTC)(link)
Unless I am completely misremembering, most Manhattan streets (east-west roads) are one-way. There's a bigger two-way street every... five or so? Avenues (north-south roads) are always two-way. So one-way streets are not going to be weird.

The complete irregularity of London roads, on the other hand, would probably take time to get used to. Aside from the colonial squiggly bits down near Wall Street, New York -- like most post-colonial American cities -- is very regularly laid out. It's a planned community, you see, rather than a collection of villages that grew together over a millennium or so.

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 08:33 pm (UTC)(link)
It's probably worth it to check out ADA.gov and compare it against the UK equivilant. Do indoor signs have Braille on them? Do ATMs have a headphone jack for audio guidance?
How common are visibly blind people? Is the white cane fairly well recognized? Do employees receive basic training on how to assist disabled customers? What's the hate crime/ harassment rate? Is 'catching fakers' a national past-time like in Italy? Was that police tasering incident a one-off or is it still a concern. Does he have normal legal rights if hospitalized, or is he a 'vulnerable adult'

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 08:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Is 'catching fakers' a national past-time like in Italy?

whoa whoa, what??

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-21 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Might also make sense that they'd want to know how the NHS works, in case theythey need medical attention.

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-11-02 10:08 pm (UTC)(link)
From an English perspective, and as a recent London-dweller (currently living in Manchester), I can answer a few of these:
The equivalent to the ADA is probably stuff like the public sector equality duty: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/equality-act-2010-guidance and this unexciting document on building planning regarding disability: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/7776/156681.pdf
Frankly, I'm not sure it's as firm as it is in the US, given the amount of places that don't have braille signs or ramps.

HOWEVER, the vast majority of ATMs that are attached to banks (rather than other shops) will have an audio jack, and they're being slowly rolled out across the country.
In a big city like London, I used to see a person with a noticeable visual impairment every couple of days or so, slightly less now I'm out of London. And yes, the white cane is well recognised.

Bigger public sector organisations, and all government (both central government and local government) should have trained front line employees on assisting customers with disabilities, but you can't guarantee it. Companies are a law unto themselves, but most of the bigger companies can be safely assumed to be decent at this training. (Please, if anyone has more experience, do correct me.)

Hate crime rates are hard to identify- I don't think they're broken down by impairment type as far as I know.

If hospitalised, Matt isn't registered as a vulnerable adult, so he'd be treated as any other adult, albeit with a little more support. Please note that he'd have to pay for any medical treatment, as he's not a UK resident, hopefully covered by travel insurance. More info here: http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/AboutNHSservices/uk-visitors/visiting-england/Pages/visitors-from-outside-the-eea.aspx

More info:
https://www.gov.uk/rights-disabled-person
http://www.visitbritain.com/en/Transport/Getting-to-Britain/Getting-to-Britain-with-access-or-disabled-needs.html

Visa: https://www.gov.uk/standard-visitor-visa

Please also note that if practicing law over here (as part of a UK firm, not just on a US case), they would be known as solicitors (the term attorney fell out of use in mid-19th century then was abolished), and I'm fairly certain Matt and Foggy would effectively need to re-qualify through the Solicitors Regulation Authority. I've tried to find a quick answer to what that would entail, but no luck, so I'd appreciate anyone who has further knowledge!

Hope that's helpful to someone!

Re: Thoughts on the UK?

(Anonymous) 2015-07-23 10:36 am (UTC)(link)
OP - thanks so much everyone!!! This is all really helpful wow <3