Flying in from the US to the UK for the first time I have become acutely aware of the differences between the two countries. Although English is spoken the culture is VERY different. There isn't even any skinny Vanilla Latte at Starbucks- what happened to globalization? Also, I keep on mixing up the pounds and dollars...
It may have seemed particularly different because we happened to fly in towards the end of a 4-day Jubilee that was series of major celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the Queen... Getting into Heathrow in the morning (with a broken suitcase- yay), I asked the guy at the BA counter whether the tube would be empty since it was a bank holiday but he replied- not at all, everyone will be out and about watching the Queen. I looked outside and the weather just seemed so miserable to me that I could not imagine people going out in this weather if they didn't have to. Not to mention to see some weird outdated institution, personified in the Queen.... but I quickly realized how wrong I was as I was sitting on the tube shortly before 9am and witnessed all sorts of quirky creatures with British flags in their hands, getting all excited about seeing the parade in the rain. When I got to the city, it was dead - as tends to happen to a financial district on a bank holiday. However, there was a lot of police around and it turned out that the Queen was going to pass here as well on her way to the service at St. Paul's cathedral. If it hadn't rained as hard and I hadn't been as tired from my overnight flight I might have considered going out there.
What really fascinated me in the office today though was that the jubilee was everywhere - apparently there had been a jubilee staff party and everyone seemed to be chatting about the events of the past weekend. We actually got into the science of trying to understand the way the royal succession works and were speculating about how many days of the Brits were to get if Harry now decided to get married or if (God forbid) one of the members of the royal family was to pass away... I have to say, having a queen is fun as it does give you stuff to talk about. I guess this function is fulfilled by sports in the US - so I really need to start learning more about baseball when I get back....
It may have seemed particularly different because we happened to fly in towards the end of a 4-day Jubilee that was series of major celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the Queen... Getting into Heathrow in the morning (with a broken suitcase- yay), I asked the guy at the BA counter whether the tube would be empty since it was a bank holiday but he replied- not at all, everyone will be out and about watching the Queen. I looked outside and the weather just seemed so miserable to me that I could not imagine people going out in this weather if they didn't have to. Not to mention to see some weird outdated institution, personified in the Queen.... but I quickly realized how wrong I was as I was sitting on the tube shortly before 9am and witnessed all sorts of quirky creatures with British flags in their hands, getting all excited about seeing the parade in the rain. When I got to the city, it was dead - as tends to happen to a financial district on a bank holiday. However, there was a lot of police around and it turned out that the Queen was going to pass here as well on her way to the service at St. Paul's cathedral. If it hadn't rained as hard and I hadn't been as tired from my overnight flight I might have considered going out there.
What really fascinated me in the office today though was that the jubilee was everywhere - apparently there had been a jubilee staff party and everyone seemed to be chatting about the events of the past weekend. We actually got into the science of trying to understand the way the royal succession works and were speculating about how many days of the Brits were to get if Harry now decided to get married or if (God forbid) one of the members of the royal family was to pass away... I have to say, having a queen is fun as it does give you stuff to talk about. I guess this function is fulfilled by sports in the US - so I really need to start learning more about baseball when I get back....
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