WHY I HATE ENGLAND

Oh, yeah, you gotta meet Mame! I'm waiting already to hear about double trouble in action! (oh, look, two apostrophes, but in this case they're called for.)

I was a child with parents who used to cross country drive, many times from Chicago to LA, and also go by train, so I love both long drives and trains. The best part for me of driving California myself years later was taking the route that took slightly more time (101 versus highway 5) so I could pull off in small towns and check out their diners and cafes. My favorite, best breakfast ever, was the Mission Cafe in San Juan Battista. Sigh.

I'd probably have conniption fits driving on the wrong side in England, eek. But I'm pretty sure I'd love to walk in a lot of places there. I drove in Italy, but never in the middle of Rome, speaking of full fledged fear. Not so much re their driving - I think they're actually pretty tuned in despite what appears to be a bad movie scene of total confusion - but re myself and how I might cause a 25 fiat pile up by my caution.

Yeah, my father was an avid outdoorsman and traveler, so we drove and camped from Canada to Mexico- pretty much anyplace that he could go fishing.

Funny you should mention Rome - just left there actually- and did hire a car and drive. On the Autostrade - not very different than the US at all - but in town, I had to keep asking myself, 'Does this road have lanes? And if so - why does no one stay in their lane? It was sort of like semi-organiz(s)ed chaos. But then when you get up in Northern Italy near Austria - the whole ethos changes and everyone is very orderly and follows the rules.
It's extremely interesting how the culture changes within a few hundred kilometres. But then again, that's true in America too - innit? And in England for that matter. I met this girl from 'the north' as she put it and she herself spoke about how different people from the north of England are from those from the south of England. She sounded pretty defensive. I told her I didn't have a preference for northern or southern English people either way.

In general I like them all, but they do seem to like to cling to convention a little more than most Americans I've met- I have to admit that.

Yeah, you do that... we've been thinking about spending a long weekend in Banff, actually, so that is definitely do-able.

And outside of the motorways, the roads can be the devil to drive on. We were in the countryside outside of Kelston near Bath and the 'road' is more like a trail, hemmed in by hedges and only one car fits so if you come across someone coming the other way, someone has a lot of reversing to do.

Did you miss the recent snow? I've been there in February, so when it is cold there, but no snow that year. Just read that the city only has 3 snow plows, and they're rigging ones with tractors. On the worrisome side, there's fear re the cattle, etc. not getting food and water since the snow and thus transport difficulty has gone on so long.

I've been through Montana - for one end through to the other. The good thing - no speed limits.

But speaking of those from England - in my younger days when traveling throughout Europe, we happened upon a young Scottish man. So we asked - is it true you really hate the English - he said, "Let me put it this way, if there is a rat in the road and an Englishman in the road, there are brake marks in front of the rat."

And you can't understand a damn thing they say - especially those from the small hick like towns - I spent hours trying to figure out what the h*ck these two guys were saying at this bar - I believe they were from a place called Wigan. they can't speak English for the love of pete

Same as here, but it only takes two miles to get English, Spanish, and Navajo.

yeh but they all seem to understand Merkan. Dont be a smart ass, I was making a point

I take your point, though it's not exclusively true in Farmington, NM. By the way, a merkin is a hairpiece - more or less.

and a ferkin is a bucket, so stick a ferkin on yer merkin ya ole galoot.

are you calling him an old rubber boot?

No, that'd be an old galosh.

aGaloot is what two guys of western persuasion call each other when they think the other guy isnt half stupid.

I was kidding, I was kidding..

Zackly what the real world says about merkins!

English has many dialectic variants, the English spoken in Wigan is closer to its Norse roots than English spoken elsewhere. This doesn't mean it's not English though. This was all hammered out with the establishment of standard English during the time of Chaucer.

Wigan played a pivotal role in the Industrial Revolution, it's home to Wigan Warriors Rugby League team, and Wigan Athletic Football Club. Both sides play in the top flight, which for Wigan Athletic is the premiership, the most popular sporting league in the world.

I know you have problems understanding irony, so you won't see the irony in someone whose ignorance about their own language, and lack of understanding about the geography of anywhere outside their own back yard, allows them to label somewhere outside their own limited field of experience as being 'hick-like.'

Petty resentments alert ! ! !

The roadtrip is such an institution from people's childhoods that it became a from of spontaneous entertainment. Younger people who were out partying of a Friday night in say, St. Louis, might at some point start chanting road trip, and then everybody wakes up the next morning somewhere between Vicksburg and Baton Rouge, headed for New Orleans.

It is totally understandable, too. When i was a child, gasoline ran about 18 or 19 cents a gallon, and might go down to 15 cents during a gas war. Filling up the tank (20 gallons in most cars in those days) was a hell of a lot cheaper than taking the train. Your kinfolk could live a long way away, too. It's 500 miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa to the Colorado border, so if Aunt Judy marries from joker in Denver, and you live in Dubuque, you've got nearly a thousand miles to drive to go see 'em. That means mom and dad get you up in the dark before dawn, pour you into the car and head out. You wake up somewhere around Souix City, and by Omaha, your parents are ready to murdalize you. I think that's the origin of the American love of roadtrips (probably same same for the Canajuns). I had an Aunt who lived in Virginia, another who lived in Illinois, another who lived in Wisconsin . . . you get the point.

You also need to bear in mind that the UK is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. A road trip tends to lose its allure when you're stuck in heavy traffic.