Community High School

Far Faraway

!http://static.flickr.com/121/285866493_e07d1bf04f.jpg?v=0! ??A rooftop view of Bath, England where Iris Faraway lives in one of the very-English row houses??

When I moved to England in June, one of the first things I noticed was that everyone I met was incapable of pronouncing “Michigan” properly.

“Where in America are you from?” they ask. Michigan, I say. “Oh, Mitch-again!” Yes, Michigan. “Mitch-again!” Why do I even bother? I should start pronouncing Gloucester as “Gloucester” in revenge, as opposed to “Gloster.” That’ll show them.

My family and I moved to England thanks to my British-born dad’s job as a university professor. Apart from my mom, we all have British passports, so immigration wasn’t too troublesome; however, it was still a difficult decision. In the end we decided we wanted to experience life in another country, complete with mysterious foreign things, such as hills.

We now live in the city of Bath, which has been around since Roman times. The Romans discovered hot springs and built some public baths over them, and as a result, Bath is now a tourist hotspot. In the summer, the city is overrun with lost people clutching cameras, and it is not unusual to see headlines like “Woman hit by tour bus” in the local paper.

Bath is about the same size as Ann Arbor population-wise, but most of it is condensed into the valley and sprawls up onto the nearby hills. We live on one of the hills, but my new school is in the center of town, down in the valley. It’s still in walking distance, so as a result I have increasingly muscular thighs. We are looking forward to getting visitors from the States, since we can show them the hills and kill them with the physical exertion.

Before I go on, I would like to dispel a rumor. Contrary to popular belief among elementary school students, the average Briton does not say, “I say, Reginald, old chap, would you like some tea? Jolly good, old fellow.” This accent is known as Received Pronunciation or, more commonly, “talking posh,” and it is only used by about three percent of the population.

The rest of the Brits are left to their own dialects, many of them incomprehensible. For example, people from Birmingham speak “Brummie.” This is the same accent used by Ozzy Osbourne, if that gives you an idea of how it sounds. If you visit Scotland, you run the risk of meeting someone from Glasgow, who will probably ask you, “Uryefroomtestetes?” and then go to the pub.

My local accent is pirate.

Yes, pirate. Bristol, the nearest city, was a popular port for shady seafarers in pirating times, and many of them picked up the local West Country accent. However, since pirates are more popular than old men from Wiltshire, everyone from grizzled farmers to little kids sounds like a buccaneer to me: “Oo-arr, mate, oi’ve got t’go to Tesco’s fer a frozen dinnur, an’ then oi’ll be goin’ down th’pub.”

Going to the pub is Britain’s national pastime. When work is done for the day, the average Brit goes down to the White Hart or the Pig’s Head or the Tipsy Dancing Lobster and drinks a few pints of lager. The legal age for buying alcohol is 18 in the U.K., but nobody cares what you drink on your own time so long as you’re not five years old. In university, a main tradition of Fresher’s Week is to drink lots of free alcohol – much of it provided by the school. As you might already suspect, binge drinking is a problem. British booze culture is something I’m still learning to understand.

Then there’s politics. I arrived equipped with only a skeleton knowledge of the entire system. While I’ve learned a lot in the past few months, I’m still puzzling over such topics as the election of the prime minister (every five years, or whenever the PM feels like it), the three main political parties (all of which are unpopular), and the purpose of Boris Johnson (to have comical hair and offend people.)

Don’t think that all this complaining means I don’t like living in England: I have merely been initiated into the British tradition of “whinging.” There are many aspects of life here that make me love my new home. I love how I can watch decent TV (“telly”) on the free channels. I love that all vegetarian food is clearly labeled. I love how everyone drinks tea several times a day, and how every week someone publishes another study about how healthy it is.

Britain may have a reputation for being an unfriendly country. In my experience, it hasn’t been. Everyone has been sociable and welcoming, even though I’m American, although they tend to assume I’m a Bush supporter. (I’m not.) So long as you’re polite and quiet and don’t make a complete idiot of yourself, you’ll get on fine with the British.

So, to the woman I saw in the bookstore shrieking, “Come on, Bobby! Mommy has to find her book so she can read it when she gets back to Michigan! EEEEEEK, MY BOOK!” You might need some lessons on blending in.