Expat Mums Blog

There is no queue in Hungarian

I have to admit it, I am a British person to the core of my being.  Living away from the UK for over a year has finally taught me this.  There are a lot of British cultural traits/ modes of behaviour that I can do without, queuing is not one of them.  I have always been a stickler for queue etiquette- waiting my turn even when the Kids were desperate for the loo and the sensible thing would have been to push in.  If someone pushed in front in a queue I would tut tut, mutter, or sometimes when I was feeling brave actually say something.  This is not something that I can do in Hungary.  For a start there is not a letter Q in Hungarian.  Some foreign words seem to have sneaked in here like "quick" but when they appear they are spelled with a "kv". 

Thoughts on hagis

I love my Scottish husband. I would do anything for him. Give up my career, spend my days wiping dirty bottoms, make endless meals from morning 'till night.

But I absolutely, resolutely refuse to eat haggis.

Never will a forkful of that oatmeal/lamb innards mixture pass my lips. I don't care if it is a national dish. Or if my marriage depends on it. The thought of it makes my tummy turn.

I know this is not fair. I know that many people relish haggis, enjoy it even. Especially on the 25th of January, Burns Night, the birth date of the beloved Scottish poet Robbie Burns.

Is there anything the Scots DIDN'T invent?

This post is written for anyone who is fortunate enough to be married to a Scotsman.

I suppose it is relevant if you are married to a Scotswoman, but I have to say I have never heard a Scottish woman brag that television was invented by a fellow countryman.

Or that Tarmac was invented by a Scot. And the steam engine. Flush toilets. The bicycle. Penicillin. Radar. Motion pictures. The list goes on.

It’s a guy thing.

I think there is a class that all Scottish lads take when they are about to leave school. It is titled: Famous Scottish inventors: How to woo young foreign women.” To a Scotsman, "foreign" means born outside of Scotland, and that includes England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Please remind me WHY I live in England?

I have a funny relationship with the UK. I am fascinated by it, yet I sometimes wonder what the heck I'm doing here.

A little history: More than a decade ago, my British boyfriend and his accent swept me away from my San Francisco apartment and high-paying high-tech job to live in a small Thames Valley town full of antique shops and tea rooms. (Actually, it was nothing like that, a few months after I met him, I quit my job and showed up on his doorstep with seven suitcases).

The initial honeymoon period with my new homeland lasted barely two months. After that, the grey skies were really starting to bug me. So was the fact that EVERYTHING WAS HARDER HERE.

British shopping carts -- does it need to be this hard?

I've been living in the UK on and off since 1990. I have a British passport. My children were born here. I can make a roast that can compete with the best of them.

Why the heck can't I steer a British shopping cart?

I am resigned to the fact that "things are harder here". When I first opened a bank account, I went to the branch where I lived. Bad move. On a lunch break one day, when I needed to withdraw more money than allowed by the ATM, I had to travel 40 minutes from my work place in order to complete the transaction. The systems were not "connected".