Sweet Home Alabama

I keep forgetting to add these funny snippets.

Whenever the kids open their mouths at the playground, someone inevitably asks them where they are from. The kids say the US or Maryland, USA or America and everytime the child who asks will say, 'Is that near Alabama?' (pronounced 'alabahmer' of course). We were totally puzzled why they would always ask that and just thought that the English kids thought we had southern accents or something. Well, we were listening to the radio a week or two ago and heard the top 40 songs countdown. It turns out that Kid Rock's latest song 'Sweet Home Alabama' is number 1 on the English charts and they play it all the time. So unfortunately Alabama is the British perception of America these days. Now the kids say they are from Baltimore, MD where Michael Phelps is from and there is no confusion whatsoever (read on).

Also, adults tend to ask if we are Canadian or American, always putting Canadian first so as not to offend the Canadians I guess. I think they know we are Americans, but ask anyway.

Watching the Olympics was very interesting because except for swimming, we never saw footage of the Americans winning. If the Americans did win, it was completely by-passed unless Michael Phelps was involved and his face or life-sized figure was plastered everywhere especially since he was (is still?) in London this weekend. We also got to see alot of sailing, rowing, tae-kwon-do, badminton, swimming, diving, equestrian events and bicycling.

Things I miss:

drive-thru anything, just the ability to drive-thru

Chick-Fil-A sweet tea

McDonald's coke on a hot day

a regular sized fridge, ours is big by Brit standards, but isn't really

a big food freezer

ice cubes because there is no room for the trays in our freezer

gallons of milk, biggest here is 6 pints so we run out of milk constantly

the ability to renew library books online

24/7 convenience

Cheers!