Some notes on the Uk

These are just some observations I've learned since being here:

1. Health seems to be taken a lot less seriously here. I already mentioned my ordeal with the fractured foot and the x-rays but this seems reinforced. I had an appointment to have my stats taken down and put into the system. At one point (of a two minute process) the woman asks me what my weight is in kilograms. I say I don't know. She tells me to get on the scale but keep all my clothes on including my boots and two jackets. The scale is wobbly and it wont stop at one place but she tells me to guess....

2. Tipping is fairly rare which is nice but that means so is quality customer service. Knowing they have no incentive to treat you nice people who in the US depend on tips (ie waiters, bartenders, etc) tend to be unfriendly and unattentive. This has spilled over into other sectors with the end result that customer service often does not exist as we're used to it.

3. When I say I'm going to 'school' people laugh because here they only use that to mean the kind of schools little kids go to. Also, 'college' means high school but oddly enough a lot of their 'high schools' really do look like colleges with a 'campus' and boarders. Schooling is intense with many kids going to school well across town and admissions to things like high schools are really competitive (way more than the states).

4. Wealth, more so than in the US, is a class sort of thing. You can tell not only by where someone went to school but also by their mannerisms, actions, and way they speak that they are 'posh'. It's as if there is a permanent elite. In the US it's much more porous and practically anyone, especially from within the middle class can become wealthy. Also, besides material items there isn't that much of a difference between someone with a million dollar salary and someone with a $75,000 salary. Not only is there a difference here but everyone is acutely aware of it.

5. The opposite of posh for guys is a 'chav' (supposedly meaning council housing associated violence). Chav is an urban equivalent of rednecky 'white trash' in the US. I learned quickly that being a young white male and wearing a baseball cap and/or a hoodie and/or track pants was VERY BAD because people assume you are a Chav and up to no good.