Mind your "p's" and "quids".

Subtitled: Daley does economics and exchange rates.

So I recently arrived in the UK from central Europe (Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, Praha, Ceske' Krumlov, and Salzburg) and experienced quite the culture shock to my bank account.

Well first of all I could not get over the novelty of everyone speaking English and being able to eavesdrop on other people's conversations and having the automated voice on the metro talk to me in English. It was very odd, as I have not been in an English speaking country since the end of October.

That said, London is damn expensive. The pound sterling as of right now is worth a little under double the US Dollar. One would think that because of this crazy exchange rate the prices in the UK would adequately reflect this and things would be half as expensive (note, not that I was expecting this at all, but you would think thats how things should work). Nope. Things in London cost roughly the same as they do in say, NYC or Washington DC, except a sandwich that costs $5 in NY and costs £5 in London, really costs you $10. Whereas, say, Budapest, it is really cheap and the Hungarian florent is about 200 florents to the dollar or something like that. And everything is way cheaper.
(I'm rich, I'm rich...11,200 HUF... oh wait, this is only about $30 USD)

Moral of the story, after spending 3 days in London, I spent triple what I spent in 10 days in Central Europe.

WTF. plus the weather here sucks. I'm going back to Portugal!

ps. for those of you that have no idea, like I did until recently, "p" is british slang for Pence, and "quid" is british slang for the Pound.

Cheers!

The hunt for hot sauce...

If there is one thing that I really dislike about Europe is its lack of acessibility to Hot Sauce and spicy food. You really can't find it anywhere. The locals just don't care for it or something. (with the exception of the hot paperika in Budapest, which wasn't even that hot, but it at least had a little kick)

For instance, I once asked for salsa piccante/caliente on my kebap in Spain, and the kepab dudes snickered at me and gave me the "are you sure you can handle it girly" look. It was not hot at all.

So...after 2 1/2 months of craving (like a pregnant woman craving) Mexican food (Taco Bell, tacos, enchiladas, burritos...etc), tonight on some back alley street in Prague, I found a decent mexican joint, had an ok (but right now, it was probably the best I've ever eaten) burrito and I feel whole again.

The bartender who took my take-away order even gave me the remainder (about 1/4 left) of a bottle of that generic mexican chili sauce with the wooden cap that all mexican restaurants seem to have, he threw that into my to go container for free.

Needless to say...I finished the bottle and could have used more.

I apparently do not exude american-ness.

Which I have to say is a good thing while travelling. I'm not sure why this is, but I have not really been correctly mistaken as an American traveller.

Case in point, the other day as I was walking through the park to the Louvre, I encountered some unwanted attention from a French person of the male genre. I didn't even make eye contact with this guy and he still cornered me and started speaking to me in french... of which I did not understand (it was probably the french verson of che bella)so I replied, no no. He replys..oh english, you are Dutch?.....

Dutch, granted I had just come from Holland, I don't personally think that I look Dutch, for one thing I am about a foot too short (even for some of the women)and I in no way have a Dutch/English accent. I thought this was odd. Later that evening some french guy automatically assumed I was an Aussie, in the Hostel I stayed at in Paris a CANADIAN dude thought I was an Aussie because I was reading a book by Bill Bryson and apparently he's seen many an Australian reading it. Go Figure.

In the Netherlands over New Years, Sander (my cousin Colleen's boyfriend Arjan's friend we were staying with)who is Dutch saw a picture of me, didn't recognise me and goes "hey that girl looks portugese".

In Portugal I was mistaken for Canadian, although that was probably because I was with 3 other Canadians and just kept my mouth shut when someone commented, "oh you're Canadian".

In Italy and Spain if I even tried to speak the language, no matter how bad I was, someone always assumed that I was completely fluent and prattled back to me at breakneck speed. Granted, I suppose my physical features could reasonably pass for any number of north-mediterranian type countries. The morrocans all assumed I was spanish.

I don't get it. Not that I'm the steriotypical American or anything, but lately I've had to TELL people I was from the US and not some other place. Which is bad when you are trying to dispell the americans are assholes rumors. But then again, I'm not going to complain too much.

cheers!