Where can I get my brains washed

[Captain Oates 911]

I haven't even put forth the effort to try to make friends with people. I've given up; I'm whipped.

I'll take you for a row on the Ouse next week and buy you an ice cream....

[Ban Hammer 13,348]

I haven't even put forth the effort to try to make friends with people. I've given up; I'm whipped.

I'll take you for a row on the Ouse next week and buy you an ice cream....

since she already stated she has great dislike for you, do you really expect her to take you up on this?

and does your wife know you're trying to arrange this?

[Captain Oates 911]

I haven't even put forth the effort to try to make friends with people. I've given up; I'm whipped.

I'll take you for a row on the Ouse next week and buy you an ice cream....

since she already stated she has great dislike for you, do you really expect her to take you up on this?

and does your wife know you're trying to arrange this?

oh Charles - it is a ladies prerogative to change her mind...and her great dislike for me is yet young...you know that...and you know I jest sometimes too don't you ?

Actually, another of my wife's fine attributes is that she isn't jealous - I found out that a regular VJ contact in Milwaukee lived within 3 miles of us there - I met up with her at mcdonalds with her kiddy and we are still in touch 2 years later ... i hope her and her husband will come and see us in Florida

VJ isn't a dating site you know and I am newly married - so I wasn't suggesting anything improper...

haha ! I would have gone though - just to get you bent over your keyboards for the feedback !

[Fandango 1,439]

um what's a hen do? and if you say peck at the ground i'll you

She will tell you but if you ever went on a Geordie hen do you would never forget it.... never been on one myself but I have seen em

I know your going to say what's a Geordie ? hard to describe - but reading a description won't do

A bit like reading about the finest afghan curry - it gets you 1% of the way to understanding it...

tut tut, I lived in Mackem territory, not Geordieland, no

Any Mackem or Geordie would also agree

It'll still be a blinder, mind you.

Edited May 23, 2007 by LisaD

[Captain Oates 911]

um what's a hen do? and if you say peck at the ground i'll you

She will tell you but if you ever went on a Geordie hen do you would never forget it.... never been on one myself but I have seen em

I know your going to say what's a Geordie ? hard to describe - but reading a description won't do

A bit like reading about the finest afghan curry - it gets you 1% of the way to understanding it...

tut tut, I lived in Mackem territory, not Geordieland, no

Any Mackem or Geordie would also agree

It'll still be a blinder, mind you.

Sunlan' !!!!! I can do that accent - the yorkshire ripper hoax tapes were in that accent

You should hear me do 'I'm Jack !'

[Ban Hammer 13,348]

I haven't even put forth the effort to try to make friends with people. I've given up; I'm whipped.

I'll take you for a row on the Ouse next week and buy you an ice cream....

since she already stated she has great dislike for you, do you really expect her to take you up on this?

and does your wife know you're trying to arrange this?

oh Charles - it is a ladies prerogative to change her mind...and her great dislike for me is yet young...you know that...and you know I jest sometimes too don't you ?

Actually, another of my wife's fine attributes is that she isn't jealous - I found out that a regular VJ contact in Milwaukee lived within 3 miles of us there - I met up with her at mcdonalds with her kiddy and we are still in touch 2 years later ... i hope her and her husband will come and see us in Florida

VJ isn't a dating site you know and I am newly married - so I wasn't suggesting anything improper...

haha ! I would have gone though - just to get you bent over your keyboards for the feedback !

methinks the chance of the above happening is as likely as a snowball in hades

[Captain Oates 911]

um what's a hen do? and if you say peck at the ground i'll you

She will tell you but if you ever went on a Geordie hen do you would never forget it.... never been on one myself but I have seen em

I know your going to say what's a Geordie ? hard to describe - but reading a description won't do

A bit like reading about the finest afghan curry - it gets you 1% of the way to understanding it...

tut tut, I lived in Mackem territory, not Geordieland, no

Any Mackem or Geordie would also agree

It'll still be a blinder, mind you.

It'll be Whitley bay then - that's where all the hen parties go - all the single /divorced guys from as far south as yorkshire go there for the spare totty who are whoopin it up with what we used to call 'gay abandon'

guess we can't call it that now...

Never went myself so they probably came back empty handed as you might say - trying to figure what 'annawayanshyte' meant

[Captain Oates 911]

methinks the chance of the above happening is as likely as a snowball in hades

I agree - my ice cream money is safe - I will spend it on a decent pint while I can

[john_and_marlene 162]

Where can I get my brains washed, I need to fit in

Admitting you have a problem is the first step toward recovery.

[Captain Oates 911]

Where can I get my brains washed, I need to fit in

Admitting you have a problem is the first step toward recovery.

I totally agree and I have found the answer ....thanks to all the willing contributors, I know exactly how to handle the situation now and I feel much more at ease now that all the data is collected.....

Information is the currency of power and knowing what is in the water around you is the first step to safe swimming

[Fandango 1,439]

I made my home in a very small village in the NE UK and I gotta say my experience was the complete opposite from HA's. I found a warmth and acceptance unlike I've ever known. I seriously regard many as 'my family' because they are such wonderful and good hearted people & we really built a closenes. I can call my local now and they will literally pass the phone around the whole place to say hello....and the first question I always get is 'when you comin back damnit?'

My gfs there have already planned a hen do and we don't even kno at this point whether or not I'll be able to go back before we get married.

Honestly, if it weren't for my family, I would have moved there in a heartbeat.

It is weird how we lived relatively close to each other but had such different experiences.

There ARE people in York who are nice to me; the people I worked with were, for the most part, very nice...but for me the negatives outweigh the positives and though people here can be superficially friendly, I've found it almost impossible to make friends here. Most of my friends in the UK have been fellow foreigners, and for the last couple of years I haven't even put forth the effort to try to make friends with people. I've given up; I'm whipped.

I've actually thought that to myself many times when I have read some of your posts.

The ironic thing is that I'm SOOOOOOOOOO not a 'small village' girl. I'm big city all the way, and one would think it'd have been an atrocious adjustment. And another funny thing is that D & I moved there together...he's not from there as he's from the city of Sunderland. So it was not like I went into an already exisiting life of his there...the day we moved into the new house, he went to the corner shop to buy bread...the elderly woman behind the counter asked him 'so how are you and your american girlfriend finding things here?' lol, we'd been there 2 hours.

I'm sure that initially part of it was novelty & curiosity...but once that wore off, real friendships were made. I was never seen as 'the American' although I used to tease everyone once Lil Brit came on that I WAS the only American in the village. And these people were not some back woods, small town small minded idiots....we had many a discussion about the war, republicans, tories/labor, etc. One thing that pisses me off is the stereotype of the people in the NE as northern monkeys. anyways... I am pretty much a conservative, although not exclusively 'down party lines' either, and this was a previous coal mining village, so it was no easy feat to talk about politics. But everyone was respectful and accepting, and really quite fantastic. No one held me to be responsible for everything that America did, and they all saw me as Lisa...not some token American to scoff at.

i'm really a bit emotional today, lol. I got my wedding dress and I'm really excited thinking about where we've been and whatnot...and one of the first things I did was call some of my friends there to go crazy on the phone with. I miss them so much, and wish they lived closer. The funny thing is, I'm not even a local where I'm at now...I grew up down in S fla most of my life. After moving away, my friends down south and I did keep in touch, but a few years later, the calls stopped on both sides. It was kind of awkward cos I was not there, and the conversations eventually ran dry. But that isn't the case with the friends I made in the UK. The bonds there feel more 'real', less superficial. More of the 'you can call me at 3 am and ask for a favor cos we're marras and always will be'.

The only small consolation is that once D and I get on our feet here and settled, we're going to make arrangements to possibly buy another home there (we already sold ours) so that we can always go 'home'!

[Fandango 1,439]

um what's a hen do? and if you say peck at the ground i'll you

She will tell you but if you ever went on a Geordie hen do you would never forget it.... never been on one myself but I have seen em

I know your going to say what's a Geordie ? hard to describe - but reading a description won't do

A bit like reading about the finest afghan curry - it gets you 1% of the way to understanding it...

tut tut, I lived in Mackem territory, not Geordieland, no

Any Mackem or Geordie would also agree

It'll still be a blinder, mind you.

It'll be Whitley bay then - that's where all the hen parties go - all the single /divorced guys from as far south as yorkshire go there for the spare totty who are whoopin it up with what we used to call 'gay abandon'

guess we can't call it that now...

Never went myself so they probably came back empty handed as you might say - trying to figure what 'annawayanshyte' meant

Sunlun, why aye marra!

lol haddaway n shite

the pityakkers of my village were the ones who gave me the most trouble.

GAN YEM!

meanwhile, it took me about a month or so screaming at everyone telling them MY NAME'S NOT BONNIE to figure out that they knew that already, lol

Edited May 23, 2007 by LisaD

[Rubycon 0]

There ARE people in York who are nice to me; the people I worked with were, for the most part, very nice...but for me the negatives outweigh the positives and though people here can be superficially friendly, I've found it almost impossible to make friends here. Most of my friends in the UK have been fellow foreigners, and for the last couple of years I haven't even put forth the effort to try to make friends with people.

I have to say that I'm a little saddened by this. As a resident of York for four years, I'd like to think it was a pretty friendly place - friendlier than some parts of the Yorkshire Dales! In fact, if I was to consider anywhere my home, it would probably be York. To be fair, most of my friends were from the university. Perhaps the very fact that such a proportion of York residents ARE students makes it a little more cosmopolitan, and hopefully a little less forbidding to "outsiders".

That said, some of the "locals" could be pretty hostile to students. But the students usually asked for it. I always considered myself a little above this, however, as I was born and brought up in Yorkshire...

Its been said before - everyone's experience is different.

[Captain Oates 911]

um what's a hen do? and if you say peck at the ground i'll you

She will tell you but if you ever went on a Geordie hen do you would never forget it.... never been on one myself but I have seen em

I know your going to say what's a Geordie ? hard to describe - but reading a description won't do

A bit like reading about the finest afghan curry - it gets you 1% of the way to understanding it...

tut tut, I lived in Mackem territory, not Geordieland, no

Any Mackem or Geordie would also agree

It'll still be a blinder, mind you.

It'll be Whitley bay then - that's where all the hen parties go - all the single /divorced guys from as far south as yorkshire go there for the spare totty who are whoopin it up with what we used to call 'gay abandon'

guess we can't call it that now...

Never went myself so they probably came back empty handed as you might say - trying to figure what 'annawayanshyte' meant

Sunlun, why aye marra!

lol haddaway n shite

the pityakkers of my village were the ones who gave me the most trouble.

GAN YEM!

meanwhile, it took me about a month or so screaming at everyone telling them MY NAME'S NOT BONNIE to figure out that they knew that already, lol

yal be losin' em noo lass !

My German teacher asked me what 'taluv' meant - she got it every day and had looked it up in the dictionary..

I told her it was a Viking hangover as modern Danish is tak for thankyou and love means love which is what you get called all day as you know...

I bet you got 'chucky' a lot too -

Yes I can understand people being a bit wary when confronted by the descendants of the vikings - we do tend to crash onto the beach without asking still...

and 'gang ta liggadoon' of course is 'gone to lay her down' (modern german liegen ) to lay down

oh dear I can't imagine the sticking power it must have taken for an American to grapple with that lot

you did very well

Germans fit in very easily in Yorkshire because the hard language is very close to theirs.

I met a german lady lady in Bradford and she turned to her husband at closing time and said

and said .........'eyup stir thysen - look sharp'

it was hilarious...

[homesick_american 1]

I know it's wrong to say, but also having a non-accent helps. Working in radio, I have a fairly professional speaking manner, devoid of any sort of accent or poor mannerisms (no ain't, no ya'll, no y'uns), and I think that helps people to not pre-judge you when the first meet you. I know it's wrong for them to do so, but it doesn't stop them.

Anyway, my penny's worth!

So...saying 'y'all' is a poor mannerism?