Criticism

I found myself making small talk with a couple of Northern Irish and Germans yesterday amidst the project. What is surprising is that I found myself more critical of the United States than I usually am. Was I providing accurate criticism of my home country from a different viewpoint than them? Or, was I trying to "fit-in" by presenting criticisms that I thought they would agree with? Probably a little of both. My question to myself is: why?

I've found that the general stereotype of Americans (amongst Europeans that I work with) pictures us as ignorant, arrogant, and bullish. That is: we don't know much about the world outside the United States, yet we believe our culture is the greatest in the world, and we try to impose it upon others. I first recognized where this stereotype when I overheard an American wondering about why, when an Irish colleague called in sick, he kept explaining that he had a doctor's certification. The American colleague's response was "What? Is he afraid somebody might think he's faking it?" The truth is, getting a doctor's note is common practice here, regardless of the number of days you're off. Instead of mocking his Irish colleague, he might have been better served to understand the culture before making a joke about it. (Though a good jibe IS part of the culture over here, perhaps that was just a bad attempt at humor).


I've always been one to try to understand people. To do so, I'll often try to build repoire by trying to find something in common with others. When you're standing amongst a group of Northern Irish and Germans, there isn't much that you can find in the way of common ground for people to talk about. Once you get past the weather reports, you have to reach for something. I'd like to think that my mockery of our country's media and of our education system was just a way creating subjects for a diverse crowd of people to talk about.

Being a very talkative folk (another stereotype), the Northern Irish volunteered their own stereotypes (car bombs and civil unrest - yikes!) and the Germans remained silent and granite-faced (yet another stereotype). Though I know the Northern Irish can become just as granite-faced as the Germans and the Germans can be just as talkative as the Northern Irish.

So, I guess that I've answered my question. I was trying to get people to open up and talk. If I was overly critical of my home country, I apologize. I didn't really mean it. I was just trying to find common ground for some Germans and Northern Irish (who had never met) to talk about.

Pancake Tuesday!

It's Pancake Tuesday, get out your griddles!

Today, I was sitting in the conference room working away. Around three o'clock one of the administrators from our Project Management Office stuck his head in the door and announced that there were pancakes out in the coffee area. Eyes lit up around the room, except for mine. My brows drew together in confusion. One of the ladies I work with announce to me that it's "Pancake Tuesday!" What?

Sure enough, we got up and went to the coffee area and there's a mess of pancakes in the catering pans. A line forms and people start grabbing pancakes and muffins.

How freakin' bizarre! Nothing better for an afternoon snack than pancakes, eh?

Well, upon further investigation, I discover that this is an Irish (and British) custom associated with Shrove Tuesday. The idea is that you use up all of your milk, eggs, and sugar before the fasting of Lent begins. What can you do with milk, eggs, and sugar? Make pancakes, of course!

Happy Pancake Day!

That's My Bag, Baby!

One of the oddest things I've run into over here is that most stores don't give you bags for your merchandise. I'm not talking about the tourist trap stores down at City Centre - they put your bags in bags; I'm talking about the grocery stores and supermarkets.

I first ran into this oddity last October when I decided to do a little Irish grocery shopping at Tesco. I bought some stain remover (I had a propensity at the time for spilling Guinness on my nice white dress shirts), a bag of chips, and a 2 liter of Coke. I was the clerk's last customer just before she went on break.

So I payed her, she gave me my change, then walked away. This left me staring at the bag boy who was doing absolutely nothing.

"You gonna bag that?" I say.

"You have to buy bags."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"How much?"

"Twenty-two cents."

Luckily he managed to get clerk back to the register before she disappeared back into the break room and I payed twenty two cents for one bag. Lesson learned.

Tuesday night, to outfit my apartment with some essentials, I went down to IKEA. I needed things like pillows and silverware. Going through IKEA, I got some great bargains, but I restricted myself just to the essentials. You see, I had a pretty long walk back to my apartment and I didn't want to burden myself down. So I gathered only what I could carry in one of the big IKEA bags.

IKEA sells you the same size bag (huge) for fifty cents at the checkouts. Compared to twenty-two cents for a standard plastic bag, it's a steal! I payed and walked home with two new pillows, a 32-piece (8 settings) utensil set, a bath mat, four hand towels and a big blue IKEA bag for just under 25 Euro (about $32).

When I got home, I knew that this bag needed to be saved. If I ended up at Tesco again, I'd need something to carry my groceries in. I neatly folded the bag up and stowed it in a kitchen drawer.

Last night, it was time to go shopping. I needed internet access, food, and a quilt/comforter (it got pretty cold in the bedroom with only a set of sheets on the bed). I went to the kitchen drawer and pulled out my magnificent blue IKEA bag, stuck it under my arm and headed downtown.

As you can see, I didn't quite fill it, but it was great for toting my groceries back home in.