Monday was our fourth anniversary of being in the States. As it is now Wednesday you can tell I forgot! I did actually realize it yesterday but I ended up working until 8.30pm last night on a very weird networking issue so didn’t have time to celebrate or anything.
I was back in the UK for 5 days over Easter to attend the funeral of my Uncle which was a sad occasion, but it was nice to meet up with other family members and some relatives I’d only met a couple of times.
People often ask me if England is much different to Ohio and normally I would have said no, but having been back I would have to say it is fairly different. When Kristen’s parents came over to the uk when we were living there, they would often remark how narrow the roads are, how green everything is, people’s accents are so amazing and does it always rain this much? My observation whilst I was back was how narrow the roads are, how green everything is, people’s accents are so strong and I wish it would stop raining! Actually that last bit was not strictly true as the weather wasn’t too bad – it rained heavily on the day we drove back from Croydon to Chesterfield – a 180 mile journey that took 6 hours – NOT fun – but the rest of the week was pretty good with just a few scattered showers.
I was pretty amazed at the strong accents I heard whilst I was there – although I was in Chesterfield there were a lot of people around with strong yorkshire accents but it was so different to hear all these different accents that I would have normally not paid any attention too. I still get comments about my accent over here in the States and still get asked to record people’s voicemail messages and to “just say something” to people when I’m introduced to them.