My favorite thing is that Europe is spooky because it’s old and America is spooky because it’s big
“The difference between America and England is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, while the English think 100 miles is a long way.” –Earle Hitchner
A fave of mine was always the american tales where people freaked out because ‘someone died in this house’ and all the europeans would go ‘…Yes? That would be pretty much every house over 40 years old.’
‘…My school is older than your entire town.’
‘Sorry, you think *how far* is okay to travel for a shopping trip?’
*American looks up at the beams in a country pub* ‘Uh, this place has woodworm, isn’t that a bit unsafe?’ ‘Eh, the woodworm’s 400 years old, it’s holding those beams together.’
A few years ago when I was in college I did a summer program at Cambridge aimed specifically at Americans and Canadians, and my year it was all Americans and one Australian. We ended the program with a week in Wessex, and on the last day as we all piled onto the bus in Salisbury (or Bath? I can’t remember), the professors went to the front to warn us that we wouldn’t be making any stops unless absolutely necessary. We’re headed to Heathrow to drop off anyone flying off the same day, then back to Cambridge.
“All right, it’s going to be a long bus ride, so make sure you’re prepared for that.”
We all brace ourselves. A long bus ride? How long? We’re Americans; a long bus ride for us is a minimum of six hours with the double digits perfectly plausible. We can handle a twelve hour bus ride as long as we get a bathroom break.
The answer. “Two hours.”
Oh.
English people trying to travel around Australia and wildly underestimating distance are my favourite thing
a tour guide in France told my school group that a particular cathedral wouldn’t interest us much because “it’s not very old; only from the early 1600s”
to which we had to respond that it was still older than the oldest surviving European-style buildings in our country
China is both old and big. I had some Chinese colleagues over; we were discussing whether they wanted to see the Vasa ship (hugely expensive war ship which sank on it’s maiden voyage after 12 min). They asked if it was old, I said “not THAT old” (bearing in mind they were Chinese) “it’s from the 1500s.” To my surprise they still looked impressed, nodding enthusiatically. Then I realised I’d forgotten something: “…I mean it’s from the 1500s AFTER the birth of Christ” and they went “oh, AFTER…”.
My dad’s favorite quote from various tours in Italy was “Pay no attention to the tower – it was a [scornful tone]
tenth century addition.”
My last boss was Chinese, and she said when her parents came to visit her from Beijing they pronounced Chicago “A very nice village.”
This post keeps getting better
European problems include:
- Missing a turn and now you need to cross the border;
- Towns built 500 to 800 years ago with really small roads where cars can barely fit;
- That road/parking lot/etc they were building is gonna take twice the time to finish because they found Roman ruins AGAIN!
European problems extended:
WW2 bombs.
I love this post but also hate it because people never acknowledge the structures of native and indigenous people in America and Canada. We literally have pyramids here in Illinois that are thousands of years old.
There is stuff here from the Aztecs, but since it wasn’t made by settlers people think that America is only as old as when Europeans came over.
The population that got wiped out and displaced by Europeans is still here and needs to be acknowledged. America and Canada aren’t “young” and have more history than most ppl acknowledge.
RT only for the last post.
[Image description: headlines of WWII bombs either exploding unexpectedly in European towns and cities or being found during road works. /ID]
I went walking on some public footpaths in England and everyone was like “oh this one was a Roman roads, these are so ancient!” and I ended up cranky because there are ancient or at least hundred of year old roads in the Americas, we just don’t pay attention to them because Colonization.
To be clear - I don’t have any issue with OP’s statement (or even any of the reblogs). Im just cranky at the US educational system. And boomers, a little.
Where do you think the oldest shoes in the world are? China? Greece? Iraq?
they’re from Oregon:
Catalog #1-33612 and #1-31699 Sagebrush Sandals: Fort Rock Cave, Oregon, ca. 10,000 years old
I feel like practicing any skill would be way more fun if I could have a lil level increase thing that pops up in front of me every time I do good like in Skyrim
“Push ups increased to level 5”
“Writing dialogue increased to level 37”
“Coping mechanisms (healthy) increased to level 18”
Dolly Parton once lost a Dolly Parton look alike contest to a fucking drag queen.
Charlie Chaplin once failed to even place at a Charlie Chaplin impersonator contest.
Hugh Jackman went to comic con as Wolverine, only 2 people noticed him and one told him he was too tall.
Christopher
Reeve use to go to a restaurant in costume when filming Superman. When
he went in the Superman costume he was mobbed by people all the time.
When he went in the Clark Kent costume no one realized he was
Christopher Reeve.
Hey quick question sighted people- What is this “blank look” that blind people have? I’ve never seen it in person myself and every time I read a character realizing another character is blind based on “the blank look in their eyes” I just sigh.
Eyes are rarely blank. If ever. Even someone with zero eyesight doesn’t have blank eyes. Like look at Molly Burke, she only sees light and shadow but her eyes are just as full of emotion as a sighted person’s. Granted, she had 14 years of some vision (though never sighted) and took acting classes, which helps her seem more sighted than she is, so…
What about someone who is born blind and has no idea of what “normal facial expression is”? Well, also not true. Blind babies still know how to smile and show all six of the basic universal facial expressions. It’s innate, instinctual. And maybe their eyes don’t focus on something specific, but I couldn’t describe it as blank. It’s not blank.
What about blind people who have obvious, visible problems with their eyes. Like eyes that are cloudy or misshapen or point in separate directions. I mean, those people are more obviously blind, but saying their gaze is blank is kind of weird, kind of insulting.
And I’m sorry, but sighted people aren’t really observant enough to just “realize a stranger is blind by the way they act and move” like, that doesn’t happen. I have people look at my cane and sunglasses and not realize that means I’m blind, or people who have been told I’m blind but regularly forget because I don’t seem blind.
Blindness is a visible disability, but it’s also equally invisible. Take away my cane and my sunglasses, put me in a room full of strangers with average lighting, and let’s count down how long it takes people to realize I’m blind, even with hinting and obvious self deprecating blind jokes.
Anyway, I’m sorry. I know “she realized the boy was blind by the blank look in his eye” doesn’t fly because eyes can’t be blank. Sorry, you either got to have someone mention the character is blind (preferably having the blind character introduce themselves and talk like a normal person) or you’re just gonna have to deal with the fact your character can’t tell a sighted person and a blind person apart.
I mean, does your character have the cane? Or a guide dog? I hope that’s sufficient to tell your character that person’s blind, but if they really need to lean into the blind person’s personal space and thoroughly examine that so called blank look in their eye, by all means, go ahead *sarcasm*
Yes we need more chaste twee baby gay romances like heartstopper and yes we also need more shows where men fuck raw to express their love for one another like Élite and yes we need more toxic gays having hate sex like Interview with the Vampire and yes we need more incidental gay characters like the dads in cartoons like Owl House.
It’s not a competition! It’s a hoard and I’m like a gay little Smaug.
the normalization of porn in mainstream media is a weird take to have
Normalization of gay desire and yes, even gay sex, is paramount to gay liberation actually.
