So that is a mistake that I have made again with a group of American friends not
realizing when we first moved here waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting,
being like, oh, my God, the service is so slow here.
I know stupid Americans, seriously.
Hey, guys, welcome back to the Girl Gone London channel.
If you're new here, my name is Kalyn. I'm an American.
I've lived in the UK for almost 10 years.
And today I am letting you laugh at my embarrassing moments in the UK.
OK, so I'm someone who strongly believes in laughing at yourself.
I like to think I don't take myself too seriously.
And also you can't when you live in a foreign country because there are
always going to be mistakes that you make and faux pause and just stupid things you
do that you have to just laugh at, because otherwise you would spend a lot
of time adjusting here, being very, very uncomfortable.
I feel like no matter where you move to,
whether it was a Brit who moved to the US or an American who moved to the UK or
someone who moves to any country in the world, there's always going to be
some sort of cultural mistake that you make.
I do not care.
All the people who comment things like you should have done your research before you
move to the UK because then you would have known every single thing about it
and nothing would be new and you wouldn't make any mistakes.
It's not realistic.
There's a lot that goes into moving to a new country from visas to figuring
out like housing and how that works to basic language differences.
Even in the UK versus the US, there's just a lot to unpack.
So making mistakes and figuring things out because you looked stupid and did
the wrong thing is just part of what we sign up for.
Now, if you like watching videos about
life in the UK as an American, definitely make sure to hit subscribe.
I feel like I see this kind of in a lot of videos now and it means nothing.
But basically it really helps me out.
It helps you be notified that videos are available.
And who wouldn't want to spend your time watching me in my room?
Talk about the UK versus the US.
Also, bonus points.
If you're a British person watching this
and are interested in life in the US, my visa is supposed to come back very
soon, which means that I will be on my way to the U.S. and not that long.
And I promise I will show you the grocery
store aisles, I'll show you the drive thru ATMs.
I'll show you all the weird and wonderful things that happen in America.
So make sure to subscribe for that content later on.
OK, let's get on to the list.
So I need a list of the embarrassing moments, mistakes I've made in the UK as
basically an ignorant American who wasn't aware of the culture.
So let's begin.
No one waiting to be served at a pub.
We don't have pubs in the US, obviously they're very British thing.
And obviously we might have like an Irish pub, they call it, or whatever.
But we are more familiar with what happens
in a restaurant where a waiter or waitress comes over to serve you and you sit down
the idea in a pub that looks to us like a restaurant, a lot of them.
But the fact that you need to go up and make your own order is often lost
on us, particularly when I first moved here about ten years ago.
I have definitely been in that group of American students.
Again, I was like 19, so let me off the hook a little bit.
But I we were waiting at a pub for someone to come and take our orders.
Spoiler alert. That's not how it happens.
Absolutely not how it happens.
You need to in a pub,
go up with your order and tell them you're table number if there is a table number.
Otherwise they're kind of just like clock where you are and bring your food to you.
But if you sit there waiting, nothing will happen.
Besides, people will think that you're stupid or as what happened to us.
I believe after a long, long, long period of time,
I think someone realized that we were Americans and had no idea what was going
on and did actually come over to tell us what to do.
So maybe you'll get lucky, but you should know that just in case
the next mistake I've made is waiting for someone to bring me the bill or check,
as we would say, in the US at the end of the meal.
So I'll do a whole video about eating out in the UK versus the US.
But in the UK, the waiter or waitress is
not constantly coming around checking on you.
I mean, they are coming to check on you,
but not to the extent that they do in the US.
And more importantly, they don't give you the bill until you ask for it.
In the US, they practically bring it with your food half the time.
And this is just our culture in the States.
That's how we're used to it working.
And you know that you pay when you're finished.
But in the UK, they're not going to bring
your bill or your check until you ask and are ready for it.
You could sit there all night and they just basically think that you're chatting
and that you want to be there and you're not ready for the bill yet.
So if you want the bill brought to you, you need to ask for it.
So that is a mistake that I have made again with a group of American friends not
realizing when we first moved here waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting,
being like, oh, my God, the service is so slow here.
I know stupid Americans seriously
and completely missing the idea that service is very different in the UK
and that you do need to ask to basically finish your meal and pay the bill.
And they are not rushing you out the door like they often do in the US.
OK, the next embarrassing moment I've had
in the UK was responding to somebody who asked me or who said to me,
you alright with basically what was wrong with me at the time?
So the phrase all right or you all right,
which I know probably sounds weird coming from me.
It sounds much better coming from a British person,
but it's essentially a phrase that means what's up?
How are you?
There is no actual feedback required on how you actually are.
It's a greeting.
However, we don't have this greeting in the US.
And so it sounds to us like someone is saying, are you OK?
Something looks wrong with you.
So the phrase like, are you all right in the US is a very like caring thing.
It is kind of sensing that something is
not OK, probably emotionally, or it could be like physically
with someone if they fall in or something and saying, are you all right?
Does not mean the same thing here.
So I was feeling, I think probably like
home sick or maybe it was the winter and I wasn't happy about it.
And I was feeling I'm pretty sure I shared
my actual feelings with some poor person who asked me if I was all right.
And that's not the answer they expected.
So definitely make sure that if you do
move here from somewhere else, you get familiar that the phrase.
All right, as a question or you all right.
Basically just means what's up?
Please respond in a noncommittal, non emotional way.
Oh, hello. That I can't believe I just did that.
OK, today's question is, if you could live in any country
in the world, which country would you live in and why?
And I mean, like finances and your real life situation.
Don't think about those. Just think about which country not would
you like to visit, but which country would you like to move to so that you can
experience these embarrassing expat moments for yourself.
Comment below and let me know.
Interested to hear what people think.
Would you go to the US?
Would you go to Europe? Would you go to Australia? Would you go to South Korea?
Where in the world would you like to try and live?
OK. Back to my embarrassing moments, OK?
The next embarrassing mistake I've made in the UK is missing my stop because I
didn't realize that I had to press the button on a train to open the door.
And again, you guys are going to be like,
who is this girl and why do I watch her YouTube videos?
She is clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed.
Hear me out in London.
You don't have to press the button on the tube for the doors to open.
In fact, you look a little bit stupid.
The buttons will press in, but it doesn't change anything.
So I have gotten used to taking the tube
in London and things just happened automatically.
I took a train further outside of London and that's not always how the trains work.
So they will light up
and then you have to press the button to open or release the door.
And I was so panicky about why the door wasn't opening automatically,
as if the door was stuck instead of me being the one who needed to open the door.
So I missed my stop and had to go back at the next stop and retrace my steps.
Very stupid.
But it's just something that, you know, every city is going to be different.
But if you're used to somewhere else where it does happen automatically or you're
used to London, know that outside of London,
a lot of trains are not going to open automatically.
You got to press that button if you want to get off at the next stop, OK?
The next mistake I've made is ordering
still water when I want to tap water, but didn't realize that I needed
to actually say tap water to order tap water.
Now, in the U.S., I didn't realize that we had so many different types of water.
I feel like I feel like when we order water,
we usually just get tap water at a restaurant.
A lot of times, maybe not in a fancier place, but I'm not that fancy.
So and the places that I went and that I
go, we would just order water and it would usually be like tap water.
Here you've got tap water, which is the free water
which came out of like a hose in the back, or you have still versus sparkling water.
And still water is basically regular water in like a glass jug or something.
And sparkling water is like kind of fizzy ish water.
So when a waiter or waitress comes to at the table and says,
do you want still if you order water and they say, do you want still or sparkling?
My first reaction was, well, I don't want to start sparkling.
So I guess still is the other option.
But no, there's a third option, you should say.
Oh, actually, can I just have tap water?
And that is basically the I am cheap and want free water.
They don't always offer that to you, depending on how fancy you are,
you sometimes have to be the one to actually ask for it.
So I ended up paying for it and getting
Stillwater instead of the free tap water that I wanted.
OK, the next mistake I've made is looking the wrong way on the street.
Now, this is very much due to in the States.
We drive on the opposite side of the road in London in particular,
knowing how many international visitors there are, they often have signs
on the street that say, look left or look right to help you out,
which I think is really useful and really helpful.
But still, if you go on autopilot,
it's very easy to look in the wrong direction to see if cars are coming step
out and you've put yourself in actually pretty dangerous situation.
So the best rule of thumb, if you're not used to driving or having
the traffic flow be on the other side of the road, you should always look
three ways. You should look left,
right and left again or right, left, right again. Which way does it go?
And just look all the ways,
look as many times as possible, back and forth,
back and forth until you're sure no cars are coming from either direction.
Don't go off your gut.
That tells you which way to look,
because especially if you've just moved here, it's going to be wrong.
So the next mistake I've made in the UK as
an American is going to the wrong floor of a building.
So in the UK, the floors of a building
start with the ground floor, and that is floor number zero.
That is the ground floor and floor number one starts the next one up.
So the first floor of a building is not
the floor that opens to the street in the US.
We start with one as basically the ground.
What is the ground floor here?
The one that opens to the street.
So when people give you instructions on,
oh, yes, you can go up to the fourth floor,
your employer is ready to interview you now, and you end up on the completely
wrong floor of searching and searching and searching for the office.
That doesn't exist because you're
on the wrong floor, but you don't realize you're on the wrong floor because, again,
you are an American who's just moved here and clearly has not watched enough British
television or YouTube videos to figure out what the situation is.
It's very embarrassing. Don't do that.
Make sure you keep in your mind
that the ground floor of the UK is the first one and no one does not get
labeled until you go one up from the floor that opens to the street.
OK, the next mistake I've made is a pretty
funny one that has to do with language and accents.
So depending on where you live,
you might be familiar with something called Spart,
which in my accent sounds funny to me because everyone around me says Spart.
It's basically like a convenience store, like a tiny grocery store.
We have them in our like in villages around us.
And for the longest time,
people would say, oh, we should go to the Spar shop or oh,
can you pick up some cheese from the Spar shop?
And in or maybe they didn't say spar shop.
They just said, like from Spart.
And in my head I'm like, I don't understand why.
First of all, that's kind of an odd store to have.
But OK, maybe they sell like,
I don't know, like bath soaps and things like that.
And then people were like, oh, can you get some cheese?
And I was like, this makes no sense to me.
British people are very strange.
Why are we buying cheese in a shop for the spas or in a spa itself?
Turns out it's spelled S.P.C.A..
Ah, I would call it Spart.
They call it with their accents.
It sounds to my ears like Spart.
So that was something for the longest time
that I was like, I don't understand the spa shop.
And they basically just meant this spart little convenience store.
Finally it clicked, but it was one of those pretty funny
moments of me realizing a based on accents that I was hearing something completely
different than to what they were trying to say.
And the last mistake that I've made in the UK is not understanding British
humor, particularly in British humor when they insult you.
And then it's supposed to be a joke,
but you take it as an insult because it sounds like they said something really
mean about you and that's not what they meant.
I feel like I do have a much better grasp of British humor now,
but it's still something that's very difficult to adjust to as an American.
A good rule of thumb is a British person
is often not going to insult you to your face.
They're going to insult you behind your back and talk about you to everyone
in the village or the extended family or just kind of to their significant other.
They're not going to tell you to your face usually
that you are stupid, that they hate you.
They're just going to, like, smile and pretend that they like you.
So if they do insult you, it's probably a joke.
Probably it's just part of the culture
oftentimes of like taking the mickey or this kind of.
Like banter, they just often will insult as a means
of humor and funnily enough, of showing that they actually do like you.
So if you are an American moving to the UK or living here, definitely trying like
read the room, does this person have a reason to hate you?
Again, if they do hate you, they're probably going to pretend to your
face that they like you because hating someone openly to your face is far too
much confrontation for most British people I've met.
So if you're insulted, usually take it as a joke.
That's just part of the humor.
So I made that mistake.
A lot of thinking that people were saying
really mean things about me and I didn't understand.
And my feelings were hurt until I kind of realized that it was part of the humor
and just the way, weirdly enough, that they can show affection.