Scattered Strawberry Summer

I do like to share my observations about life in UK, since I often go to Germany I thought I'd share some of my observations 

• Germans do not queue. I know most of European countries are like that, but Germans as well? It took me by surprise, perfect queuing would go so well with other characteristics of a stereotypical German.  
• They love their meat and they don't seem to label vegetarian food. It would be hard for me to live there.
• Germans don’t jay-walk. Ever. 
• they have one of the highest recycling rates. 
• It does help that for all the plastic bottles you have to pay  a deposit upfront which you get then you return it to the shop. It's not uncommon to see people collecting the bottles from the bins and public spaces. 
• They love their bank holidays and they take them seriously. Pretty much everything is closed unlike in UK or Lithuania. Couple this with Sundays when everything is closed, you could be without food for days. 
• They enjoy their shows and films dubbed. Imagine never hearing real voice of Benedict Cumberbatch. I prefer the Scandinavian way of subtitling all the foreign films.
• No one does a compound word like the Germans

This post is somewhat prompted by recent Euro parliament elections. There was a lot of talk about UKIP in the media before elections and I had a very pleasant encounter with a UKIP supporter too.

A large percentage of the British population can’t stand foreigners. It’s all over the media and sometimes the way you’re treated changes as soon as they  spot your foreign accent. Last year before UK had to open the borders to Romania and Bulgaria every single day BBC breakfast and news  were talking about the upcoming  influx of immigrants. It seemed there was a report on it every single day. I'm afraid it felt rather xenophobic and it was unpleasant to watch the whole Romanian bashing on TV every day for a few weeks.

I don't get involved in  about immigration arguments, but sometimes I'd really like to suggest people to watch BBC documentary "The Day Immigrants Left" and consider the fact that: Immigrants to the UK in the last decade contributed £25 billion - more in tax than they received in benefits - and were less likely to claim handouts or live in social housing than people already living in Britain, a report has found.
 source
But there is also  a bit of double think- British are proud of their multicultural society and want to be known as a very tolerant country yet they want to close their borders and keep foreigners out.

Fortunately, most people I encounter are very nice and do not show xenophobic views, I love living in UK and I now consider it my home.

To end this post on a more positive note, I include some immigrant related funny and/or insightful British problems from reddit:

Two women in my toddler playgroup who live entirely on benefits and are not seeking work were complaining loudly about immigrants coming over and being "first in line for jobs."

My dad just complained about immigrants. We're immigrants.

My uncle constantly complains about immigrants, yet has plans to permanently move to Spain

I felt compelled to politely nod along to the car mechanic moaning about immigrants, despite being a Swedish immigrant getting my Volvo serviced.

According to numerous Facebook posts, illegal immigrants get put up in the Grosvenor Hotel and bathe in champagne, but if a British person loses their job, they are executed with a single bullet to the back of the head and have to pay for their own bullet. 

My aunt immigrated to Spain. She still complains about immigrants in the UK taking benefits and not integrating with the local culture.

Man in front of me in a queue was talking so vehemently about the exams, contributions and value immigrants should have to show before they 'earn' a British passport I'm beginning to feel like an underachiever for getting mine simply from being born

Being an immigrant is quite interesting. You don't fit neither in your adopted nor your home country. You experience cultural differences everyday and often you're viewed as a bit weird because you do things a bit differently.

I will share my own experience which is obviously very subjective, influence by my own cultural background and it might be a very different experience from that of other immigrants.

My first topic is tea.  British have a reputation of being a bit obsessed about tea. Lithuanians do like tea too, you can find so many varieties, though a lot of British people would probably insist to call  some of  them infusions rather than tea. But we Lithuanians just called all of them tea. The weirdest thing British people do is adding milk to their tea. I had tea with milk willingly just once, I thought I'd try, see what's the fuss is about.  It was awful. You can't really taste tea. It tastes what I imagine water  squeezed from dirty dish cloth would taste. That is an abomination. I had tea with milk a few times because even though people ask you how do you take it, they'd still add milk. I just try drinking and never mentioning it again. I skip drink rounds  at work because I don't want to drink it. Speaking of drink rounds, what's up with that? It would be so much easier if everyone's just got a drink for themselves or otherwise you end up doing drinks for 6 people.

What British have perfected is cream tea. I'll be honest, the first time I heard of it, I though it was  is literally tea with cream. I thought if they drink tea with milk, putting cream is just as crazy and equally plausible. I do not remember when I discovered the actual meaning of cream tea, but embarrassingly it wasn't that long ago. I do enjoy it now very much.

The big freeze started in November and today was the first time I saw some pavements being covered with grit. So far haven't seen any other effort to make this situation better in my town.  Last friday, my bf's journey from work lasted 6 hours instead of 1. Again, it was more because of the fear of  snow and ice than the actual snow and ice.  I was at work when it started snowing for the first time t hsi year, a colleauge  was afraid to  be snowed in. She actually feared she will have to spend a night at work because of no more than 5 cm of snow. and she lives 30+40 minutes walk away. Jeez.

Apparently, it costed 4bn pounds to British economy so far. and the argument for not buying enough equipment to deal with snow is that it might cost too much, especially because it doesn't snow that often. maybe, it's time to change this view.