I've wanted to visit the UK since I was little and watched David Hemmings play Alfred the Great in some awful potboiler about Vikings. I think I was about 7
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Oh, I have to agree. The cultural imperialism really is getting over the top.
I think it was probably much more fun to travel when there wasn't a Starbucks and a McDonald's wherever you went. Seriously, there was a TGIFridays right around the corner from my hotel in Delhi. WHAT?
I think some people have expectations that are way too high when they travel, so when things aren't just like they imagined, it's just Terrible and Horrible and Home is So Much Better.
I have always been secretly afraid that if I ever do get to the UK, I'll become one of Those People because it can't possibly live up to my imagination.
Same here. I've been the most horrible Anglophile most of my life and though I'm certainly not a Brit Weeaboo, I have a fear that I'll go there and it won't be anything like I imagined.
The issues you mention with The Telegraph and The Daily Mail are the reason I read The Guardian and to a lesser extent, The Independent. (The Telegraph and The Daily Mail are known by some groups in the UK as The Torygraph and The Daily Fail respectively, and the latter somewhat offensively as The Daily Heil in some circles. Needless to say, they are considered 'right-wing' papers.)
This 'Brit' certainly doesn't give a shit about the Kardashians, or gossip columns generally. That kind of shit is for 'red tops' like The Sun. If I recall correctly, most of the links shown alongside articles on The Daily Mail website are for celebrity gossip; sadly, their are many Brits who are interested in this and consider what x-celebrity is doing to be actual news. (Which is probably why our government gets away with so much dodgy shit because instead of reporting on things like the fact that the UK Government is trying to push through a law limiting the peoples' right to assembly and protest, they are busy writing about Victoria Beckham and
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I agree because the lure of "other places" for me is that it they are different from what I'm used to, even if not in ways I like. It's good to be shaken out of the normal routine once in a while.
I can picture your fellow tourists in Egypt - I mean, yeh, what did they expect in a hot, Muslim country? Last summer I heard a group of people who were touring "PA Dutch Country" all the way away in New York State complaining loudly about how there wasn't any mass transit worth talking about and the food was covered in gravy and fried. It was Lancaster County where you drive your car or your buggy to get from wherever to wherever and that's what Pennsylvania German (Dutch) cooking is like.
I went to the UK in February with a friend (and again in September with a different friend, just got home last week). On that first trip, the friend I went with was British Citizen who has lived in Australia since she was 17. She somehow managed to find fault with almost everything about England, except for Primrose Hill, where she had grown up. Constant complaints about how everything's done SO MUCH BETTER back in Australia ... I could cheerfully have throttled her! Why spend so much money and so much time flying there and back only to hate on everything??? But at least she had the good manners (unlike your Australian guests) of not making the criticisms to the English people's faces
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Australia is one of the places on my bucket list and I'm sure it's wonderful, but you don't get to pack home and take it with you when you travel - or, like you said, why spend all the money and time to go in the first place? My dream is to win a lottery and get to spend six months traveling through the UK and Ireland (which I would hope are very different from Pennsylvania or I will be disappointed).
I've just started doing that - and I didn't realize Huffington Post had a UK until you mentioned it here, and now I've got that bookmarked too. I found that I can only read more than one story in the Independent unless I break down and get a paid electronic subscription, but The Guardian is letting me read my head off. Your suggestion also got me Googling and as a result I also just found a page with links to smaller, regional papers, and am exploring those as well.
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I think it was probably much more fun to travel when there wasn't a Starbucks and a McDonald's wherever you went. Seriously, there was a TGIFridays right around the corner from my hotel in Delhi. WHAT?
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I'm still gonna go, though. ;)
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(The Telegraph and The Daily Mail are known by some groups in the UK as The Torygraph and The Daily Fail respectively, and the latter somewhat offensively as The Daily Heil in some circles. Needless to say, they are considered 'right-wing' papers.)
This 'Brit' certainly doesn't give a shit about the Kardashians, or gossip columns generally. That kind of shit is for 'red tops' like The Sun. If I recall correctly, most of the links shown alongside articles on The Daily Mail website are for celebrity gossip; sadly, their are many Brits who are interested in this and consider what x-celebrity is doing to be actual news. (Which is probably why our government gets away with so much dodgy shit because instead of reporting on things like the fact that the UK Government is trying to push through a law limiting the peoples' right to assembly and protest, they are busy writing about Victoria Beckham and ( ... )
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I can picture your fellow tourists in Egypt - I mean, yeh, what did they expect in a hot, Muslim country? Last summer I heard a group of people who were touring "PA Dutch Country" all the way away in New York State complaining loudly about how there wasn't any mass transit worth talking about and the food was covered in gravy and fried. It was Lancaster County where you drive your car or your buggy to get from wherever to wherever and that's what Pennsylvania German (Dutch) cooking is like.
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