Cultural Awareness

It has been interesting to find out the impression that denizen of Northern Ireland have when they talk with us.  Usually, the response we get is, “Oh, are yous on ‘oliday?”  When tell them that we have moved here for a year, the response is usually “Oh. (Insert long pause.) What you think ‘bout Belfast?”  We usually tell them that our impression is that it is very rainy, and the N. Ireland resident usually affirms that it is in fact, very rainy year round, save a few precious weeks in May.  One conversation with a taxi driver involved him asking where in the US we came from.  We told him that we had lived in Colorado and his response was, “Oh, Injun Country, eh?”  Both Dave and I were a little speechless; the term “Injun” hasn’t been a part of common vernacular for several decades.  I told the cabbie, “Uh, we refer to them as Native Americans”.  He rolled his eyes and continued driving.  During a different conversation, we spoke with one of the employees at the front desk of the hotel regarding how difficult it is to bring a dog into the UK.  I commented on how we’ve been told that it will be markedly easier to bring Toby back into the US.  I also told her that our veterinarian told us that the only US state that is hard to bring in a dog is Hawaii, so luckily we’re not headed there.  Her response, “Eh, Hawaii; it’s not really a state, is it?  It’s just a bunch of islands in the middle of the Pacific!”  I corrected her that Hawaii really is a state beloved by the whole Union, and she rolled her eyes and went back to the front desk.  Speaking of Toby, though, he has been adapting quite well to a new continent.  He is enjoying the extra love and attention that the hotel employees are bestowing upon him, and also the additional attention he gets from strangers on our walks.  We are finding that people in Belfast really like dogs that are part of the Yorkshire terrier line.  There isn’t a lot of room to throw his Kong in our small hotel room, so we are happy that he will get more room when we get to move into our apartment/row house on Saturday at 2 p.m.  We were very happy to find a place that allows Toby and which was furnished.  In an exciting turn of events, we were given network approval by HGTV to be featured on House Hunters International.  The only approval we still need is from the landlord for his property to be featured on television.  We’re not supposed to give away too much information on our finalized apartment until we move along a little bit more with production.  We definitely did not expect to ever get this far along when we applied to be on the show a few months ago.  However, until then, we are counting down the days until we are all moved in to our very own UK row house for the next year and make our mark in Belfast.