Este artigo foi publicado no jornal Spy da Casa de Cultura Britânica-Universidade Federal do Ceará em 1997, ideia do nosso então professor visitante Dietmar Dombrowsky. Fica aqui o reconhecimento pelo seu trabalho profícuo na CCB por quatro anos. Aliás, ele esteve em Berlim e em Hastings comigo e com a Glaucya naquela época. Dietmar, sempre presente e atuante, meu muito obrigada. O artigo é em inglês, mas as fotos estão explicadas em português. Espero que gostem.
My Impressions of England
“Spy” Newspaper -Casa de Cultura Britânica-UFC
It was the first time I went to Europe: February 1997. My friend Glaucya Brito and I visited Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris and some places in England, such as Hastings (where we stayed for two weeks to do the course named Methodology Refresher at the International House), Rye, Cambridge, Battle and finally, London.
Getting to England made me feel as if I were in a tunnel of time and I found myself in the past, in 1516, 1600 and so on… but maybe because the English people really preserve their history by taking good care of their castles, legends, hills, battles and customs.
It was a wonderful experience to have been among them for more than two weeks. I could observe some of their habits a little bit. I´m going to tell you some of their likes and dislikes. For sure, they love “fish n´ chips”, especially, chips. They eat chips with lasagna, pizza, rice etc. They also love tea, of course. In the historical town called Rye, my classmates and I went along with our teacher to a “Tea Room”. It was a Friday afternoon. We took the train in Hastings and went there to enjoy this lovely and romantic town. Well, in the “Tea Room”, we ordered the famous “cream tea”, which is tea (there were a lot of different kinds of tea) and scones (a mixture of bread and cake) to be eaten with jam and cream. Wow! What an experience from Heaven! Lots of calories but no problem, it was something not to be missed.
Another English habit is going to pubs. There are pubs everywhere in England, on every corner, to be more precise. I can´t imagine the English people without drinking beer. The pubs inside are very cosy and comfortable, although sometimes they´re very crowded. They sometimes have live music, with customers playing instruments and everybody singing. And a lot of smoke in the air (how much they smoke is incredible). At 11.30 p.m. the girl at the counter rings the bell, so that the customers are invited to order the last beer, because the pub is closing soon. After that, people go to clubs. That´s why there are the verbs “to pub” and “to club” in colloquial English. They´re part of their everyday lives.
What are the English like? They´re nice and friendly, especially, in the countryside.
What else? The Royal Family is loved despite the scandals, principally, Lady Diana. Just something funny: in the classroom, when someone sneezes, they say: “God save the Queen”. Imagine…
There´s much more to say… See you!
P.S. Their sense of humour is peculiar. They´re kind of ironic, and love making fun of other people. When the famous book writer and teacher Jim Scrivener told me about how they responded to a sneeze, I really believed him. In fact, it was a joke. The problem is that they tell jokes seriously. I came back to Fortaleza and told everybody that when someone sneezed, they said: “God save the Queen”. Sometime later Jim Scrivener came to Casa de Cultura Britânica in Fortaleza (to give us a workshop, sponsored by the British Council) and told me that nobody said that, that it had been a joke. I was so embarrassed. “God bless you” is what they say.
Mônica alma de viajante 