"What a funny accent you've got"

I arrived back in the UK for break about a week before Christmas. Although it's only been six months or so since I was last here, this time I've been aware of feeling like more of an outsider. This is still where my home is, of course - I still have many friends and family members here - but now that I've been in Wyoming for about 16 months, there are some ways in which the UK feels more foreign than it did before. The light switches are unfamiliar and people make cultural references I don't quite get. Here, I discuss a brief assortment of my observations and what it has been like coming back as something of an outsider to the culture I grew up in (and to which I will likely soon return more permanently). I hope it doesn't come across too much as navel-gazing and I'm certain my reverse culture shock is not a patch on what my cousin (who recently returned to Indiana after 2+ years in Paraguay with the Peace Corps) must be feeling!

"What a funny accent you've got," my Mum said the morning after I arrived back. Similar comments have been made by many other friends and family members since I got here, whether it's in my pronunciation of "really" or the greater emphasis I seem to place on the letter "R." While it's still far from a Cary Grant-esque, Mid-Atlantic accent, I have been told that I have developed something of a "twang." And there have been moments when I have I have been momentarily verbally paralyzed by which word to use, but have thankfully avoided the awkwardness of making reference to people's pants (for now. I've still got more than a week left). Where spelling is concerned, seeing "appetisers" on the website for a local Indian restaurant totally threw me. I insisted to my Mum that it had to be wrong. Don't even get me started on "favourite."

In, er, sartorial news... many of the nation's young men seem to have been rather taken by a new fashion trend. This look is characterized (characterised?) by patterned sweaters, skinny jeans, deck shoes and (in some cases) hair which is very short on the sides, longer on the top and which contains a lot of product. It might be best described as One Direction chic, not because I think they have inspired it (they haven't), but because of their ability to showcase it so well. I lost count of the number of young men I saw dressed in this way during my frantic Christmas shopping. It's a look that has not yet made its way to Laramie.

Milton Keynes has also seen some changes. Earlier this year, the Mercedes-Benz office a five minute drive from my house got a new feature: a large, revolving, illuminated logo on its roof. A slightly strange addition to the MK skyline back then, by the time I arrived back, it looked more at home, as something akin to our own Star of Bethlehem, assuming the Three Wise Men were looking for the regional base of a German car manufacturer. 

This was on the front page of the BBC News website on Christmas Day. Apparently "The Queen has attended a Christmas Day church service, after recovering from a cold which had prevented her from attending a service on Sunday" is front page stuff here. On the topic of the Queen: this year, she delivered her traditional Christmas TV speech in 3D. We weren't around to watch it (shame) but I can only hope that she took full advantage of this by throwing things at the camera during some of the slower moments.

It has been lovely to come back to a place where one of the first questions anyone asks you when you arrive at their house is "would you like a cup of tea?", where the Christmas episode of Outnumbered makes reference to "Pleb-gate" and where the local pantomime stars the flamboyant Louis Spence of Pineapple Dance Studios. It has been interesting to hear how people here talk about Obama's re-election and the Sandy Hook shootings, how they reflect back upon what was a big year for Great Britain and how London 2012 changed how so many people felt about being British (and I don't think that's over-stating the case). I experienced these moments on the flip side - I wasn't around for Team GB's amazing performance and the UK's uncharacteristically perfect weather for the Games, and was, conversely, in the thick of it for the election (as I'm sure most readers know, except for those who end up here by Google Image searching cat toilets and Anubis statues, who, seriously, constitute the bulk of visitors). 

It has been a time to delight in the Britishness of everything and also to reflect upon how, for now, I don't fully fit in here. This is not the source of any unhappiness on my part, but it has been interesting to observe and experience my own culture from a position removed.