vw, you are the sweetest. But, I, um, I think I kind of already asked someone. Well, actually, I already asked JenK. Please don't hate me!

Why would I hate you? I just thought I'd throw it out there...

40? god. It was easier to handwave when it was 2 (as the BBC STILL has on their website)

I don't think there's any way that number will hold. (CNN was saying 45 when I left for work.) They've brought survivors out of the tunnels, but they're leaving the dead in place until investigators have a chance to review the scene(s). Which I get, but jeez that must be hard on folks trying to locate loved ones.

Morning, all.

Awful news about London, isn't it? I turned on the computer this morning and there it was. Gnarh.

Fay, I too am confused about the expat thing. You mean, I think, that he just hangs out with other Brits and doesn't really acclimate himself to the country he's living in? That's what I'm getting.

It's a very pretty day here; I have cute hair and my allergies are not as pernicious. But on the walk to work this AM, some damned restaurant was cooking BACON and the scent of it wafting all over the PLaza was about making me cry. I get paid tomorrow, and I think I see a BLT in my future.

I have a wake-up timer on my tv to put on the Today Show in the morning. Waking up to news like London is awful. I hope anyone with friends and family there has heard from them and they are all right.

I'm not altogether bright, especially without my coffee. For a second I panicked for my roomate. Then I remembered that she hadn't moved there yet.

For a second I panicked for my roomate. Then I remembered that she hadn't moved there yet.

that really makes perfect sense, Lilty. Your brain just makes whatever connections to London that it can.

But have some coffee, anyway.

Done and done.

Honestly, I just can't be counted for anything that I think or say in the first few minutes of wakeyness.

Probably just as well if you don't dub her Jimmy either.

Now that really would be taking the piss.

Fay, I've been meaning to ask, but I don't know, guess I came over either shy or lazy. When you talk about the boy's expattishness, does that mean he's still strongly identifies as a Brit (or whatever his country of origin) or that he's bitter against his country of origin?

I guess it's a shorthand way of saying that he seems to have quite the Englishman Abroad thing going on. Which, my big hats and suchlike notwithstanding, I'm not so fond of - that whole 'speak loudly and clearly and Johnny Foreigner will understand you' thing. Or - no, that's not being fair to him. But many, maybe most of the expat teachers at my school had a real them-and-us thing going on - wouldn't dream of socialising with their teaching assistants, speak next to no Arabic, etc etc. It's an attitude that you get quite a lot with expats, I think. My own experience here has centred around largely socialising with Egyptians and our main pub of choice for most of the past couple of years is one where most of the clientele are (obviously very Westernised, what with the alcohol-drinking/tolerance) Egyptian. We know all the waiters and bartenders and bouncers by name, and they look out for us. The kitchen guys at our old school invited us out for dinner and to meet their families, and it was lovely. I've been round to my Teaching Assistant's house four or five times now, and met most of his family. I've been over to the houses of other Egyptian members of staff to celebrate the iftah feast during Ramadan, to see a newborn baby, to attend an Engagement party etc etc. I'm planning on hooking up with (covered, conservative, funny, smart, university graduate) Egyptian friends from school during the next few weeks to go out to the movies and so forth.

There's a whole intense class structure here that we don't have in Britain, with an awful lot of people living lives of extreme poverty. There's also a National Education system which does NOT teach thinking skills - it teaches people to memorise and regurgitate information, and to do what they're told. Within that context, it's unsurprising that religion has so strong a hold upon people, and it's understandable (however frustrating) that people do things that seem bonkers from a Western perspective. Making statements like 'All Egyptians are X, Y or Z' really pisses me off. But it's something that some of the expat community does all the time. I first became conscious of it a couple of months after we'd arrived in Cairo, when we met up with some other teachers at The British Community Association Club in Heliopolis - not my first choice of place, but they do fish and chips, so whatever. But when JP arrived with his (Egyptian) wife A, she told me that this was the first time they'd let her in. Because they don't let Egyptians in, even if they're 'guests' of expats. It was only now that she was his wife that they would let her in. At which point I pretty much thought 'fuck this, I don't need fish and chips that badly', and have only been back once since. (For a colleague's farewell do. To which another colleague's boyfriend wasn't allowed entry, because, yes, he's Egyptian.)

As I say, DateBoy didn't come out with anything racist (because, hello, end of date), but...I don't know. I'm very uncomfortable with the whole Them/Us thing.

Fay, please stop feeding my 'shipping tendencies. These long distance 'ships never work out, and I don't have time to make all the fan art.

Well, dan/andi worked out very nicely. Mr tea and I, however, are destined to live out our lives oceans apart. Well, either that or else we'll randomly meet in Thailand one day, have one perfect night of passion, and then discover that we're supposed to be archnemeses. My plans to teach sign language to the world echidnia population will come into direct conflict with all that Mr tea holds dear...

Somebody stop me, before I write AU RPF about myself.

...too late. Huh.

I love your Fayishness.

Cindy, thanks. You know what for.

ETA: Not that it seems to have mattered.

them-and-us thing

I'd say this is true of most of the expats I know. I'm guilty of it myself from time-to-time...my only excuse is that I'm exactly the same way about large swathes of America, so maybe I've moved so much that I'm An Expat of One.

But yeah, those ex-pats can be real charmers. It's a watered-down version of the Ugly American (and hey, we had two of these arrested here last week for being such), or whatever nationality (although in my experience Aussies and Canadians aren't bad about it). They tend to call what people like Fay do, making friends and such, "going native."

More in a second - kebabs are burning.