Understanding culture is incredibly important to an individual’s intellectual development because it enables one to become more aware of the world outside of their native country, instead of just focusing on one’s own home and native land. This is why it is necessary for everyone to learn more about another culture. Unless those cultures are dumb, stinky, and different from America. This semester, I had the “privilege” of spending the semester in a place that is only famous for previously dating America and it was awful. Some of you may look at the pictures I post online and think “Wow, Adam had a great time in that foreign country!” Well you’re wrong. I posted those so my mom won’t worry about my state of being. In reality, this place is insane!
In order to protect you from making the same grave mistake that I have made, I have decided to impart to you my extensive knowledge acquired over my stay of three months. Keep in mind that this is 100 percent serious, and not a joke column like the one where I tell people how to pick up chicks or bro-chicks at a Baptist school.
The first thing that’s wrong with this country, aside from its general lack of Americaness, is the traffic laws. Cars (or as they say in England, four-wheeled motor ponies with cup holders) have the right of way here, not people. So that means that if a car hits you, you can get sued. This wouldn’t be as serious a problem if the drivers here did not make it a point to try and turn every individual crossing the street into a hood ornament. The reason double decker busses are so prominent here are because people were trying to escape the chaos so they fled to higher ground! In order to learn more about driving in England, I decided to take a driver’s education class in my spare time. Instead of learning about traffic laws, the class played Grand Theft Auto V for an hour and they handed us all a driver’s license and a cup of tea.
The driving is just the tip of the iceberg. And speaking of icebergs, lets talk about weather… The lack of sunshine cannot be overstated. It’s been thirty-seven years since the last time this country has seen the sun. If this country ran on solar power, the infrastructure would grind to a halt and they be sent back to the Stone Age. Most of the people here do not even know what the sun is and they only refer to it as the “giant sky fire ball in the American moving picture shows.” I had the unique experience of being present during a sunny day in London and the people went into a frenzy that would make Walmart on Black Friday seem like the 2:30 dinner rush at the senior citizens home.
Because these people do not have the sun to warm their hearts, their interiors are as cold as their exteriors. I’m a man from Texas, the friendship state, so I incorrectly assumed that the people in London would be friendly…I…was…wrong… The British equivalent of laughter is frowning and frowning? You don’t even want to know what that is like there. I tried to cheer the people up by giving them surprise free hugs but apparently wearing a big fluffy hat and red uniforms, but that only got me thrown into a dungeon. Guys, neither the Spanish nor the French are going to invade your castles any time soon so calm down! To be honest, the only time I saw an English person smile was when they mentioned Donald Trump. Not because they support him, their communist ideologies are incompatible with his message. No, their smiles were similar to the smile of a person who finds out their ex is dating someone who is the vice-captain of the unsponsored synchronized swimming team.
The streets are cruel, the weather is cruel, and the people are cruel, so naturally the food is cruel. When your country’s apex of culinary achievement is a handful of French fries and whatever they drag out of the ocean, you know you’re in trouble. But if England has bad food, then Scotland is worst. Their two national delights are haggis and blood pudding. Haggis is when you take a sheep, feed it the ingredients for haggis, and then feed that sheep full of ingredients to someone. Blood pudding is boiled blood (something I feel I should’ve been warned about before eating it). In Ireland, they gave up on making food after the potato famine so they moved to a more reliable crop: Guinness. To be fair, these countries would take what they could get from the oppressive English government.
Now because I consider myself a bastion of truth in a treacherous world, I will be impartial in my evaluation of the worst place I have ever been (including Arkansas). The best part about England was seeing the many historical sites located in the city, or at least the ones that had not been torn down to make a T.G.I. Friday’s or a T.K. Maxx (that’s not a typo, it’s what those weirdos call it). Some of my favorite sites were the statue of Abraham Lincoln, the statute of George Washington, the house of Benjamin Franklin, the American Embassy, and the first McDonald’s to open in London. All of the other sites and monuments were too difficult to enjoy because they were all spots of executions. The grave of some wife who decided to get sassy with the wrong Henry VIII does not make for great selfies.
Look, I won’t get any awards for writing this article (unless that Pulitzer guy gets back to me), but I will get something much more important: the warm feeling from exercising my first amendment right to tell you about the horrors of being in not America. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go. I’ve been gone for quite some time so I need to catch up on voting, eating Mexican food, shooting guns and doing other typical American things. The rest of you: savor every Twinkie-flavored second you get here because one day, you too may have to leave the Holy Land.