Request/Two General HP-Related Questions... (from the main list)

[Ebony AKA AngieJ]

Still posting on one screen, doing a paper on the other... wasn't 
sure where to post this, but I thought it belonged on Chatter because 
of the anecdotes.

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., dfrankis at d... wrote:
> Welcome to England

Thanks!  Truly, I feel welcomed... again, this was never a place I 
was supposed to visit, it was a storybook place growing up like 
Narnia or Middle-Earth.  And the funniest thing is, the countryside 
actually LOOKS like the storybooks!  :-)

Me:
> > 1)  Is the Hogwarts Express the only way that kids get to 
> Hogwarts?  
> The transportation system over here is 
> > quite fascinating.  Some of us are renting cars, but I'm a little 
> > nervous about doing so.

David:
> You sound like Arthur Weasley ('It's amazing the way the English 
> trains stop for ten minutes just outside the station.  So 
> *ingenious*...')

LOL!  Yeah, it's tourist syndrome.  I'm sure if I were British and 
lived anywhere near one of these tourist traps, I'd either go on 
holiday or retreat into a cubbyhole until September.  

On a tangential note, another Arthur Weasley habit that I can relate 
to is collecting plugs.  I have nearly TWENTY plugs in my suitcase 
that I purchased in Detroit and Chicago for my notebook wattage 
conversion (please do *not* ask).  None of them fit.  The second I 
got to Oxford, I took the plug right in to a local electronics store, 
explaining my plight.  The sales associate laughed until he cried, 
then picked up this 6-pound adapter... it was all I needed.  But I'm 
sure Arthur would have been proud.  :-)  

Anyway, back to canon.

> 
> Hogwarts is over 1000 years old.  The express is an imitation train 
> and so unlikely to be much more than 150 years old as a means of 
> transport.
> <snip of some really great stuff> 
> Later, the need for security went away, or, rather, changed, but 
the tradition remained, updated to steam.  

Okay, now I feel really stupid for forgetting that most things that 
look like Muggle inventions are magic-based imitations.  That makes 
sense.  I also like the inclusion of wizarding history in your 
explanation--I'm sure that before the Muggles forgot about the 
magical world, things were indeed difficult for kids during, let's 
say, the Commonwealth period.  I totally buy your explanation... 
thanks, because this has been nagging at me since Sunday.

So what came before the Hogwarts Express?  Carriages?  


>If I know anything about > British tradition, the steam train became 
a fixture at about the time > steam becme obsolete.

LOL!  Sounds about right, from what I can see.  Tradition is HUGE 
here... our culture is *so* much more disposble.

> > 2)  Why does no one have tea in the books?
 
> Can I have cup, please?  Mine's white without.

Wow--I take mine with both milk and sugar, how do I say that?  LOL!  
Really, the only drinks I know how to request the British way so far 
contain alcohol!  (Of course, I mispronouced lager with lime the 
first time I ordered it, and was informed that I'd just ordered some 
sort of firearm.)  ;-)  I didn't understand how important tea was 
until I walked into my room when I first arrived this weekend and saw 
this huge electric teakettle sitting in the middle of a tea-tray with 
all the trimmings.  It's sweltering, there's no air conditioning 
anywhere, and yet it was important for me to have a TEAKETTLE?

OK, I'm digressing again... time to finish up so I can get back to 
studying...

> Just to add to add the other posts - tea is mainly an adult drink 
> here - I didn't really acquire the taste until my late teens.  So 
> it's more associated with Lupin, Hagrid, Mrs Weasley than with the 
> main characters.

Okay, that makes sense.  Same thing in the States--kids first get 
hooked on Starbucks either in high school or college.  I suppose this 
is the same reason why we don't really see the kids in canon drinking 
anything save butterbeer, milk, and pumpkin juice... it's not like 
they can walk into the Leaky Cauldron or the Three Broomsticks and 
order anything else.  The only other comment that I'll make is that 
there doesn't seem to be a lot of variety... but the explanation is 
sufficient.

I'm sure that the Hogwarts staff has their coffee break and tea, 
though.  We've visited several schools this week, and at a certain 
time in the morning at every school we have to leave off talking with 
the children and the teachers and headed to the crowded staffrooms.  
They've been trapping us in there, so now I'm wondering where the 
children are while just about every single adult in the school is in 
one room.  I'm determined to solve the mystery... and now I am trying 
to determine when and if Hogwarts staff does this.  Of course, 
*that's* a private boarding school, and we've seen what I'd 
call "public" schools...

> 
> Tea towels, despite their name, are used to dry any crockery and 
> cutlery.

Thanks!  Yet *another* term that's different--we call that a 
dishtowel or kitchen towel.  

My most confusing and scary experience this week occured while I was 
in Sainsbury's purchasing cleaning supplies.  Nothing else could be 
so intimidating... you need a language translator to purchase 
dishwashing liquid and laundry detergent.  And you *hate* to ask... I 
find the people who live here to be nice enough, but you *know* they 
want to crack up laughing or they give you that little "I'm being 
*really* patient with you, American" look.

But here's the thing.  I was in the store, proud of myself because I 
found the cleaning stuff on my own... grinning... until I actually 
looked at the shelf.  I stared at it for what must have been like ten 
minutes before I picked anything up!

This is because this area of the market looks almost nothing like its 
American counterpart.  There are four kinds of detergent--
"biological", "non-biological", "performance", and "colour".  Two 
kinds of bleach, thick and something else... I think it's thin, but I 
can't remember now.  No fabric softener sheets.  No liquid detergent, 
whereas at home a slight majority of washing soap's liquid.

An elderly lady in the aisle: "oh no, luv, you can't use *that* 
bleach on clothes".  
Me:  "Then where is the bleach you can toss in the washer with your 
clothes?"  
Lady:  "Sorry?"  (Translation:  The Most Common Phrase That Eb Gets 
When Asking a Stupid American Question.)
Me:  "Can't you fill the washer up with hot water and pour bleach in?"
Lady:  (looks horrified and shakes her head)

I needed to get the kind for sensitive skin because I'm allergic to 
everything (my hay fever's been acting up since I arrived).  I ended 
up getting Sainsbury's Novon brand, non-biological.  Reading the 
label carefully, I think it should work but some of the warnings are 
frightening.  All the "do nots"... :::shudders:::

Too bad there are no house-elves here... :::sniffles:::

> BTW, tea and the transport system don't really mix - most rail and 
> motorway service station tea is pretty vile.

So the witch that pushed the cart offers bottled pumpkin juice?  
Thanks for the tip.  Another surprise is that coffee drinking is a 
lot more prevalent over here than I thought.  Someone fussed at me 
months ago about allowing HP characters in my fanfic to drink coffee--
"your American-ness is showing!".  But I've had more coffee this past 
week than I had in all of second semester back home (more brew, too, 
but that's an entirely different tale).  And not just in tourist 
traps... in the little county towns we've been visiting schools in.

> Enjoy your stay...

Thanks!  "Enjoy" is not a strong enough word... there are stories-in-
embryo *everywhere* here!

--Ebony