Beer O'Clock

Two weeks of work in the bag, and I'm finally starting to evolve into a British man. Well, not really. But I've written a fourth "Incoming" blog post here. I also never wrote about Fridays at my office. I normally work 10-6, but Friday at 5 is Beer O'Clock. Everyone pretty much stops working and there is food and beer while people sit around and talk or surf the internet. I had a beer the first Friday because I didn't want to be a prude (and my boss just gave me one), but I actually think beer is really disgusting, so I think I'll just stick to the food from now on (unless they pass around wine again...). It's so funny here -- it's obviously because the office is so casual, but the drinking culture in general here is very different. They start much earlier (like, 6 or 7 at a pub) but still go just as late. Beer is a part of everything: you can buy it anywhere (the supermarkets are fully stocked with hard stuff, too), people drink at all hours of the day (at one of the opening day BU-sponsored parties, beer was passed around with lunch), and you can take it out in public (on the bus, in the street, etc.).

One of the girls on my floor also has a funny work story. She went to the kitchen in her office to make tea, which she heated by putting a mug of water in the microwave. There were a bunch of other people in the kitchen, and they all stopped to watch her. Then one of them says, "Are you making tea?" She said yes. "In the microwave?" They proceeded to have a ten-minute conversation (which included other people in the kitchen) about the way she made tea. They just didn't understand making it in the microwave. She said it was like Monty Python. They kept asking why she didn't make it in the kettle, and how she could possibly make it the way she did. Finally, one of them asks, "Can I watch you make it?" I guess they're just really serious about their tea.

And as an add-on from last time, I remembered to take pictures of some of the Tube signs that I love. The first is from a bus stop, the other two are from the Underground (if you can't read them, click and they'll come up bigger in a new window).