Since I always blog about my baby...something different

I started this blog to talk about living as an Expat and I hardly ever do that anymore.  I guess I don't always feel like an expat since I have been here so long.  Every now and again I am confused by a word or saying or situation and it reminds me that I am in a "foreign" country.

Here are some random thoughts about words and phrases that are different from what I knew in the US:

• Every year your car must be inspected for it roadworthiness.  Mine failed this year.  It is a 2001 with less than 30,000 miles on it.  I have done almost nothing to it since I got it.  Oil change once a year whether it needs it or not, etc.  When the shop rang to let me know they said, "The back box needs replacing".  The what?  "Back box".  OK, whatever that is, go ahead if it needs it.  I don't know much about cars, but I thought I knew at least the basics.  I come to find a few days later that this is simply a muffler. 

  Back box = muffler  Sounds a bit raunchy if you ask me.  In German a muffler is called an auspuff.  I don't know why but that always made me giggle.  Is it an Onomatopoeia?

• I brought Sofia in to the doc office a couple of months ago because she woke up with her eye crusted shut.  While I was there I asked my GP about her cross-eyes.  It wasn't anything too bad, but I thought I would ask anyway.  He referred Sofia to the eye department at the hospital.  So, I take her in and the orthoptist says, "You are concerned about a squint".  No, she just seems a bit cross-eyed.  Orthoptist says things are fine, but we have another appt with the opthamologist.  "So, you are concerned about a squint".  No, her eyes just seem to cross sometimes.  [and where did this squint business come up. I have never said anything about a squint.]  I come to find that squint doesn't actually mean a squint (think Renee Zellweger) it means cross-eyes or strabismus. 

  Squint  = cross-eyes or strabismus

• I had a work friend over one day and she asked if she could "spend a penny" before she left go get on the bus.  I'm sure the blank stare on my face convinced her that I had no idea what she meant.  Spend a penny means to use the toilet and comes from the time when there were coin-operated locks on the doors of public toilets (there still are in many places) and used mostly by women because mens' urinals were free.
• Swimming costume.  It still takes me a second to process swimming costume.  Of course this is simply a swimming suit, but it still seems so old-fashioned to hear that.  Sounds like something my grandma would say.
• When you have a booger hanging out of your nose it is called a booger, right?  Not here.  It is a bogey.  Also, the boogeyman.  Here he is called the bogeyman.
• So, you go to school for many years to earn that MD degree.  Why don't you use it then?  It confuses me that GPs here are Dr. Wilkinson, Dr. Doherty, etc.  But when you are referred to a specialist, or a consultant as it is called here, they are referred to as Mr. Yeo or Mr. Johnson.  Why is that?

I will have to do a post sometime about some of the wonderful slang used here that I just love.