So when the UK sleeps, we know you other MNers are out there part II

[tadjennyp]

I was looking for thumbwitch's recipe for that cake and found the old thread has disappeared so Linzer and I thought we'd resurrect it!

Plenty of French speaking places.

Psst La Reunion is part of France. People here are super touchy about being French.

The metro are all super touchy about not being Reunnionais French/Creole.

I just sit here and go la-la-la I'm British....

Yes, I know - I've just forgotten them all. In the same way as I've forgotten how to speak French. [hblush]

Being British is another kettle of fish. For most people here, English is synonymous with British - I have to keep explaining that there's the small matter of Scotland and Wales as well (and Northern Ireland if you're talking about the UK, which people generally don't). [hwink]

Frakkenstein and Linzer - or Martinique! We went there for a weekend as dh has a colleague there and it's really wierd being in France...in the Caribbean. I guess that is a little bit like Reunion must be like? They have fantastic French supermarkets and much better shopping than here but it is tres expensive! I like all your name choices, George (or variation of) is good. Isabelle was on our list. I love Cecily, I wanted it but dh didn't.

Maran - Osborne is a good name, I don't think I know any. Not Osbourne like the Osbournes though?! Do you have ANY girls names that you like?

Linzer - if anyone I know reads MN they will know me immediately. There aren't many Brits here so it wouldn't take much to work it out. I have to just think before I post - eg I wouldn't post about any personal health issues without name changing!

It's not so much that as you expect it to be France and then it isn't!

They're very fond of 'on fait pas comme ca ici a la reunion...' with a disappointed look at you. Then in the same breath they turn around and tell you it's France.

Very strange! Also expensive and quite good shopping but you can't get the strangest things...

Friends of mine in uni did one semester in La Reunion and the other in St Petersburg - not at all me! I did have a fabulous time in Munich though. I am drawn to slightly unusual names that I don't feel I can actually bestow, iyswim? I like Arlo, Idris, Benedict, and some strong Nordic names!

On another note, I did some more translation into German last night. I think it was ok though it is more than 3 years since I was last in a German-speaking country. Your dh would probably laugh at my turn of phrase in elevated German Linzer.

Which university did you go to, Jenny? Some of my friends split the year between Germany and Russia - there seemed to be lots of vodka drinking going on among the Russianites and I sometimes wondered whether I should have learned Russian rather than sticking to French (completely unrelated to the vodka drinking, I hasten to add!). Now though, I think that learning Italian would probably have been more useful as we go on holiday to Italy every summer and I'm always frustrated by how little Italian I can speak.

You're braver than me translating into German; I have very little confidence in my written German (or rather, I'm too much of a perfectionist) and even get DH to check my (work-related) e-mails for me. Actually, I think Austrian German is probably more elevated or at least formal than "German German", so your German would have fitted right in here! I always have to do a double take when a German says hallo or tschüß to me if I'm not per du with them, as you would always say Grüß Gott or auf Wiedersehen to everyone but good friends here.

stranded There are lots of British expats in Austria, but I post quite a lot of (very boring) details about my life on some threads, so would be instantly recognisable to anyone who knows me. DH knows my nickname but I don't think he's interested enough to actually read anything I write - I'd have to name change if were having relationship difficulties, though!

I was only at Wolves, due to a long, boring story about being in an abusive marriage at the time and Wolves being the only place to offer a 3 year language degree. I did Russian too, but didn't get the chance to go there as I did the semester in Germany instead.

It is quite scary translating into German but it was for the same family as before so I figure the first lot of translation can't have been too bad! [hsmile] I do worry that it is like the instructions you sometimes get in English on some products from the Far East that are clearly not written by anyone competent in the language!

Agree, Italian is gorgeous, though I am really enjoying Spanish at the moment. I am supposed to be writing a presentation on Ferdinand and Isabella for tonight, but stalling MNing as usual! [hblush]

OMG jenny - don't say "only" at Wolves! It was legendary - I was there too! (although yes I too am slightly embarrassed by it - I didn't do to well in my A levels due to my parents moving to the other side of the world and me not particularly liking my boarding school) I can't believe you were there and I knew someone who did Russian too.....I bet you're younger than me though. I was there in the late 1980's - 1990....

It was a lot of fun and cheap strandead! I went when I was almost 21 so 93-96 after my stupid teenage rebellion! [hgrin]

A friend of mine did German and French at Wolverhampton, Jenny - it sounded like a great place to study (I went to visit her for a weekend there in fact, and had a great time - that would have been in 1994 or 1995 so we may even have passed each other there!). I think she would have been in the year above you, as she graduated in 1995.

I'm always getting Italian and Spanish mixed up, as I did a GCSE in Spanish - which is vaguely helpful when it comes to Italian, although I keep thinking I really must make an effort to learn Italian properly.

Have just come back from an evening out with a friend - we were thrown out of the cafe at 9 pm, by which time the town was dead so we decided to call it a night! Still, we had a lovely child-free uninterrupted chat over a glass of wine and are hoping to make it into a regular event (I can't remember the last time I went out without DH, and don't even go out with DH that often either).

Glad you had a lovely evening out Linzer, even if it was short. It seems ages since we last went out together too and that situation won't change in the near future! I can't believe the town was dead by 9 - is it livelier at the weekend?

I meant with my dh, obviously! [hsmile]

I can't imagine the town is much livelier at the weekend; I think there are one or two clubs, but people tend to go to balls more than anything. (Not DH's thing, fortunately!) You probably have to go into Vienna for decent night life, but I must admit it's not something I've looked into. [hgrin]

LOL! We are American though! I think you can only be named Wolfgang if you are legitimately German/Austrian and not 3rd-generation-removed Danish like me! DH's no help, he's 75% English and 25% Scottish, but his family left the old country 200 years ago!

frakkinstein I love Isabelle. I know it's having a resurgence right now. I couldn't use it for myself though because it's too similar-sounding to DD's name. I am equally enamoured of Georgette and Georgiana, but if I used that my family of Austenites would accuse me of naming my girl after a Darcy!

strandead we like Osborn/Osborne because it seems suitably serious for an adult, but you could still call him Oz when he's little. But we definitely don't want Osbourne associations. It means 'bear' so I suspect if it's a boy I will have to decide if it suits him first . I fancy Astra (in spite of it being a car) and Estelle for a girl, but DH isn't sold on them, especially because Estelle is his sister's middle name and we resolved to not use family names. His family has a very specific naming convention (which we hate) and will get their noses all bent out of shape if we use a family name and don't follow it. Where we're really falling down is a middle name to go with.

We like an unusual first name paired with a VERY traditional middle name so that if she dislikes it she can use the middle name easily enough. DD is Aella Rose (outing myself!). Of course, we didn't know that Rose seems to be having a moment right now when we picked it

We have a few months to decide yet .

linzer I post under my (more or less) RL name and I have put enough details up for someone REALLY determined to find me. I don't really worry about it though. If one of the b/tards over at 4chan really wanted to hunt me down and make my life hell they could do it with MUCH less of a web presence, so simply by being online I've taken on the risk and I don't see much of a difference in degree of risk between this and posting my name and a few identifying details/pictures. I know enough about how much information is available/accessible (I used to do fraud investigation at one of my jobs with a FBI team and some of their tools) that if I was going to be scared about being located I wouldn't be online at all.

How about Stella instead of Estelle? Pretty similar but different enough to fend off any nose jointery? [hgrin]

nightmaren I don't know, I think you might be able to get away with calling a baby Wolfgang more than if you were actually German/Austrian, as it's not really a baby's/child's name here. How about Wolf or Wolfi for short? [hgrin] That's what our neighbour (late 40s) gets called.

I'm not worried about someone identifying me as such; I'm just quite careful about what I write and wouldn't rant about a friend in the UK, for example, as it's quite likely they would recognise themselves (if they were a MNer) as it's so obvious who I am. Also, I know my brother has seen my user name (whether he actually took it in and is savvy enough to do anything about it is another matter) so I'm also quite cautious about posting anything that I wouldn't want my family to read! But like I said, most of what I post is quite mundane; I would probably name change if I had a personal problem, though.

jenny you know how they say on the baby name threads to imagine yourself shouting the name up the stairs? . [hgrin]

linzer I know what you mean. I try to never talk about my personal problems either on forums or on FB. Well, at least I try not to complain about my DH/friends at any rate

I sort of consider the internet a very large house party where all of my friends and family may be around the corner at any given moment [hgrin]

OOOO but it's hard sometimes [cackle]

I see your point! [hgrin] Wolf Blitzer is quite a respected journalist over here, isn't he? However he does have a large white beard so can't quite imagine him as a small child. [hsmile]

See, now I just did imagine Wolf Blitzer as a small child, beard and all [hgrin]

[hgrin]

mmmm, Halloween is not even here and Thanksgiving preparation has begun!

Bring on the listmaking!

I just asked DH if he minds me going OTT for Thanksgiving and he responded that "I miss it when you don't"

FAB

Have just located a cheddar apple pie and an orange meringue pie recipe to try this year. [rubs hands together] Excellent.

DH has decided we're going to be celebrating Thanksgiving again this year. We're not American, have no American connections (other than having lived in the US for two years)... it's slightly embarrassing really. [hgrin] I think it's all just an excuse for him to cook a turkey (something he discovered in the US; turkeys aren't very easy to get hold of over here so we'll have to try and track one down).

Ooo - love it. I will never turn down an excuse to celebrate, even if the holiday isn't mine

We're celebrating with some other families this year, so we will get an excuse for turkey (DH hates it ). My family has been known to cook three turkeys, one roasted, one smoked, and one deep-fried (is lovely, seals all the juices and fats in).

Of course, when all of us get together for the holidays there are upwards of forty people in the house

We had Christmas at one of the local sno-parks last year and somebody brought a turkey fryer with them and sat outside the snow hut to cook it! Someone decided to sledge down the hill really fast, went over the snowbank at the bottom and nearly landed in the turkey fryer! He would only have done that once! We all ate Christmas dinner in the hut and then came back to ours for puddings! It was a lot of fun.

We were going to go to San Francisco for Thanksgiving as dh's firm has a week long shutdown. However we are not sure at the minute as we don't know when dh's jaunt to Bulgaria and Germany will be in November. Also at my ante-natal appointment yesterday the OB was concerned about the baby's heartbeat slowing down and speeding up again. I have to go back in two weeks to be hooked up to a monitor to see how it is going. Worst case scenario is that they think they may have to deliver him then. I will only be 26 1/2 weeks, so am feeling really down this week. Also had a v minor bump in the car this week (someone ran into me) so my neck is sore as well. Sorry, this is turning into a me-me-me post.

I am very interested in this orange meringue pie recipe maren. Where did you get that from? I had visions of your dh running round the Alps with a large net, looking for a turkey then Linzer. [hgrin]

Sounds fun! I always hesitated to mention frying a turkey to my British friends for fear that they would dismiss it as typical deep-fried American everything.

Crossing my fingers for your ante-natal appointment. I hate being monitored.

I found the pie recipe here. I think I will try it out this weekend. Seems like a nice alternative to lemon meringue pie