Must be a more interior thing. I suppose my friends and I should stop making fun of it then. We often have discussions as to if Canadians even say eh like people think we do. I guess there's my answer!
Ah yes, I've heard that one. I like to think in general we are. However, I've no idea if we are any more so though than the average American.

Oh, wow! So in some places it is the dark all winter, light all summer? I heard something about that before, wow!

I think Antarctica is like that but I'm sure other places have that too though.

Yes it is. One New Years' Eve/Day husband and myself spent it in a Qantas plane over the Ross Sea area. We flew over the Italian Antarctic base, had penguin colonies pointed out to us and got to admire Antarctica in all its snowy beauty.

New Years' Eve is as near the Summer solstice as can be. The Sun circles around the horizon but doesn't actually set at midnight. The scenery looks like this:

Adeona,
Spam is available in Australia but many people choose not to it (I tried the stuff once and hated it). If we're talking about fake meat, snags (sausages) are a staple Aussie BBQ food.

Do we say "fall pregnant" or "get pregnant"? Hmm... I don't really talk about such things reguarly. I think "get pregnant" would be the more common saying here. Some people refer to being pregnant as having "a bun in the oven" or "having a baby on the way". I'm sure there are more.

It's been awhile since I've seen The Man from Snowy River movie. It's not really my genre but it was a decent enough movie. It's more accurate than some other Australian movies *cough*Crocodile Dundee*cough* but as to how accurate it is, Wagga might be better at answering that. There is the usual tendency to exaggerate a bit since he has taken on something of a mythic status. Sorry I couldn't be of much help.

A couple of pages back there was a question about Americans eating oranges and milk...I've never heard of this, although I have heard of having Peaches and Cream, which is delicious. The peach isn't nearly as acidic as an orange is and combines well with the cream resulting in a nice taste for the palate.

As far as Great Britain goes I love them and our countries have been best friends time out of mind. I tend to think of the US as the Archenland to your Narnia .

I wish Gandalf's Beard was here, he could definitely pitch in on food related topics. Last year (or maybe it was the year before) he was explaining Yorkshire pudding to me (which basically sounds like a biscuit or dumpling of some type which sits under roasts in the oven and collects the gravy and drippings...YUM), as well as "bangers", which sound basically like bratwursts or sausages. There is of course the topic of Christmas Pudding, which I've never actually seen or tasted before, but the way it's been described to me it sounds like they put everything in it but the kitchen sink.

Ahh, Yorkshire puddings, the highlight of any Sunday roast...

They're sometimes put under the roast when cooking, but they're just as good cooked by themselves with a bit of gravy

I have a question for Brits, I dont think its been asked yet...

Why do you call redheads "Gingers"???

Ginger is just another word for the hair colour, generally it's used more to refer to the bright shades, whereas red would be used for the darker tones of red hair, but it's more or less interchangeable.

O.K, Here's a question for anyone who's living in England: what would you say is the most popular genre of music?

I'd say it's the same as the US, with pop music being the biggest money earner, and then other genres to other extents.

One time I heard a guy from the UK call a girl "swizzie". Is that a word over there, or did he make that up? And if it is a word, what does it mean? (*hopes it doesn't mean anything bad because I don't want to get in trouble for posting it on here* lol)

Never heard this term in my life

Shantih, I've always wondered this. . . what exactly is a Yorkshire Pudding? I hear them talked about all the time, but never have actually heard what one is? I always thought that it was like a little cake, but a gravy covered cake sounds rather gross

(If somebody else knows, then feel free to answer it )

They do look a little bit cake like, but they're savory. The batter is basically just milk, eggs, flour and milk. It's hard to describe the taste... it's quite plain, I think the most enjoyable part is the texture when combined with the gravy, they're quite airy and very crunchy on the outside. They're really easy to make yourself, so perhaps you could give some a go and report back

A quick google search informs me that they're similar to American 'popovers', which I've never tried so I can't say how close the two are.

As an American, I can safely say that I have never heard of popovers . Perhaps I'll try to find a recipe online for them

I'd never heard of them either, I suspect the internet might be making things up
I like this photo of our flat's oven last year while we were making our Christmas meal - what dedication to the Yorkshire pudding

This thread reminds me of how confused I used to get when reading American books as a child. The different names for food were hard to understand in the days before everyone had internet so I just made it up as I went along One I recall is yams, which we call sweet potato. For some reason my brain summoned up an image of small, hard little vegetables, which didn't seem very appealing Took me a while to figure out what bologna was as well. And the only time I'd heard candy (sweets) was in 'candy canes', so I thought you were all eating candy canes all year round

Actually, Yams and sweet potatoes are two different things... Yams are more golden and they taste better, Sweet Potatoes are green...

Ooh, I love yorkshire puddings! That reminds me I should make them again, I found a really good recipe a while back . . .

Yes, while I don't really like either, I like yams slightly better, and they're a more dark orange I think.

http://rhosgobel.blogspot.com/2005/12/baked-sweet-potatoes-with-marshmallows.html

Actually, Yams and sweet potatoes are two different things... Yams are more golden and they taste better, Sweet Potatoes are green...

Sounds like what we call sweet potatoes are yams, and you have something else you call sweet potato - our sweet potatoes aren't green, they're the ones on the left in the photo Kira posted.

Edit - and the ones on the left in the photo you posted too.

A little catching up on previous items discussed here:

Vegemite - there used to be a little store in St Paul that sold Australia-related items, and I bought some Vegemite there (partially prompted, perhaps, by a reference to it in Men at Work's "Land Down Under" song back in the 80s). I didn't mind the taste.

Canadian accents - The first time I went to Victoria, BC, I was a little surprised to hear the British-influenced speech, which seemed stronger there than in other provinces I'd previously visited (Manitoba and Ontario), in which the accent seems less pronounced. At last summer's Ohio Moot, I really enjoyed listening to our Canadian guests! (And the Southern US ones for that matter).

Igloos in Alaska, and day length - In years gone by I've been asked similar questions: "Do you even have summer in Minnesota, or can you ice fish all year round?" As in Alaska, summers here can be surprisingly hot and humid - with legendary mosquitoes - but certainly not to the length and extremes of southern US summers.

As an astronomer I discovered the difference latitude makes in length of days when I was pretty young. While the variance here at 45 degrees latitude is less than in Alaska, it's significantly greater than in the southern states I've visited.[/geek ramble]

Wildlife - we used to have to go to northern Minnesota to spot black bears or wolves. Now there are occasional reports of bears as far south as the Twin Cities suburbs, and the wolf population here is thriving. I once spotted a black bear running across the interstate! (It made it across safely). Pretty cool.

Spam - I grew up in a town about 15 miles from the Hormel headquarters (the makers of Spam). We had it occasionally as kids. Incidentally, there is a Spam Museum to visit the next time you're in Austin (Minnesota). Watch for the monitors playing the Monty Python SPAM sketch.

I've heard of popovers; they do look a lot like the Yorkshire pudding pictures posted. Wikipedia notes a connection between the two treats.

On yams and sweet potatoes, there's also something called 'candied yams' - basically those orange-colored tubers sweetened with a sugary syrup. We've had this occasionally as part of our Thanskgiving dinner.

CSLewisNarnia wrote:
Is ballet pretty popular? Or not really?

Quite popular actually, (it's something of a national pride that people are proud of and so it is very popular )

Aslanisthebest wrote:
So, wild rose, in Russia, if your not Christian, then you don't celebrate Christmas? That's interesting.

Well the reason for this is that before, Christmas was forbidden to be celebrated and was substituted with new years. To this day it is still the biggest party here. Dinner with family, Christmas trees with lights, presents, this is all done for new years. Now Christmas is an official party, but lots of people are not exactly sure what to do. Christmas is celebrated on January 7th and is a purly religious party, since Father Frost (our version of Santa), lots of shopping, and stuff like that are all done for new years, so if your not a Christian, there's not really much to do.
P.S. Since Russian Christmas is going to be the day after tomorrow I thought I;d share one of my two favorite Russian Christmas songs. They are sung by this guy Andrey Baykalets who plays the gusly (that's pronoucned gooslee, with the accent on the first syllable), it's a traditional Russian intrument.
Днесь Христос родился!
Запевайте христиане
На небе зорька
I have a question narnian_at_heart, you mentioned that there are Orthodox Churches where you are and I was wondering if they are a bit different then the ones here. Do you know if the sit or stand during the services and if the women have to have their heads covered?

Regarding Russians in Alaska, wild rose, there are a lot where I live. Most of the ladies were dresses (long, pretty silky ones) and a head cover. I'm not sure if there are any orthodox churches.

Warrior 4 Jesus, thank you for answering my questions! I was kinda unsure if you would even know about Man from Snowy River, but then I remembered it's based off a poem. Glad to hear it is known in Australia.
I have another question for Australians, if you don't mind. Who are your national heroes? We have our presidents like Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, etc, also inventors (Wright brothers, Edison) and various generals and activists. Who do the Australians have?