Ok I have a Question for anyone who lives in Europe!

The last time I went to Slovakia most people did not have dishwashers or dryers or garbage disposals. Is it like that any where else or do most people have that now?

Well, I don't know about the Slovak's, but we German's have dishwashers and dryers and other large appliances such as that. They are, however, much smaller than most American versions, because our living quarters are usually smaller altogether. They run on 2/20 voltage, as opposed to the American 1/10 usually. It's a hassle when I fly back and forth, I have to use an alternator.

As W4J says, a lot of people in Australia routinely do without dishwashers, dryers or garbage disposal.

We do have a dishwasher but it only gets used every now and then such as when there are visitors or it is Christmas dinner or if there is trouble or someone is ill. Although we do have an old dryer for mid-winter and rainy weather, we mostly use the solar and wind-powered rotary clothesline. Even during rainy weather it isn't too difficult to rig up a clothesline across the garage or on a back veranda, or to get a clothes horse for drying small items.

We still have garbage trucks collecting our garbage which has to be sorted into recyclable, non-recyclable and organic waste. This service is provided by our local councils from the rates we pay them each year.

That always happens to my Grandma and I at the nail salon! We always want to know what those ladies are saying!

Sometimes you can figure out what people are saying even in another language. It might be the tones they use which suggests whether they are annoyed or not, and sometimes the context they are talking about involves words they can't translate back into their own languages easily. eg baby show, barbecue, or DVD.

I'm not sorry I learned Latin even if it is a dead language. It gives a few insights into how English and other languages work.

We don't have a garbage disposal. I wish we did! We do have a dryer and don't line dry our clothes. It's not practical here when it's below freezing in the winter and it blows a LOT and rains a LOT here so we wouldn't be able to line dry very often. I personally don't like line dryed clothes. I've had some line dried before (indoors) and they were stiff and not soft and the one shirt was stretched out weirdly and didn't fit right because it hadn't been dried in a dryer. I had to re-wash it and dry it in the dryer before I could wear it.

We do have a dishwasher but we don't use it because it broke a year or so ago and my parents, rather than fix it, just make my siblings and I wash the dishes.

So does Pippin represent a real Scottish accent? Because I think it was Billy Boyd's real accent.

It was decided to have Billy and Dom use their own local regional dialects so that this would emphasise the different areas of the Shire that they came from - Pippin from Tookborough where they are a bit more adventurous, and Merry from Buckland where people are a bit different from those in Hobbiton (where they spoke more like south western England, except for the gentry - the Bagginsese etc who were more educated and better off).

I'd imagine that in Ireland there would be all sorts of associations and clubs which would support someone wanting to learn Irish, and that even in the USA you'd be able to access similar organisations. I've also been to Mull and to other places in Scotland where Scottish Gaelic is spoken, but where everyone still speaks English. Yet, the street signs are in both languages, the ferry public announcements were in both Gaelic and English and I've heard that the dogs there on the farms only answer to Gaelic commands.

I agree I could similarly contact the Alliance Française, if I wanted to practise French, which I studied because it and Latin were the only languages on offer when I was at school. However, where I live, French speakers are rare. You'd be better off learning Mandarin or Cantonese Chinese, Vietnamese, or Arabic if you wanted to learn another language. Plenty of speakers around to practise on, you see.

I'm a little confused, wagga. That first paragraph about there being Irish clubs and associations is exactly what I said, you just didn't quote that part of my post for some reason.
In Ireland too the signs and many other things are in Gaelic as well as English (sometimes Gaelic only), but this still isn't the same as the full immersion in a country's language that you would get somewhere like France. The fact that even a lot of Irish people aren't fluent in Gaelic proves this.

On garbage disposals - I've never seen one not only in the UK, but in any European countries I've visited either, I think they're very much an American thing. Dishwashers are more common, like narnian_at_heart we had one at home but it broke and no one can be bothered to fix it Now I live in a flat with a dishwater that all the people I live with use, but I for some reason have never liked dishwashers and do all my washing by hand.

I've been cursed in that every house/apartment I've lived in as an adult has not had a dishwasher. The house my wife and I have now came with one but it isn't working, so we're going to be getting on in the near future hopefully. Handwashing dishes is still superior for certain items (glasses in particular, especially if they have logos on them since they tend to wear off fast in the dishwasher) but it'd be nice to just load them up in the dishwasher and let the machine handle it. Other than that if you don't like doing dishes do what my wife and I did; get paper plates.

Before I go off topic I do have a question or two I'd like to ask our overseas friends. Are there any American cars that are popular imports in your respective countries? As far as British cars go, Stateside the new Mini Cooper is fairly popular...I'm even thinking of trading in my truck for one (no, not for midlife crisis ...if you own a truck everyone constantly wants to use it (and you) to help them move their stuff. I figured if I owned a Mini Cooper no one could ask to borrow me or my truck again. Master plan. ).

The MGB was popular back in the day and I still see one or two on occasion. Parts are hard to get for it but they're sharp when they're in mint condition.

And we all know W4J drives Mad Max's Pursuit Special.

I wouldn't mind getting my hands on one too.

Let me just say, that if I had the opportunity to get a mini-coop, I would in a heart-beat! I think they are awesome-awesome-UBER-awesome cars, but alas, an unemployed college student can't exactly afford one

There are very few American cars over here, I think the only ones around belong to car collectors. I'm not entirely sure why this is, I know it's partly because a lot of them just don't really fit on our roads

Agreed, the reason is less about importing and more about space. See, the roads in central and east germany are actually quite small compared to American roads. Other than the Autobahn, there are few local roads that have the space to really accomodate those massive American trucks and suv's and things. That is why cars like the Mini, SmartCar, and VW Bug are so popular here.

We don't have a garbage disposal. I wish we did! We do have a dryer and don't line dry our clothes. It's not practical here when it's below freezing in the winter and it blows a LOT and rains a LOT here so we wouldn't be able to line dry very often. I personally don't like line dryed clothes. I've had some line dried before (indoors) and they were stiff and not soft and the one shirt was stretched out weirdly and didn't fit right because it hadn't been dried in a dryer. I had to re-wash it and dry it in the dryer before I could wear it.

We do have a dishwasher but we don't use it because it broke a year or so ago and my parents, rather than fix it, just make my siblings and I wash the dishes.

We have all three! But when we were in Slovakia I loved my clothes line dried. I would pretend I lived in the wild west!

I'm a little confused, wagga. That first paragraph about there being Irish clubs and associations is exactly what I said, you just didn't quote that part of my post for some reason.
In Ireland too the signs and many other things are in Gaelic as well as English (sometimes Gaelic only), but this still isn't the same as the full immersion in a country's language that you would get somewhere like France. The fact that even a lot of Irish people aren't fluent in Gaelic proves this.

Ah yes, I agree with you that in France, itself, there would not be the difficulties about learning French you might experience in learning Irish in Ireland, let alone Scottish Gaelic in Scotland. I mentioned Scottish Gaelic as being in a similar situation, as it, too, is a dying language that people in Scotland want to revive. However, I've found out that Scottish Gaelic being spoken in Scotland differs quite considerably from the Irish situation. Although you get the two language signs etc north of Inverness or in the Hebrides, and the vast bulk of the population able to speak English, the Scots people of the Orkneys and the Shetlands say they never spoke Scottish Gaelic in the first place. The ancestors of the people who live there were Vikings, and the Shetlands, at any rate, are close to Norway.

In France, itself, it has been said often enough that if you don't speak the French language fluently already, then tough luck, though I found people there patient with my struggling efforts and reasonably polite to me. I found also that a lot of French understand English, even the beggars, it would seem. An English resident of France I met in a shop, told me though that people are quite rude to her if she can't remember French words or if she is ungrammatical etc. I've also been told Australians tend to be treated better than the English in France.

The point that I was trying to make is that outside of France itself, it is just as much a waste of time and effort to learn the language when it is rarely spoken locally, and it would be of more use to me to know the language if there were people around I could have conversations with. The French are not commonly Australian immigrants, unlike the Irish and Scots. . Most of the people around here who do speak another language fluently are of Greek, Eastern European, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese or Arabic-speaking origins. And these folk often have cultural centres, clubs and Saturday language classes so as to retain their heritages.

On the other hand there are other benefits from learning any second language, even if it is a dead one like Latin. And yes, even around here there is a Gaelic club which I think might assist if I were seriously interested in learning Scottish Gaelic.

Going a few posts back, someone mentioned a book on Australian slang where the author was called 'Afferbeck Lauder'. I was just wondering what it is actually meant to read as, because I've been wondering for hours. Also, no one I know really speaks with that type of slang, nothing like that at all.

It is a humourous, satirical view of the way Aussies speak which tends to exaggerate somewhat. Afferbeck Lauder was the pseudonym of Alastair Ardoch Morrison, a Sydney graphic artist who also lampooned the Standard English accents of UK's upper class, the sort of English spoken in PG Wodehouse.

A similar book from an American point of view was Down Undah without blundah , also published in the 1960's or 1970's. This was written by an American teacher who had a rather entertaining time working in Tasmania, learning that schoolgirls who innocently asked in class for replacement rubbers were referring to pencil erasers, and who, when they said they were flat out at the weekend were explaining that they had a lot to do. I don't know if there are more recent sorts of similar books available.

Shadowlander, spreading false rumours again! I don't have a Pursuit Special, I wish I did though.

Most cars in Australia are either Aussie, Japanese, Korean or European makes (the Japanese cars seem to be the most economical and best made). We have few American cars. They're basically limited to the occasional American hot-rod, Hummer (or Humvee) and the chunky Chryslers and Dodges. Most of the time when I see American cars on the road I think, they may look good but they chew up petrol like nobody's business (petrol is very expensive here, not quite UK's though), take up one and a bit sides of the road and because they're built like tanks, they're huge and cumbersome and aren't good for the environment. They're just not practical. But they look good.

I find from reading about dishwashers, clotheslines, and cars in this thread that Australia seems to be a pretty green country in some ways I wish that would rub off here. Or maybe they're just certain parts of the country where things are done in an old-fashioned way? (great by me).

We're too utterly car-dependent here in America and we pollute the air and environment here a lot with those hunky SUVs. I own a Japanese-made car and yes I agree they are much more economical and better built. I've seen some Smart Cars here, which are like pretty much the front half of a car. Though I don't think I could stand to own one and would only see the usefulness of them in big city driving and parking where space is a premium. Probably a bit scary if one were driving in one and had a collision with a bigger vehicle...

Yes, Australia is generally quite green (environmentally, certainly not colour-wise). Our cities have some pollution but not much, although Melbourne and Sydney have enough of it. I wouldn't be too keen to drive a Smart Car either, nor those little cars with bottoms. Cars shouldn't have bottoms!

it is more red and yellow colour-wise.

My dad will not buy a car that is not a ford.