WR: I've never just had and oranges and milk together just to have oranges and milk, so I don't know where that myth came from . but we often eat oranges with breakfast due to the amount of vitamins and minerals they contain. And we drink milk with breakfast for the calcium and such.

it came from a book I was reading, it was an A Beka Book called 'Enjoying Good Health' and it said that 'a good breakfast includes milk...a citrus fruit such as orange juice or grapefruit sections' and then there were a few pictures of a girl eating an orange and drinking milk and I was quite shocked because for one citrus fruites are just about never eaten for breakfast here and I was always taught that any citrus fruits and milk should not be mixed, so it had me quite confused

Actually, while it may not be a national holiday many schools have an orginized "May Day" and we have the pole and everything.

Lolz, well then, Americans have broken that rule many times over.

Oh yeah...doesn't it inhibit the nutrients or something *wonders if confusing this w/ another thing* Oh wait, I think it was don't drink milk w/ iron supplements, drink orange juice instead. I think. Hah, not exactly the same thing, eh?

Wow, May Day sounds real Hobbity, Jillhope! I wish I could do it...

Lu

narnian_at_heart, How common are wolves there? Have you ever seen one? What's it like living in the largest state in the US? Are there any venemous snakes or dangerous spiders there?

Where I live, there are no wolves. However, there are lots of wolves in other parts of the state. There's a small town on the Alaska Peninsula called Chignik Lake. A teacher there got killed by wolves while out taking a walk. In other parts, like where my family hunts, there are lots of wolves. The state is working on wolf control to try to control the population. My brother actually shot a wolf while my family was moose hunting last fall.

Living here? It's not like every day I'm like "ooh, I live in the largest state" most of the time I don't even think about it unless I meet someone from Texas.

Nope, no snakes or spiders that I'm aware of. I don't believe that we have snakes and we have daddy long legs and some that (I think) are called wolf spiders but that's about it.

Is it true that in America you eat oranges with milk? (meaning that sometimes you drink milk while eating oranges)

Nope, I never have. I mean, I supposed I've been drinking milk and eating an orange with my breakfast before but I've never gotten out an orange and a glass of milk to eat/drink at the same time. That'd be kind of weird, I think.

Anyway, most places have wild critters, just different ones. Like in Florida you can be eaten by a gator while out on a walk (glad I don't live there!!)

Anyway, most places have wild critters, just different ones. Like in Florida you can be eaten by a gator while out on a walk (glad I don't live there!!)

Yea, all places have wild critters of some sort and people just deal with them. The town I used to live in in the summer had dozens of bears. We had a bear on our front porch once and it was unusual if you didn't see one at least three times a week.

Okay, that's just scary!

So I have a question for you, narnian_at_heart: What are the differences that living in Alaska make for you, vs living in a warmer area?

Lu

Okay, that's just scary!

So I have a question for you, narnian_at_heart: What are the differences that living in Alaska make for you, vs living in a warmer area?

Lu

It's not that scary. I mean, when you've grown up with them, you just deal with it. Yea, they're dangerous but if you don't do anything stupid, you'll be fine. You just have to give them space. If you act like a tourist ("ooh, I want a close up picture!" "I want to feed it!" "Try to get me in that shot with it" "How close can we get to it"), then you might be in trouble.

Differences: well first off, all of Alaska isn't as cold as people think it is. Where I'm going to college in two weeks, yea, it's -40 Farenheit sometimes. Where I live right now, it gets down to 15 above zero sometimes in the winter but no colder. And during the summer, it can actually be quite hot. Where I live, it's in the 60s or 70s in the summer. In interior Alaska, it can get up in the 80s and 90s in the summer.

Basically, you just have to get a good coat and boots and you'll be fine. Also, (not here, but in places where it gets down to 0 and below) you have to have either a garage or an extension cord so you can plug your car in at night otherwise you can't start it in the mornings.

Oh, wow! I pictured Alaska differently. I wonder if this has to do w/ movies...I never knew it could get that hot!

Haha, on the tourist bit. I mean, not funny in real life, but in cartoons...

What an interesting thread! I've always been intrigued by the many cultural differences there are around the world. I'd like to put in my two cents about a few things.

...Is it true that in America you eat oranges with milk? (meaning that sometimes you drink milk while eating oranges)

I'm guessing you don't mean as a snack, otherwise the answer would be no. But we do eat oranges for breakfast sometimes, and milk is a common breakfast item as well. So I suppose we might end up eating a meal where both oranges and milk would be consumed in the same meal. Our breakfasts have a wide variety of things that we might eat, though. You could have bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns, you could have cereal and milk, you could have fruit like bananas, melon, oranges, grapefruit, etc., you could have hot cereal like oatmeal or cream of wheat, you could have pastry items like cinnamon rolls, muffins, or buns, you could have a lot of things, really. There's also french toast, pancakes, waffles, and the like. I've even heard of cold pizza being a popular breakfast item, although I don't find it particularly appetizing. So really, it's not that Americans have oranges with milk, it's more that with all the different breakfast items we consume, there might be a day where we end up having both, although unintentionally. Which makes me curious...what's a typical breakfast like for those of you outside the U.S.? Is it similar, or different?

Another thing I want to know is also about food. In the US we have tendency to eat many different foods from many different countries. If we go out to eat, we usually specify which type of restaurant we're going to: Chinese, Italian, Mexican, etc. Is this just an American thing? Or do other people do this as well?

I was particularly interested in the accent discussion. I think it's so funny that people think that there is one accent they can call "American". Which is so not true. And we don't just have accents for the really noticeable places, like New York or Tennessee or Texas. Even the Utahns have an accent, although I didn't notice it (since that's where I grew up) until I started meeting people from other places. I know that in Utah, people have a tendency to drop their "t"s and "d"s in the middle of or end of a word, so words like "mountain" end up sounding like "moun'in" and so on. I can also tell when there's someone from the east coast (one particular thing I've noticed is they say "mondee" instead of "monday"). I'm sure it's the same in England. I bet different regions have slightly different dialects and such, some so slight even the locals don't notice it. So there's really very little point in asking what any particular accent sounds like (when watching PC, if you listen very carefully, you'll notice that the "Telmarine Accent" isn't really one accent at all. Each of the Lords has a slightly different accent. It's subtle, but it's there). Anyways. I'll get off my soapbox now.

And here's one for England. I always wondered can Anglican priests get married. I know that Catholic ones can't and in the Russian Orthodox church you have to be married (or get married) in order to become a priest, but I never knew about Anglican ones

In the Anglican church, as in most protestant churches, priests/ministers can be married or single. Some whose views are closer to Catholicism ("High Church") may prefer to be single/have single priests.

Great Britain refers to the landmass that is our lovely island, it's not a country. Regional accents aren't the same as accents of seperate countries. By your reasoning there'd be one European accent I will call the American accent a 'United States' accent if that will clear things up.

That is still not my point!
Let me see if I can articulate these thoughts more clearly:
I don't think people should say "British accent" or "American accent", but there are British accents and American accents. All accents within the area (I am and have always been fully aware that Great Britain is not a country, but an area [as I said above]) of Great Britain could be considered "British accents" since they are all accents within Great Britain. Just as all accents within America could be considered "American accents". Emphasis on the plural. You could technically say there are European accents, which would encompass all accents within Europe.

And.....how would that help? It's just calling it the same thing!

EDIT: If you want me to be specific about England, there is no difference. It also doesn't just have one accent. It has many accents, so someone who has a regional accent doesn't have the standard "English" accent. Same with America. Americans don't have a single accent, some of which foreigners can't differentiate.
http://aschmann.net/AmEng/#LargeMap

You're right, in that English, Scottish and Welsh accents do come under the umbrella of 'British accents', I'm not denying that. What I'm saying is that there is no single, combined British accent. I'm talking about when people say things like "I can do a British accent!" and then come out with what's actually the English accent (a generic, non specific one, but the English accent all the same). What we're disagreeing on here is that I don't think in anyway that the separation between several countries accents is comparable to the separations in regional accents.

I don't want you to be specific about English accents, you're right that there's many different ones and this is similar to how in the US there's many regional accents. What it's not the same as is differences between entirely separate countries just being considered 'regional'. They aren't.

Honestly, what I think this is caused by is the gulf between how British people view their nations and how Americans view it. For example, it's actually very unusual for someone to call themselves British (I do it here to save confusion and nit picking), the preference is to call yourself English, Scottish or Welsh (this is actually how I've caught out a lot of people pretending to be from here online, if they refer to themselves as British only it's pretty suspect). Whereas in the US I've noticed it all get put under a single 'British' heading. Every time I've visited the US actually I never had anyone call me English, or take a guess at anywhere else, I was always just called British and told I had a lovely British accent This in no way offended me, I just found the difference quite strange and interesting.

In a nutshell, I see your point that there's umbrella names for sets of accents in the US, and same for sets of accents in the UK, but I'm saying there is a big difference between different accents within a country, and different accents in seperate countries.

Okay, I think we have an understanding now, don't we?
And I think I'm the only American who actually says "English" instead of "British" when talking about England.
I think a lot of American say "British" because they cannot differentiate between English, Scottish, and Welsh accents.

"Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you!"
- Dr. Seuss

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...Is it true that in America you eat oranges with milk? (meaning that sometimes you drink milk while eating oranges)

You know I never ever done that before. But to answer your question ,no I don't thing many people do that. It's kind of put in the same category as, do people from Texas all have a twang or ride horses. But thanks for asking! I now have to try that! * skips to kitchen and looks for an orange and milk*

So, out of curiosity, what's the difference between a regional accent and accents of different countries? I always just thought that an accent was an accent.

For wild rose:
(by the way, I've always found it very cool you live in Russia!
In Russia, is the story of Princess Anastasia popular?
What are normal traditions for Russian Christmases?

And do you have Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday)?

I don't think it's terribly official, but I do remember some day (I have no idea what day it was) was called Pancake Day, and a restraunt chain (IHOP) was giving out two free buttermilk pancakes as well as some other panckake offers from several other places. Just thought I'd share that.
My mom makes English pancakes whenever she does make pancakes. They are delicious. Their ingredients call for sugar in them, rather than having them sweetened with maple syrup, right?