Cars!

I've talked about roads but I don't seem to recall actually discussing much about what the English use to get around. Of course there is the fact that so many of the cars are French, but I was quite expecting that. Your Renaults, Citreons. Maybe the Vauxhall's. I don't know what their deal is, really. And you have your Ford cars, your Rovers (not Land Rovers, but Rovers), a very occasional Honda, and a very occasional Toyota, plus your Volkswagons and BMWs. What surprises me the most is that so many of the cars are hatchbacks. Like, a freakishly high percentage. I think you can kind of see this in the photo on the right, which is the road I walk down to get to campus, nicely lined with hatchbacks. I don't think the English have anything against the sedan, well, aside from the fact they dont' call it a sedan, but that's not the point. Oh, and the hatchbacks are both two and four doors (three and five doors, if you prefer). Yet for some reason I have only seen one Subaru Outback, which is the most frequently seen car with a hatchback in the Pacific Northwest.

There also aren't many trucks. Sometimes I would try to explain the idea of the unnaturally large pick-up truck to the English and I don't think they really understood. Luckily as we were driving through Wroughton on the way to that science museum, we passed what I'm sure must be the only F-350 extended cab on this side of the Atlantic. And I sat up, gasped, and yelled 'F-350 extended cab!!', at which point I'm pretty sure everyone just thought I was crazy. You do see some SUVs around, but pick-ups are not frequent sights (I see maybe one a week or so). Maybe it's just that they can't say the word truck for fear of sounding too American. Entirely understandable. Apparently we talk funny.

Tomorrow is class with stat rab, port field trip, another class with stat rab. I know, I know. It's almost too exciting.