Few more funny English words:

• craic - fun in a pub (comes from Irish gaelic, and the pronunciation is roughly similar to 'crack' - I was a bit confused when people started talking about 'crack' they had in a pub!)
• banter - same meaning as craic. Interesting fact: a person can be a good craic, but you cannot be a good banter. Being good craic means that the person is a good pub companion.
• hi ho - that's how it is and nothing can be done about it.
• sausage dog - dachshund (for my Czech speaking friends: 'jezevčík').

And one very interesting thing: the English people do have a special marker just for bingo! Really, seriously, a special marker for bingo, not suitable for anything else. I am not kidding. Try to google 'bingo marker' or something like that, and you will see yourself.

It has wide, flat tip, which is designed to make big dots. Which is very useful, because the numbers come quickly one after another, and they are scattered all over the page, so you need to be quick in marking them.

(Yes - indeed. I have played bingo. I think I've quite boosted my Englishness!)

I have learned few more interesting words/wordings:

• iffy: suspicious
• path of least resistance: the easiest option (we use this in Czech as well, nice to know that English people say the same thing)
• it doesn't smell very good: it's probably some dirty business (again, we use this in Czech as well)
• tissue of lies: lot of lies

Apart from this, I would like to make one observation. The Mancunian dialect is not very understandable, no doubt about that. However, I have no idea how does it sound! The other day, I was discussing with one of my colleagues. I mentioned that I don't understand one particular person very well; he replied, yes, that person has a particularly thick Mancunian dialect. Then I mentioned another person I don't understand. He commented in the same way. The point is, these two people speak so differently that I would never guess they come from the same city! What is this Mancunian dialect, then?

My writing has been suspended over past few days, because my mum was visiting.
(English people reacted like English people: when I'd told them that I needed two days off, they asked 'is it good thing or bad thing?')

Anyway, we've spent wonderful four days wandering around the city, visiting the canal, shopping, drinking hot wine on Christmas markets, and so on.

My mum also wanted to go for a trip by tram (anywhere... she did not care much), and so we went to MediaCityUK. This is part of Salford where the Manchester docks used to be, and all the cotton and merchandise used to go through there. Well, long time ago! Now it's a place of fancy flats, posh quays, and huge BBC studios. And the University of Salford!

There is also Imperial War Museum, which currently hosts exhibition about Blitz. The exhibition is based on Horrible Histories books, and is actually very good! Definitely worth seeing, and not just because it is for free. :-)

I liked that place. It looks very unique, a bit like something in Holland (because of the canals). Fancy. I would like to live there, but I am not rich enough.

I was not impressed by the trams, though. The whole system is called Metrolink (what a fancy name!), and it's probably supposed to operate like a rapid transit system, but - you wish! In reality, it is rapid between Deansgate-Castlefield and maybe the next stop. The rest of the time, it just turns in ridiculous curves, goes on single track, or does other stupid things. Plus, MediaCityUK is a 'final stop' (in a sense that if a tram comes, it only can leave in the direction from which it arrived), so the tram driver has to take his stuff and go to the other side of the tram to continue the journey to Eccles.

I have just now found the interesting and funny information that the Metrolink trams are operated by a subsidiary of RATP. I think this explains a lot.

Apart from this, we have also visited lot of pubs and restaurants. We are still searching for The Perfect Beer (search continues), but I think that we are pretty close to The Perfect Burger. It may be had in Byron Burgers, on Piccadilly Gardens, or on John Dalton Street. Yummy!

On the other hand, I think that we are also pretty close to the worst restaurant in Manchester. Avoid Slug and Lettuce at all costs! My husband had fish and chips there, and he was nearly poisoned by that stuff! The fish was not fresh, that's that. Plus, the staff is weird, and the beer is not worth. Never again, ever.

Yesterday, I have decided to become a more positive person! And to learn a bit more of English grammar.

I have a reason for that. English people keep correcting my stuff, and whatever I write, they don't like. And while I keep telling them that they cannot change me into a native speaker, because this has been decided quite some time ago, I can certainly improve my writings skill. So I will at least try, because them re-drafting everything just makes me mad.

(I have already started to work on my use of articles (a, the). I have discovered a simple rule: just put them anywhere you can, even if it feels that they should not be there. Just do it, don't question. English people are usually happy with the outcome.)

Apart from English language problems, we have still a problem with beer. Mostly, English people drink either ale (which I find awful, because it is sour), or IPA (which is in my opinion not much better). And to add to the horrible taste, ales and IPAs are served warm. Duuuh! As an alternative, each pub usually sells at least one lager - which is usually either local stuff (= nearly tasteless stuff which is served far too cold), or Heineken (weak, tasteless, and again served a bit too cold).

Therefore, we had to try almost immediately when we've found a pub with draft Kozel. I was a bit worried that this would be Kozel, English style (= could be better, to put it in English way). Yesterday, we gave it a go. It was not bad. I've had better, but considering local habits of drinking beer warm & gasless, it was excellent.

It rains all the time now, and the city is awfully full of people, because Christmas is approaching. Therefore the Christmas markets are kinda nightmare now. Luckily, English people are in general good people, so no one is trying to steal your wallet. (In Prague, your stuff would be stolen in ca 5 pikoseconds, especially in such a gathering of people.)

Speaking of  Christmas, there is one very funny thing we have also discovered yesterday. Christmas service of the public transport!

In Prague, the public transport during the Christmas festive season is usually very funny, trams and buses go maybe every 30 min - but at least there are some trams and buses! Yesterday, my husband picked a TFGM leaflet, which informed us about the Christmas services. It will be more or less like this:
- 24 December: buses run until 6 pm, then no service;
- 25 December: no buses (!!!!!);
- 26 to 30 December: holiday/Sunday schedules, with some services cancelled, some replaced by some other services, etc.;
- 31 December: no buses between 6 pm and 11 pm, then there will be (hopefully) something.

Trams have a very similar schedule, with no trams on 25 December. (Really. No trams. Just like that.)

Well, this is a joke, isn't it?

English people are funny!

There was a party last Friday, because one of my new colleagues was already becoming former colleague - he left the company, and wanted to celebrate this. (Btw, another word to my collection of new English words I did not know before: do. It means also party.) Anyway, we went for few drinks etc., you probably have a decent idea of how this works. During this party, I engaged in a terrible argument, in which I've discovered the following:
- parts of Greater Manchester where there is no tram connection to the city centre suck, and are considered inferior;
- people from Liverpool tend to steal things and stab other people;
- I myself am funny person because there is no tram going to the place I live;
- you are allowed to criticize things, and you are allowed to say things as above (...that Liverpool people are thieves, or that people like me are inferior because of no tram) - as long as you do not mean them.

To explain the bad things mentioned above - you can generally say nasty things light-heartedly, but you must not say nasty things if they are actually true. If you want to really criticize something (...you are really unhappy with that thing), you must not say it like this, you must 'wrap' it, present it in a softened, much nicer way. Example: my colleagues could not care less where I live. Therefore they can say that I live in dirty suburb. However, if I don't like some stuff that some people do in the office, I must not say 'you are doing lousy job, and the work product sucks'. I must say something like 'have you considered doing it little bit differently', 'I did not quite understand what you meant here', or something like that. O_o

(To be fair, I have seen funny things on the bus which seem to confirm the 'lousy suburbs' theory. For example, there was a lady who cleaned her teeth... with her jumper! She just grabbed the sleeve of her jumper, and cleaned her teeth. Duuuuh! And other disgusting stuff I do not really want to describe here.)

Apart from this, more funny things happen to me every day.
I am constantly offered milk in the kitchen of our office. Every time I am in the kitchen, making tea (green tea...), and there is someone else, the person is (i) pouring milk in his/her drink, and (ii) offering me milk before putting it back to the fridge. I think that one day I will give up, make a cup of black tea - and then use the milk. But I think that when it comes, I will ask some English people for explanations, and I will make them tell me how to do this properly. It will be fun!

The other day, we had a visit from Asia in our office. The guy came with some little Asian cakes and cookies. Well, I expected them to be more exotic, but nevermind; the funny part was that some of these cookies tasted like pineapple. English people told me that pineapples were pretty exotic. I told them that now it's 21st century, and pineapples are, like, everywhere, maybe even grown in Europe in some greenhouses or whatever. Well, they replied, pineapples were considered exotic in 18th century, and still are, and that's that. Like, seriously? O_o In case you haven't noticed, it's 2015 already!!

The English people also keep correcting everything I write. I mean, I write quite a lot in my job, and these English guys are very obsessive about many things - meaning that they usually say 'I have made few minor stylistic changes', and this means that all my sentences magically disappear and are replaced by their words and sentences. Which makes me kinda depressed, because I've never had problems like this (in particular, no one has ever told me that what I write had been unclear). I am also not that convinced that I would ever write like a native speaker (simply because I am not one, and I cannot change this).

But just to finish this - English people are not the only funny people around. My husband is also very funny sometimes. In particular, I don't quite understand why he struggles so much with local coins. English coins are: 1p (small copper circular coin), 2p (big copper circular coin), 5p (small silver circular coin), 10p (big silver circular coin), 20p (small silver heptagonal coin), 50p (big silver heptagonal coin), £1 (small and thick yellow coin, quite distinct), £2 (big bi-coloured yellow and silver coin, again quite distinct).
It's not that difficult, is it... but for unknown reason, my husband is absolutely unable to remember the coins, and every times we have to pay anything in any shop, it takes ages, because he has to check every coin value, and decide whether it is suitable for the purpose or not.
(My husband now insists that I add the following information: (i) the coins do not have the value written on them in one easy, big number, they rather have just text (quite small to be fair) that informs you that this one is 'one penny', 'fifty pence' etc.; (ii) it's not that the bigger the coin, the higher the value, and the sizes vary: 5p (the smallest) -> 1p -> 20p -> £1 -> 10p -> 2p -> 50p -> £2 (the biggest).)
And the funniest part is that every time I lose my temper and just pick the right coins from his hand straight away, he accuses me of being English person!