The Beatles, the Falklands and that notorious handball

Greeting my parents at the airport with my 63 year old language student may have been a bit of a shock - 'Amy, we knew the men were difficult but...'
Quickly clarifying that he was not my new boyfriend but a student who had kindly offered to drive them from the airport to their hotel, we set off to the city centre.
As we drove up one of the city's main roads, one of the first things my parents noticed was - not the eclectic European architecture or the worlds widest avenue, but the flowering trees....something I had completely over looked in my new pseudo - cosmopolitan life style (I have no time to see trees).

Green eyes

Unlike their visit to Costa Rica however, they decided not to take cuttings for the garden back home. How my stepmother managed to get 32 exotic plant cuttings through two sets of airport customs and back home to our garden alive, shall forever remain a mystery to me.

Looking and sounding like typical Brits, it took only three hours for 'La mano de Dios' to come up in conversation - I warned them both that the Falklands (sorry...Las Malvinas), the Beatles and various football interrogations would be sure to come up eventually.
Now, my Dad's football knowledge is nearly as bad as mine - but he does manage to trump me - whenever he gets asked who he supports he declares triumphantly, Chelsea. I asked him what exactly this fan claim is based on (never having heard him ever mention football)... he replied - 'well I did see them play years ago against Shrewsbury town (where my Dad was brought up), it was 1964 I think, I was wearing a bobble hat and I had one of those rattles...damn fine bobble hat that was, your Grandma knit it...' (Chelsea till I die)

And do we fare better with Beatles talk? Well certainly not in my case...
'You are from England?'
'Yes'
'Do you like the Beatles?
'Yes'
(They begin to sing the words, I sing a couple of words (normally 'Hey Jude') and then fill with dah dahing)
'What? You don't know ALL the lyrics to EVERY one of their songs?'
'No'
'But you're from Engerlaaand!'

A fine example of British living

Yes I am, but neither do I know all the names of the Rolling Stones or have tea at 5.00pm everyday (tea is far too good to restrict to a single hour)...and do I recommend going on a once in a life time trip to England solely to visit Liverpool? How about I shatter your dreams with an episode of Brookside.

It's sometimes hard to explain that England has not remained in a time warp for 50 years and that the place is (culturally) quite different to the 1960's. I found this interview with Gael Garcia Bernal (not Gail, Ga- el, so yes he can still be sexy) which sums it up in some respects...

(Describing his move to London) 'At first, he was shocked by this country's apathy towards politics and culture. As an outsider, he expected the Rolling Stones, the Marquee Club and a thriving art-house cinema scene. What he discovered were the Spice Girls, 'Lock, Stock...' and fellow students who would rather down pints than watch films. '

(I once enraged an Argentine by referring to Pink Floyd as 'he'...Ok ok I know it's 'they', I just always thought it was the name of a band member as well)

Anyway - I'm sorry I digress (see... I do lyrics). The first day we decided to take the open-top yellow bus tour around the city. I knew there was a stop roughly around the zoo area so we headed over there, located it and waited for the bus. Two buses came by both saying that they had no tickets on board and we should have gone to the main office in the centre to buy them. My parents did not look amused. I realised my spontaneous 'lets just see what happens' attitude to travelling wasn't going to fly with these two.