Bogans Abroad

Bogan: Australian and New Zealand English slang, usually pejorative or self-deprecating, for a person who is, or is perceived to be, of a lower-class background. According to the stereotype, the speech and mannerisms of "bogans" indicate poor education, cheap clothing and uncultured upbringing. "Bogans" usually reside in economically disadvantaged (often outer metropolitan) or rural areas. The term is the regional equivalent to the North American "redneck", "hillbilly", or "white trash". (wiki reference)

Well, that's us for this segment of How Kane and Angie are Doing in This Part of the World. Hello and welcome. During this episode, we will explore the different ways in which this particular couple can be both class-less and undignified in a place that requests both. Please, sit back, relax, and be entertained by our adventures in not-quite-being-good-enough.

We arrived today at the much anticipated Whitley Hall Hotel in Sheffield in central England. If you look at that website you may notice that it's a particularly elegant and high class hotel, certainly far beyond the meager reaches of our budget. But alas, in my epic (and ongoing) search for "a really good deal" at "a super nice place", I have found the 3 Night Combo Offer: a room and breakfast for three nights with dinner for two nights for £200 (=$330 USD, or $395 AUD). Quite a steal if the place is all it's cracked up to be. Which, in fact, we have found, it is.

So, we're excited to be in the nicest hotel room we've been in for three months (and perhaps ever?) and very eager to try the quality cuisine. One problem: the hotel recommends "smart/casual" attire when in communal areas, particularly at dinner. Let me just unzip the "smart" section in my backpack...oh, I'd forgotten, I only packed blue jeans and t-shirts. Mild panic sets in; what are we to do to conceal our true heathen nature?

Kane needs a haircut. He's grown into a shaggy dog with perpetually mushed hat hair and his attempt at an Australian haircut (the image is sort of what he was going for, minus the racing stripes) is really probably not what this facility is looking for in its clientele. So, he decides to save us from his shame and cut his hair. But not into the waste basket - what will they think of us?! In an episode of well-poised self sacrifice, he crouches over the toilet to cut his hair such that all evidence can be flushed away - see we are classy!

So now Kane's hair is buzzed and we're dealing with a bit of a skin head rather than a party boy, but at least his scraggly beard might be seen as distinguished. If he only wore glasses to set the whole thing into a sort of bohemian style then we might really be in business.

I'm a mess. The only pants I have are my stretched out, baggy, mayonnaise and ice cream stained blue jeans. This is day two of this particular pair of tattered Victoria's Secret undies*. My shoes are the New Balance tennis shoes that I've had for about four years now. They are so tattered that the inside heel has worn down to reveal whatever it is that makes up a shoe and now folds over and stabs me every time I put them on. I fear that water can now get in from the underside of the soles as the tread has worn down to a completely different color (I like to think of it as the "warning" color of the shoe, like the end of the receipt roll on a credit card machine). My only nice shirt - a long-sleeved, simple black cotton blouse - I had the foresight to leave at Jon's in Munich when we were furiously trying to "drop weight" for our trip. I shower, blow dry my hair, and wear a liberal amount of makeup in a sad effort to reconcile my shortcomings.

It seems to work; they do not refuse us from the dining room. Granted, almost everyone is dressed nicer and seems to be more dignified, but we make an effort to discuss important topics (engineering, polo, how cute the peacocks in the front garden are) and hold in any bodily functions that try to escape.

The setup is this: acquire a drink (not included, those sneaky bastards) from the bar, wait in the sitting room where you will be provided a menu and your order will be taken. Then you will be called to the dining room when your food is ready. It was odd but good. Coming into the dining room, we were seated at a four person table but with a place setting for only the two of us. With a million forks and knives and glasses and everything. Somewhere along the line I have picked up that you are to work from the outside to the inside when a multitude of silverware is provided, which worked quite expertly at this particular encounter.

The decor was elegant but not stuffy: subdued taupe paisley wall paper, wall mounted lamps, tastefully patterned curtains drawn back to reveal adjacent rooms. The chairs were sturdy dark wood with plump inset cushion, and the tables were flawlessly set on crisp white tablecloths. A small square vase with a single carnation graced each table along with a tiny flickering candle, clearly placed only as ambiance as the artificial lighting in the room was ample. It surprised me that almost all the tables were full; warm, pleasant chatter filled the room over the quiet melody of appropriate, yet not horrendous, background music.

We received our starters, which were excellent: a tomato, red onion and goat's cheese tort with pesto garnish for me, and salmon chorizo on a warm broad bean salad for Kane - delish! For our mains we both got the Shetland salmon on a tomato and kalamata olive nicoise - we could not resist ordering the same thing. Dessert presented many sumptuous choices (and by that I mean that I wasn't sure what many of them were), I got a chocolate "tear" which was a little ribbon of chocolate filled with orangie-custard and a scoop of bourbon ice cream (it's better than it sounds), while Kane got an artistic cheese plate.

Kane's cheese plate was just what he always wants for dessert: he's doesn't have much of a sweet tooth**. There were four slices of different types of cheese, three sticks of celery, a small bunch of grapes, a glob of fruity chutney, and two slices of french bread. It was like a whole other dinner! He slowly sampled each of the cheeses and then turned to me and said, pointing to the final slice of cheese that appeared softer than the others, "This kind of cheese is actually butter". And we proceeded to laugh at ourselves for a long while. He did not eat any more of that particular cheese.

We finished our excellent dinner without incident (didn't break anything, offend anyone (that I know of), or say anything particularly (noticeably) inappropriate) and headed back to our room. Waiting for us was a complimentary bottle of Australian sparking wine (they know how to make us feel at home) and small jug of port. These were actually in our room before dinner, but it was only after that we had the dedication and tenacity to tend to them.

And with that, we split (choked down) the bottle of delicious (horrendous) wine and chased it with (plugged our noses and chugged) the handsome (foul) port. Just because we aren't classy, doesn't mean fancy drinks will be wasted on us; we were once college students after all, and the spirit is not lost. This was actually the most wine I have ever consumed in my life, not only in one sitting, but in my entire life combined. I have never had more than a sip, followed by an appropriately dismayed scrunched face. But, there was no one to pawn it off on and nowhere to save it for later, and it was free, so I stepped up and made the appropriate sacrifices. Not only am I classy, I've grown quite mature as well, even for a bogan in England.

*Do not judge my repeat underwear wearing until you yourself have traveled for months on end. And if you have done such traveling and still frown on me, well, just keep quiet.

**Which is always a sore disappointment to me as I drool over any form of pastry, cookie, cake, chocolate, candy, pudding, brownie, tart, parfait or gelato.