Duggar World Tour

[muffynbear]

The only positive thing I can say about Amy traveling with them is that both Jennifer and Jordyn's hair looked brushed unlike the way it usually does. Their hair is usually a mess. So I think Amy does contribute.

I've noticed this about Jordyn. She generally looks unkempt and disheveled. Such a shame.

[Lillybee]

I noticed that the only time Jennifer and Jordan's hair looked decent before was in the episode that Michelle was left behind to care for the youngest 7 with the help of Anna, Priscilla and again Amy. I think it is sad that their buddies really don't care about how their hair looks.

I liked the fact that Anna was trying to talk to Mak about what she was seeing and that Mak did say Stonehenge. I wish that someone would talk to the lost girls like that.

[ChickeyMonkey]

Stonehenge reminds me of huge chairs, for some reason. I don't know why. I'm pissed that this trip was wasted on people who can't really appreciate what they're seeing and experiencing.

I have a question for anyone who's familiar with London. What's the bullet-shaped building? I watched all the seasons of "Hotel Babylon," and the opening sequence is a flyover of London (I think) and there's a really cool bullet-shaped building that's facade kind of reminds me of a Faberge Egg, or a really ornate Easter egg.

Can anyone please tell me what that building is? I have no idea how to even google the thing. Bullet building in London?

Thanks!

[dawn]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gherkin

[ChickeyMonkey]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gherkin

Thank you!! I would never have known to look up "pickle." I find that oddly hilarious, since the Duggars have their own pickle connections.

[Justme]

Did anyone notice how Anna was holding both kids (the baby strapped to her), while pushing an enormous luggage cart at the airport? There must have been 6-7 bags! Smugger was no where to be seen!! :evil:

[Mecca]

Well, apparently the Duggars do not research before visiting other countries or cultures. I found Anna's constant reminder about "normal" food to be annoying as hell and quite rude. Anna would have probably crapped her jean skirt if spotted dick was on the menu.

BTW, I am new here and just wanted to say hello to everyone.

[Guest LilaFowler]

I loved the look of that fish and chips. That fish looked HUGE. lol I wanted some.

[latraviata]

I'm sure your country will come off beautifully, but I worry about the way the US will be perceived. Aren't the Duggars kind of an amalgamation of all stereotypes? Fat, stupid, ignorant, keen on telling everyone their beliefs, unaware of basic geography, materially excessive, (I could go on and on).

Please don't worry, my American friends (and their lot) give us/me Europeans a totally different impression, quite the opposite actually.

[FuManchu]

Fortunately for the Duggars, the most idiotic collision of England with the US I've ever seen has already happened - an Olsen Twins film where they caught a cab with a driver who spoke entirely in Cockney rhyming slang and professed that "I love the Queen Mum like she was my own mum, and I treat my own mum like she was a queen".

[annalena]

Watching part 1 of the world tour right now and feel like I am late to the party. i still want to comment!boohoo

Just dropping off random thoughts.

Okay, grandma packung TUNA? It might beat the food we find there? Really?!

It took 2hours to board!?!? I guess from checking in, they mean?

I wish they would stop showing the logistics of travelling so detailed. i mean we have all seen it a million times and by now know without Jessa nothing would gonna work out.

[latraviata]

I wish the Two Fat Ladies were still around (Clarissa is still around, but I'm not sure if she's still cooking). THEIR food (especially Clarissa's bubble and squeak) would have been perfect English fare for the Duggars. :dance:

The "pub" they went to didn't appear to serve alcohol (wonder how long it took the TLC scouts to find the place?) and their food looked like British Food for Americans.

I now want afternoon tea and a huge strawberry trifle all for ME! mmmm trifle.... :mrgreen:

I loved the Two Fat Ladies, I still have their books!!

[alba]

I didn't watch the whole thing, but I landed on the channel while surfing, and saw the high tea/pub parts. It wasn't high tea; it was just an afternoon tea with sandwiches, scones, and biscuits/cakes. Not terribly fancy, just a long table with a white tablecloth, although I can see where that would be the height of elegance for the Duggar kids. One snarky remark about "bet the tea isn't sweet tea" (which if you're not southern US, is a cold iced tea drink made with simple syrup), but everyone scarfed down the food.

The pub was a lot worse. Plenty of total incomprehension over food names shows that they don't read much, at least not about England. Couldn't pronounce them, either (puds with a short u, bOngers and mash, etc.). Anna's comments, if she really is that ignorant, were appalling, considering she is responsible for homeschooling her children, but there were plenty of snarky rude comments made by nearly everyone over the age of 12. Then total relief when it turned out to be "real" food and surprise! actually tasty. Ugh, ugh, ugh...pleasepleasepleaseplease don't ever let anyone think I come from the same country as these people.

Just do what the other American tourists do and sew a Canadian flag on your rucksack :P Don't worry, most people over here will be friendly, anyway, like that sword swallower was polite and friendly towards Jim Boob when he started evangelizing towards him.

The ignorance is really disconcerting. The worst bit is I don't think we can even entirely blame Anna; presumably she was homeschooled and never taught to exercise her mind, as well. At best, she'll have at least realised now how ignorant she is and attempt to educate herself for the sake of her children.

[PBrooke]

We took our boys to Stonehenge a few years ago (we are in the UK) and DH earnt some frosty glares as he told them how the stones have all fallen down at some point and several of them now sit on concealed concrete bases. They think they got each one back in the same place, but they're not 100% sure. He used to work for English Heritage, who are jointly responsible for the site.

Did they go on the London Eye?

Why did he get glares? It's not like it's a secret - you can look on Wikipedia and see early photos with half the stones lying down, for crying out loud.

[alba]

It took 2hours to board!?!? I guess from checking in, they mean?

I wish they would stop showing the logistics of travelling so detailed. i mean we have all seen it a million times and by now know without Jessa nothing would gonna work out.

I'm always a bit suspicious at how long it takes them to do everything. I mean, they were no bigger than a lot of school trips, which don't take two hours to get from checking in to boarding. I know it's different with a lot of small children, but with the buddy system it's really like 10 parents with one or two kids each.

The same goes for how many loads of laundry they do, how much they eat, etc. They're thrice the size of my family (well, plus 1), but they do 10 times as many loads of laundry as we do. I could understand them doing four or five times as much, as they have small children, but 10 times?! My family's also never had any problems fitting a weekly shopping trip into one grocery cart, and it's never even full. They use, what, six? I can't help feeling like they might be a little wasteful in some way, because they seem to consume way more resources than I would expect merely given the family size.

[PBrooke]

I'm always a bit suspicious at how long it takes them to do everything. I mean, they were no bigger than a lot of school trips, which don't take two hours to get from checking in to boarding. I know it's different with a lot of small children, but with the buddy system it's really like 10 parents with one or two kids each.

The same goes for how many loads of laundry they do, how much they eat, etc. They're thrice the size of my family (well, plus 1), but they do 10 times as many loads of laundry as we do. I could understand them doing four or five times as much, as they have small children, but 10 times?! My family's also never had any problems fitting a weekly shopping trip into one grocery cart, and it's never even full. They use, what, six? I can't help feeling like they might be a little wasteful in some way, because they seem to consume way more resources than I would expect merely given the family size.

Completely agree. I have a 'large' family by typical standards, and when you include in-laws and other relatives, we number about 20 for special meals like Thanksgiving. Even shopping for big meal weekends like that (including desserts, breakfasts, snacks, drinks, etc) I don't remember ever *having* to get a second cart. Maybe there might be one if another adult family member is doing their own shopping or splitting the cost. So shopping for a full week... maybe two? *Maybe* three?

[gtmb]

Bangers and mash = sausages? Am I wrong that they eschew pork for religious reasons? I remember Josiah (I think) frying up turkey bacon in one episode . . .

[annalena]

Oh well, I had full grocery carts for two people before, so I believe that part.

All in all, I was somewhat excited for the world trip episodes, but at least this one turned out to be as boring as any other episode. HOW boring can you make something really exciting like a big trip? I really don't know if Michelle&JB or the editing is to blame.

[Triplet3]

The "pub" they went to didn't appear to serve alcohol (wonder how long it took the TLC scouts to find the place?) and their food looked like British Food for Americans.

I now want afternoon tea and a huge strawberry trifle all for ME! mmmm trifle.... :mrgreen:

If it didn't serve alcohol then it wasn't a true pub. Trust me, NO pub in the land would not serve alcohol; that's their main purpose. Maybe they just went to a pub (that served food, obviously - many pubs don't) where the food area was set apart from the main bar area. That isn't particularly uncommon in larger pubs. What was the place they went to called? If it didn't have a name such as 'The Crown' or 'The Red Lion' then it probably wasn't a pub.

Trifle is wonderful! And there's so many different recipes, too, and arguments regarding ingredients - whether it should contain jelly (jell-o) or not, whether the trifle sponges should be spread with jam, whether it should contain sherry or not, how much fruit to put in...there's many different variations. All of them delicious in my opinion.

If you ever come to England and are prepared to fork out a bit for the experience, then you really should have afternoon tea at somewhere like Fortnum & Mason's or the Ritz. Yes, it will be a bit expensive, but trust me it's well worth it. Most of my MA group had afternoon tea at Fortnum & Mason's once (for free!) because one of my coursemates works there, and wow! It was an amazing experience. There were silver cake-stands with medium-sized pots of the shop's jam and lemon curd on them, and a silver pot of clotted cream on top of each. We shared plates of savoury things like posh cheese straws and sausage rolls, and then cake-stands of sandwiches, scones and assorted little cakes/other sweet things were brought in. I don't like the drink tea or coffee so I had hot chocolate instead, which came in a silver jug on a silver tray with a cup on two saucers and a separate plate with two posh sugar sticks on it. It was the creamiest, most intensely chocolatey hot chocolate I'm ever had my life.

[Triplet3]

Bangers and mash = sausages? Am I wrong that they eschew pork for religious reasons? I remember Josiah (I think) frying up turkey bacon in one episode . . .

Yes, bangers are sausages. You can get non-pork sausages (though admittedly they aren't nearly as common), so maybe they went for that option. Or perhaps they just didn't realise that most sausages are made of pork? :lol:

[Triplet3]

I loved the look of that fish and chips. That fish looked HUGE. lol I wanted some.

Fish and chip shop-type chips are amazing - much nicer than fries. Unhealthy, of course, but lovely as a treat now and then. As a child we usually only ever had a meal from a fish and chip shop once a year, when away on holiday. I find fish and chips taste nicest when eaten next to the sea, though I'm not sure why. Maybe the tang of salt in the air.

[AnnoDomini]

Wow, they looked even more ignorant than usual. How many times did DimBulb and J'Chelle both say "they drive on the wrong side of the road"? And none of the family knew what any English food was. It really shows that they don't read. I mean, you don't have to be English to know what bangers and mash or puds are. Did Anna actually think toad in the hole included a toad? :lol:

SOTDRT FAIL.

Surprisingly, religion wasn't discussed wrt Stonehenge.

*holds up sheepish hand*

I had no idea what bubble and squeak was, or bangers and mash or puds. However, I do know how to pronounce Thames, and I've read a lot, including much of English childrens' literature (so much that I grew up using words/phrases that I realized years later were English and I'd never heard a regular American use). Just not, I guess, about English food. Mostly just pudding and biscuits and fish & chips and something about marmite. And things in tins.

[Triplet3]

One snarky remark about "bet the tea isn't sweet tea" (which if you're not southern US, is a cold iced tea drink made with simple syrup), but everyone scarfed down the food.

Is tea (as in the tea leaf/teabag hot drink) not very common the Southern US? Sounds like sweet tea is what we call iced tea over here.

The pub was a lot worse. Plenty of total incomprehension over food names shows that they don't read much, at least not about England. Couldn't pronounce them, either (puds with a short u, bOngers and mash, etc.). Anna's comments, if she really is that ignorant, were appalling, considering she is responsible for homeschooling her children, but there were plenty of snarky rude comments made by nearly everyone over the age of 12. Then total relief when it turned out to be "real" food and surprise! actually tasty.

What sort of rude comments did they make? Glad they did actually like the food when it arrived.

[BoomerLynn]

Well, apparently the Duggars do not research before visiting other countries or cultures. I found Anna's constant reminder about "normal" food to be annoying as hell and quite rude. Anna would have probably crapped her jean skirt if spotted dick was on the menu.

BTW, I am new here and just wanted to say hello to everyone.

Hahahahaha! This reminded me of the movie King Ralph. On a more serious note, I cannot believe how rude these people are. No wait, actually I can, and it pisses me off. I would love to be able to take a trip like that (if I could ever get over my fear of flying) and to try the different types of food and have those experiences, and they just scoff and act shocked that these things are so "different." Of course it's different! You are in a different country! Isn't that the whole point of travelling? To try something different?

[latraviata]

[Isn't that the whole point of travelling? To try something different?*]

Exactly!!