Learning To Speak Rhode Islander

Leaving New Jersey, we pointed the Journey North and headed to the area of the country where Marti hailed from, known as New England.  We were not going all the way to Massachusetts where Marti lived when I met her, instead we were stopping a little short in Rhode Island where Marti’s big sister, Gail lives.

It was only 270 miles, but the trip took us several hours longer than we anticipated due to unexplained traffic tie ups that left us longing for those wide open spaces we drove through in Texas.

Once we arrived, Marti helped me back the Journey into Gail’s driveway where we’re going to stay the next couple of weeks to practice our “Moochdocking” technique.  There was a bush, a tree, a telephone pole and a support wire on the pole to thread around but we got in on the first try.  The support wire was nicely placed at a proper angle so I could open the slide right around it.

Marti was happy to see Gail, and visa-versa.  Let the fun begin.

One thing I noticed quickly is that people in Rhode Island talk funny.  They drop some of the letters of the alphabet and don’t understand my perfect English.  For example, they drive “Caaahs” and serve a delectable soup call “Clam Chowdaaah”.  They also don’t understand how to follow instructions on making coffee. 

This morning, to treat Marti, I ran down the street to Dunkin Doughnuts and get her a cup of coffee.  Marti likes her coffee to be light on the cream and sugar.  The girl that made the coffee didn’t understand “light” and after several tries of making the coffee look the color of milk, I got her to understand that I wanted only a little cream and sugar.

The product I finally got looked like coffee, but she took “light sugar” a little to far and didn’t put any in.  I tried, honest, I tried.  I just don’t speak Rhode Islander.

The strange language further lifted its ugly head when we went out for dinner tonight, but I was ready.  I practiced in my head over and over again and was able to order the right meal by using the right word: “Lobstaah”.

It was delicious, no matter how you pronounce it.  Gail joined me eating her own lobster, er lobstaah,

But poor Marti has seafood allergies, so she had to settle for turkey.  Funny, in Rhode Island they call turkey “turkey”, just like in the rest of the country.  I guess some words cross state lines sounding the same way.

After dinner, we drove down to Narragansett Bay to watch the sailboats. 

There was a nice, fresh breeze moving the sailboats along.  Over our heads, there were some others sailing on the breeze.

Since they were right over our heads, the better part of wisdom was for us to move along…

Lots for us to do here, so stay tuned and see what kind of trouble we get ourselves into.  Gail is quite the instigator.

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment.