IN the 80s, there was a song released by Sting entitled An Englishman in New York. It talks about an English dude wandering around the streets of Lower Manhattan. But what about the opposite? What if you’re a guy from New York and you would try to have a one-week spring break in London or any other place in England. Surely, England is definitely a place not similar to the United States. Of course, everybody speaks English here but theirs is peculiar because they don’t sound the letter r. In fact, English here is said to be the most articulate English in the world and is even imitated and adapted by the Indians even though they have a weird and very heavy accent.

Thus, England may well be a Babel place for you. It’s not just English that you have to grasp here, you’ll have to learn how to drive, too. You need to drive to the right. Driving on the right side of the road has never been more clearly expounded than in Tom Clancy’s novel Patriot Games.

And speaking of movies, why not rent movies with English actors and actresses while vacationing here in England during spring break. Just choose a very competent English lawyer who is familiar with real estate laws in the United Kingdom to go with you on various home inspections. United Kingdom is actually a vast territory, the bulk of which is the Island of Great Britain which includes the landlocked capital London. Of course, there’s the Isle of Man and Scotland so there are really plenty of spaces to choose. Here in Great Britain alone, there are plenty of cities to travel and choose properties, whether for residential or commercial purpose and whether you’re a foreigner or not. There’s the city of Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Bristol and Birmingham. If you want to be near the famous Stonehenge, then there are also properties for sale that are in the city of Salisbury (your agencia de viajes can arrange trips for you!).

You certainly need a visa to come here if you come from the United States but if you come from mainland Europe, you don’t need a visa. Even though Great Britain is not part of mainland Europe, you can get here via train going through the great Channel Tunnel which runs about 50 kilometers long. Going here via train from France may be cheaper than flying overhead to Gatwick.

THIS blog post is from two points of view – from a woman and from a man. From a woman’s point of view, I can say that English men are really hot. Think of someone like Orlando Bloom who talks to you in a non-rhotic accent. Now that’s really hot and suave, right? Now imagine yourself dating Orlando Bloom on Valentine’s Day in a very nondescript convertible with him driving down the thoroughfares in London on the right side of the road. That’s really awesome. Orlando Bloom is not just hot because of he starred in both the Lord of the Rings and the Pirates of the Caribbean series. He’s hot because he braved the cold winter of the North Pole in early 2007 to film the falling glaciers in the area to underscore the presence of global warming in our world.

Another hot actor that I like is Cillian Murphy. Cillian’s breakthrough movie if you may recall was 2002’s Danny Boyle’s cult hit 28 Days Later. Of course, Danny Boyle is a very hot British film director and it may be nice to date him as well although I gather that he is married. Anyhow, he doesn’t talk much about his personal life in press interviews but since the guy is already in mid-life, I guess he is married. Either that or he’s as gay as Michael Stipe, the frontman of REM. But then again Danny is still hot even though he is gay. But let’s focus on Cillian. There’s not much that Cillian else did except playing the cold-blooded villain in Wes Craven’s Red Eye opposite Rachel McAdams (remember her from The Notebook?) in 2005.

Now with the women. There are two English actresses that I will forever admire and dream to be my Valentines Date this February 14, 2008 – Keira Knightley and Kate Winslet. Keira emerged first on the world scene as Natalie Portman’s lookalike in The Phantom Menace. Back then, Keira wasn’t yet emancipated from her parents and her mom then was her bouncer. When she was emancipated, even at the tender age of 17, she grabbed the role of a corpse which required her to do full frontal nudity in The Hole. Wow! After that breakthrough role, Keira was cast in The Pirates of the Caribbean series and that became another turning point of her career. Because of that role, she was able to negotiate and grab the role of Queen Guinevere in the Antoine Fuqua-megged picture King Arthur. Then the rest is history. Keira actually coveted the roles which made people see her as a serious actress – roles in such movies as Pride and Prejudice and Atonement.

And then there was Kate Winslet. Who could forget her in the immortalized Titanic. But beyond Titanic and before Titanic, Kate is already adorable. She was cast in Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility as one of the Dashwood sisters. Sense and Sensibility is all about the dilemma on whether to do the right things or to do things right.