Most tall residential buildings in my area have a floor every 10 floors or so required by law to be totally empty, in order to contain a fire if it breaks out. You can usually spot these at night when the residents turn off their lights because those floors are lit up. The lift doesn't go there so you'll have to take the stairs.

As Class Goat has mentioned, all buildings frequented/built by Chinese or Japanese do not have any floors with the number 4 due to the unlucky... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by monocot at 5:35 AM on July 18, 2008

I have lived with roomates that have poor English for two years (one is from western Sahara and one from from Angola) and I find that their English usually improves very quickly once they are immersed in an Anglophone environment. Remember to initiate conversation sometimes, always wait and listen patiently to what she has to say (even if it's a few words) and do stuff together sometimes (shopping, cooking, etc) as that will help you know each other. Don't interrupt too much when she is trying... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by monocot at 7:26 AM on May 15, 2008

As pointed out above, "basta ya" meaning 'already enough' or "estoy llena" (llena pronounced yena) are short and easy to remember. Basta ya might sound a bit impolite though, I'm not very sure. It probably depends on the tone, and you can say thanks afterwards, as resurrexit has mentioned.
posted to Ask Metafilter by monocot at 10:13 AM on May 6, 2008

Thanks a million for the detailed responses and advice! I have much more info now to start researching on...
posted to Ask Metafilter by monocot at 10:06 AM on May 6, 2008

although it could be another Northern European language
It's not Norwegian, Danish or Swedish, but I've had too little exposure to Icelandic to say for certain.
posted to Ask Metafilter by monocot at 4:52 PM on March 20, 2008

I second Bella Sebastian's suggestion on the food. You can save a whole lot of money by buying something light for lunch (a drink and a packaged meal at Mark's & Spencers shouldn't cost more than £4, and some kebab/chinese places go for around that as well) and splurging more on dinner. A restaurant I visit every time I'm in London is Wagamama which serves excellent fusion/Asian noodles. There's one on Oxford street, a huge shopping area.

I travelled to London in... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by monocot at 4:31 AM on March 11, 2008