I got this great idea today at the Borough Market. It's easy to get inspired by the mountains of beautiful produce from all corners of the world; there's something very Imperial about buying beans from Egypt and oranges from Spain. Anyway, my idea was to make guacamole and mojitos tonight. The ripe avocados, the fresh cilantro and mint, the gorgeous tomatos and green chillis, they were all there, all waiting for me to just put them together in the right amounts and make a wonderful meal. Maybe some Spanish ham (acorn-fed) to start, a little chorizo, a bit of cheese and a nice bottle of rioja would make the night complete.
That's often how it goes with me. I have a grand vision in mind, but lack the means to execute on that vision. I wanted to dig to China when I was a kid, but got sidetracked while looking for a shovel.
My guacamole, because I am too arrogant to follow a recipie, was more like avocado salsa. Don't get me wrong, it's tasty, but it ain't guac. And the mojitos (my Avalon friends will recall the many, many pitchers of mojitos which fortified us for those interminable Texas Hold 'Em Death Matches between Yingling and Michele), well, let's just say, club soda isn't sold at the Indian bodega around the corner, and Sprite isn't the ideal substitute.
The chorizo and cheese and, thanks to Michele's expidition to the wine shop down the street, the rioja, are a reality, though. Not sure this was the healthiest dinner, but it's certainly tasty...
Saturday, June 23, 2007
The Queen's Handbag
Michele made an interesting observation the other day - the Queen always carries a handbag. What's IN it, I wonder?
Maybe she carries her lipstick and a small mirror, but wouldn't she have people to do that for her? Or maybe she keeps the phone numbers of a few minicab companies in there, just in case she stays at the curry house too long and misses her last train.
I'll bet she keeps her crown in there. She probably ducks off to the loo and puts it on when no one's looking and admires herself in the mirror. Maybe she practices the regal wave then, too.
I wonder if she keeps any money in her purse. If she does, do you think she looks at it and says "hey, that's me!"
Other likely items - a flask, a can of mace, her keys, a photo of her grandchildren, a couple of movie ticket stubs from Terminator 3, a stray hat pin or two, a matchbook from the White House with that cute Saudi prince's phone number, an old stick of gum, a breath mint, a Starbuck's card and the Hope diamond. Typical stuff, really.
Maybe she carries her lipstick and a small mirror, but wouldn't she have people to do that for her? Or maybe she keeps the phone numbers of a few minicab companies in there, just in case she stays at the curry house too long and misses her last train.
I'll bet she keeps her crown in there. She probably ducks off to the loo and puts it on when no one's looking and admires herself in the mirror. Maybe she practices the regal wave then, too.
I wonder if she keeps any money in her purse. If she does, do you think she looks at it and says "hey, that's me!"
Other likely items - a flask, a can of mace, her keys, a photo of her grandchildren, a couple of movie ticket stubs from Terminator 3, a stray hat pin or two, a matchbook from the White House with that cute Saudi prince's phone number, an old stick of gum, a breath mint, a Starbuck's card and the Hope diamond. Typical stuff, really.
Beer and curry
There are at least two national institutions in Great Britain: beer, of which there is a seemingly endless variety and curry, where what is lacking in variety is more than made up for in availability. Indian food is about as close to being the national cuisine as one can get, vying for affection against the traditional Sunday roast. In fact, I think there are now more curry houses in England than pubs. And the Indian joints are certainly open later.
Fortunately, the Brits have found a way around this pub vs. curry dichotemy by ingeniously combining the two. No, they don't serve Vindaloo at the pubs, at least not that I've seen, but rather, it has become something of a national habit to binge drink on Thursday night, and then go for a curry. No matter how many times repeat this Groundhog Day scenario, it never seems like a bad idea at the time. "Hmm. Now let me think. It's 11:00, I've had 6, no, wait, make that 8 pints, my last train is in 45 minutes, and the Indian place is in the opposite direction from the train station. I've got a 9:00 tomorrow, and it's at least an hour to get home. Yeah, what the hell, I'll just have a quick bite."
And the reason this always seems like a good idea is that there is just something about curry that makes it taste really, really good after a couple of beers. Now that I think about it, though, maybe it's really the other way round. Or maybe I just have no willpower. Whatever the reason, if I'm out past 9:30, it's a pretty safe bet that I'll be getting home at 1:30, onion stench oozing from every pore.
Now, this wouldn't be such a bad national addiction - after all, everybody needs a few vices - but for one thing. Curry and beer, especially mingled and taken in large doses, not only make one's clothes reek, but also really do a number on the digestive system. Add to this the facts that public transport in London is crowded and poorly ventilated, and that Londoners are some of the most self-absorbed people on the planet, and you've got an environment whose toxicity would make an Al Queda operative think "nah, that's just TOO harsh."
For those of you whose public transport experiences are limited to the comparitively palatial accommodation afforded by the New York MTA, allow me to enlighten you. The Tube (as the London Underground system is affectionately known) is just that - a tube. Where the interior walls and ceilings of the subway cars that we're used to in the States are square, more or less, the cars here are designed to fit as compactly as possible into those underground tubes, so the interiors are round. As a consequence, they are only about six and a half feet tall in the middle, and the sides slope down to about five and a half feet. Imagine standing inside a seventy foot long commuter jet and you've got the picture.
In addition, as I've mentioned many times, the Tubes are not air conditioned. I'm not sure why this is - air conditioning is not a new invention. I'm constantly reading about are all sorts of schemes to cool the Tube, most of which sound like they're straight out of "I Love Lucy". Pump cold air into the tunnels from the stations? Great for keeping the rats comfy, but without a way to get the air into the cars, not terribly effective. Or my favorite - install freezers under the seats, which will freeze blocks of ice while the train is above ground, then run fans to blow air over the ice and blow the cold air into the cars. Hey, Rube Goldberg, here's a thought, if you're gonna install freezers, why not just INSTALL FRIGGIN' AIR CONDITIONERS?
But until one of these harebrained ideas actually gets funding and works, we're stuck in tiny, crowded, diabolically stuffy cars. This is not such an issue when there's no one else in the car, but I did a quick calculation one day and estimated that there are at least 150 people in each one during rush hour. You literally cannot move, and although you can breathe, you probably don't want to.
Especially on Friday morning. Especially after beer and curry.
Fortunately, the Brits have found a way around this pub vs. curry dichotemy by ingeniously combining the two. No, they don't serve Vindaloo at the pubs, at least not that I've seen, but rather, it has become something of a national habit to binge drink on Thursday night, and then go for a curry. No matter how many times repeat this Groundhog Day scenario, it never seems like a bad idea at the time. "Hmm. Now let me think. It's 11:00, I've had 6, no, wait, make that 8 pints, my last train is in 45 minutes, and the Indian place is in the opposite direction from the train station. I've got a 9:00 tomorrow, and it's at least an hour to get home. Yeah, what the hell, I'll just have a quick bite."
And the reason this always seems like a good idea is that there is just something about curry that makes it taste really, really good after a couple of beers. Now that I think about it, though, maybe it's really the other way round. Or maybe I just have no willpower. Whatever the reason, if I'm out past 9:30, it's a pretty safe bet that I'll be getting home at 1:30, onion stench oozing from every pore.
Now, this wouldn't be such a bad national addiction - after all, everybody needs a few vices - but for one thing. Curry and beer, especially mingled and taken in large doses, not only make one's clothes reek, but also really do a number on the digestive system. Add to this the facts that public transport in London is crowded and poorly ventilated, and that Londoners are some of the most self-absorbed people on the planet, and you've got an environment whose toxicity would make an Al Queda operative think "nah, that's just TOO harsh."
For those of you whose public transport experiences are limited to the comparitively palatial accommodation afforded by the New York MTA, allow me to enlighten you. The Tube (as the London Underground system is affectionately known) is just that - a tube. Where the interior walls and ceilings of the subway cars that we're used to in the States are square, more or less, the cars here are designed to fit as compactly as possible into those underground tubes, so the interiors are round. As a consequence, they are only about six and a half feet tall in the middle, and the sides slope down to about five and a half feet. Imagine standing inside a seventy foot long commuter jet and you've got the picture.
In addition, as I've mentioned many times, the Tubes are not air conditioned. I'm not sure why this is - air conditioning is not a new invention. I'm constantly reading about are all sorts of schemes to cool the Tube, most of which sound like they're straight out of "I Love Lucy". Pump cold air into the tunnels from the stations? Great for keeping the rats comfy, but without a way to get the air into the cars, not terribly effective. Or my favorite - install freezers under the seats, which will freeze blocks of ice while the train is above ground, then run fans to blow air over the ice and blow the cold air into the cars. Hey, Rube Goldberg, here's a thought, if you're gonna install freezers, why not just INSTALL FRIGGIN' AIR CONDITIONERS?
But until one of these harebrained ideas actually gets funding and works, we're stuck in tiny, crowded, diabolically stuffy cars. This is not such an issue when there's no one else in the car, but I did a quick calculation one day and estimated that there are at least 150 people in each one during rush hour. You literally cannot move, and although you can breathe, you probably don't want to.
Especially on Friday morning. Especially after beer and curry.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Soaked
I got caught in my first downpour today on the way home from the train station. I suppose this should have been not only forseeable, but avoidable. After all, the sky was the color of a nun's hat, there was a jacket in my bag and it was spitting as I left the station. But I thought I could make it home before the heavy stuff came down.
I was wrong.
I didn't stop to put on my jacket because I thought I'd only get wetter by the time I'd gotten it out and put it on. And I didn't have an umbrella because, well, I'm an idiot. Winter is apparently like this a lot, so there's that to look forward to.
Fortunately, there's wine and brie in the fridge, so all's well that ends well.
I was wrong.
I didn't stop to put on my jacket because I thought I'd only get wetter by the time I'd gotten it out and put it on. And I didn't have an umbrella because, well, I'm an idiot. Winter is apparently like this a lot, so there's that to look forward to.
Fortunately, there's wine and brie in the fridge, so all's well that ends well.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Always hungry
I am ALWAYS hungry here. We ate dinner about 2 hours ago, and I'm starving again already. And no, it wasn't Chinese food, either.
There are a variety of restaurants that deliver here. Actually, there's very little 'variety' in the selection, but there ARE a lot of them. Indian, Chinese, Thai and pizza seem to be the choices. There's some variance in each genre (Goan Indian versus, um, regular Indian, I guess), but those are pretty much the choices. So far, we've had at least one of each, which verying success.
Most of the food we've had delivered has ranged from 'not bad' to 'really pretty good', but we had just the worst Chinese the other night. OK, I probably should have known to steer clear of a place called 'McChina'. (Seriously. I couldn't make this stuff up). But I was taken in by a nice looking menu and promises of the 'freshest ingredients carefully prepared in traditional ways'.
Rubbish. It took nearly 2 hours to arrive, and, although it was hot, it was largely tasteless. I thres most of mine away. Offsetting this unpleasant experience, though, is a great pizza joint that serves interesting pizza (my fave is the gorgonzola and tomato), and it arrives pretty quickly. But get this - you can have them deliver beer! (Seriously. Did I mention I couldn't make this stuff up?)
So now we probably order out 1-2 times a week, and have sampled a variety of places in the area. Best of all: not a single one of them is Domino's.
There are a variety of restaurants that deliver here. Actually, there's very little 'variety' in the selection, but there ARE a lot of them. Indian, Chinese, Thai and pizza seem to be the choices. There's some variance in each genre (Goan Indian versus, um, regular Indian, I guess), but those are pretty much the choices. So far, we've had at least one of each, which verying success.
Most of the food we've had delivered has ranged from 'not bad' to 'really pretty good', but we had just the worst Chinese the other night. OK, I probably should have known to steer clear of a place called 'McChina'. (Seriously. I couldn't make this stuff up). But I was taken in by a nice looking menu and promises of the 'freshest ingredients carefully prepared in traditional ways'.
Rubbish. It took nearly 2 hours to arrive, and, although it was hot, it was largely tasteless. I thres most of mine away. Offsetting this unpleasant experience, though, is a great pizza joint that serves interesting pizza (my fave is the gorgonzola and tomato), and it arrives pretty quickly. But get this - you can have them deliver beer! (Seriously. Did I mention I couldn't make this stuff up?)
So now we probably order out 1-2 times a week, and have sampled a variety of places in the area. Best of all: not a single one of them is Domino's.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Sausages and Shaving Cream
So that sausage I bought earlier at the French market? Not sure how it's supposed to be eaten. Got about a quarter of the way through when I realized that it might not actually be cooked. Hm. No instructions, either.
Took Caroline to her school fair today. Apparently, it's a common practice among the older children to have shaving cream wars at these things. There were roving bands of kids with squirt guns loaded with shaving cream. Interesting time. I helped win the tug of war. It was actually a lot of fun, and they also had beer, wine and Pimm's, which made my whole day!
I should explain Pimm's. It's a spirit, I've heard that it's gin-based, which I always associated with old people who smelled like mothballs. Turns out - surprise, surprise - it's really good, especially when mixed with Sprite and various bits of fruit like apples, oranges and cucumbers. OK, so cucumbers aren't technically a fruit, but they put them in anyway and boy, it's tasty! So all you US-bound party people, run out and get yourselves a bottle of Pimm's No. 1 Cup for your next party. It's tops.
Michele and I are going out, alone, for the first time since we arrived. Our sitter, who lives across the street, is coming to not only watch the kids, but put them to bed, too. Yikes! But we're looking forward to it. Hopefully I won't be doubled over in pain from eating the raw pork.
Took Caroline to her school fair today. Apparently, it's a common practice among the older children to have shaving cream wars at these things. There were roving bands of kids with squirt guns loaded with shaving cream. Interesting time. I helped win the tug of war. It was actually a lot of fun, and they also had beer, wine and Pimm's, which made my whole day!
I should explain Pimm's. It's a spirit, I've heard that it's gin-based, which I always associated with old people who smelled like mothballs. Turns out - surprise, surprise - it's really good, especially when mixed with Sprite and various bits of fruit like apples, oranges and cucumbers. OK, so cucumbers aren't technically a fruit, but they put them in anyway and boy, it's tasty! So all you US-bound party people, run out and get yourselves a bottle of Pimm's No. 1 Cup for your next party. It's tops.
Michele and I are going out, alone, for the first time since we arrived. Our sitter, who lives across the street, is coming to not only watch the kids, but put them to bed, too. Yikes! But we're looking forward to it. Hopefully I won't be doubled over in pain from eating the raw pork.
More Why
Despite the high prices and iffy weather, I am constantly finding great reasons to love it here; the French Market which came to Wimbledon this weekend being but one of the more recent.
A itinerant gustatorial carnival, the good folks who run the market apparently drive over from France bearing fresh food, soap and wine. At the moment, the kids and I are enjoying a perfect baguette (from my perspective it's perfect, anyway) and pain du chocolat, which is a sort of flaky pastry with large chuks of chocolate inside.
For later, I bought blue brie (I've never even heard of this), sausage coated in black pepper, and a bottle of wine.
Let you think me too cosmopolitan, though, I should admit that when I purchased the sausage, I dusted of my high school French and apparently ordered a dead pigeon. Fortunately, I remembered my manners and said 'por favor'.
A itinerant gustatorial carnival, the good folks who run the market apparently drive over from France bearing fresh food, soap and wine. At the moment, the kids and I are enjoying a perfect baguette (from my perspective it's perfect, anyway) and pain du chocolat, which is a sort of flaky pastry with large chuks of chocolate inside.
For later, I bought blue brie (I've never even heard of this), sausage coated in black pepper, and a bottle of wine.
Let you think me too cosmopolitan, though, I should admit that when I purchased the sausage, I dusted of my high school French and apparently ordered a dead pigeon. Fortunately, I remembered my manners and said 'por favor'.
Funny
It's funny the things you learn to live with, like the total absence of air conditioning on public transportation. But it's also funny the things you miss.
The new people moved into our house the other day. This is somewhat distressing for me because, silly as it sounds, I guess I felt like it was still ours and that we'd be going back to it at some point. Now I knew this wasn't the case, of course, particularly when the equity from the sale was deposited in our bank account, but still, knowing something and feeling it are two very different things. I miss the workbench I made when we moved in. It was one of my first projects, in that blissful time just after apartment living, when I was overly optimistic about how long it would take to build stuff.
Michele misses other things. We had our first visitor last week, our friend James. He very kindly brought us Goldfish crackers and Crystal Light lemonade. All the way from the States. Michele is still ecstatic, so are the kids.
There are other things you can't get here - paper napkins, refrigerated eggs. A decent cheesesteak. I guess we'll learn to live without those things. Maybe not the cheesesteak.
The new people moved into our house the other day. This is somewhat distressing for me because, silly as it sounds, I guess I felt like it was still ours and that we'd be going back to it at some point. Now I knew this wasn't the case, of course, particularly when the equity from the sale was deposited in our bank account, but still, knowing something and feeling it are two very different things. I miss the workbench I made when we moved in. It was one of my first projects, in that blissful time just after apartment living, when I was overly optimistic about how long it would take to build stuff.
Michele misses other things. We had our first visitor last week, our friend James. He very kindly brought us Goldfish crackers and Crystal Light lemonade. All the way from the States. Michele is still ecstatic, so are the kids.
There are other things you can't get here - paper napkins, refrigerated eggs. A decent cheesesteak. I guess we'll learn to live without those things. Maybe not the cheesesteak.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Sick day
Poor Michael's been unwell these past two days or so. Michele and Caroline went out to the London Borough market again yesterday morning while Mike and I waited for the satellite installation guy to show up. He was fine until about 9:30, when he started complaining that his stomach hurt (Michael, not the satellite guy). Then he just got quiet and wanted to lay on my lap. For any of you who know Michael, you know that he is NOT the type of kid to be quiet or lay down. Ever. But despite all the times I've wished he'd just sit still for One God Damn Minute, I do hate seeing him like this. His temp was 102 by midday so I gave him some Tylenol and let him sleep a bit. He's had a fever on and off since. He woke up a few times last night, once at 4:15 this morning.
I may have failed to mention the daylight hours here, so I'll do so now. It starts getting light at around 4:00am and stays light at night until nearly 10:00pm. Seriously. I do like that it's light so late, though it is somewhat disorienting when leaving the pub at 9:30 and it's still light.
I may have told you aleady that most shops are closed on Sunday and those that aren't open much later. I thought this was cute until today when I really needed some children's cough medicine for the boy. I wandered around the deserted town at 9:30, wondering if maybe a hydrogen bomb had gone off and somehow missed me.
Pharmacies are closed on weekends, food stores don't open until 11, convenience stalls don't sell children's cough medicine. It was during this solitary exploration of out sleepy little hamlet that it struck me that we a) don't have a family doctor, b) don't really have any way of finding one until we get new insurance information, c) don't have a National Health Insurance number, so we can't even go to an NHS doctor.
Uh oh. Looks like the honeymoon's over.
Fortunately, it turns out the children's Tylenol is also supposed to releive sore throats, so that combined with a large quantity of ice pops got Michael through the day. Who needs doctors when you have frozen sugary juice?
I may have failed to mention the daylight hours here, so I'll do so now. It starts getting light at around 4:00am and stays light at night until nearly 10:00pm. Seriously. I do like that it's light so late, though it is somewhat disorienting when leaving the pub at 9:30 and it's still light.
I may have told you aleady that most shops are closed on Sunday and those that aren't open much later. I thought this was cute until today when I really needed some children's cough medicine for the boy. I wandered around the deserted town at 9:30, wondering if maybe a hydrogen bomb had gone off and somehow missed me.
Pharmacies are closed on weekends, food stores don't open until 11, convenience stalls don't sell children's cough medicine. It was during this solitary exploration of out sleepy little hamlet that it struck me that we a) don't have a family doctor, b) don't really have any way of finding one until we get new insurance information, c) don't have a National Health Insurance number, so we can't even go to an NHS doctor.
Uh oh. Looks like the honeymoon's over.
Fortunately, it turns out the children's Tylenol is also supposed to releive sore throats, so that combined with a large quantity of ice pops got Michael through the day. Who needs doctors when you have frozen sugary juice?
Friday, June 1, 2007
What's the difference?
A lot of people have asked me "how's the adjustment going," or, "have are you settling in?" These questions really invite only one answer - "very well, thanks", in much the same way that the classic "how are you doing?" is really not designed to elicit any answer more than "fine, you?".
But recently someone asked the question in a more open-ended way - "have you found anything really frustrating?" Hmm. Why yes, in fact, I have. The computer keyboard.
You see, I've been banging away on one keyboard or another for most of my life. I remember as a kid, dragging my mother's Olivetti Underwood manual typewriter up to my room to try to teach myself how to type. I figured if I typed the same letter over and over, I'd eventually learn. I didn't, though I did end up with a page full of A's for my effort.
Somewhere along the way, though, I did learn to touch type, though not very well. I have a hard time typing for long stretches, and sometimes my fingers just don't find the right keys and I still have to look down. (I've made about 15 mistakes in this paragraph so far). But I manage, or at least I did until I came here.
For starters, the @ and the " are reversed. So I'm forever Googling for @pubs in london@ and sending mail to drinkers"myfriends.com. As if that wasn't bad enough, the and \ keys, which I do use with some regularity in my profession, have been banished to the western frontiers of my keyboard, and reside in the same labor camp as the lower-class letters like Q and Z. This change was made, apparently, so that the Enter key could extend upwards. The result of this is that every time I mean to type a backslash, I end up hitting Enter. This is more than annoying, it's downright dangerous.
I'm not at all sure what happened to the curly braces ({}) or square brackets ([]), but that doesn't matter so much since I don't do a lot of programming any more. The pound sign (which is called a 'hash' sign here) is in a random spot, but the British pound sign (£) is in its place, so I guess that makes sense. The good old dollar sign is still above the 4, right where it belongs, though, so I take some comfort from that.
Apart from that, though, the adjustment isn't really too bad. Most of the other differences are just things to get used to. For example, it takes some getting used to stores closing at 7 on weeknights, and earlier on Sundays if they're open at all, and not being able to phone my bank at 2am on a Thursday is odd, though one might well ask why I don't have anything better to do at that time.
Many of you have also inquired about the time difference. If you're on the East Coast, we're 5 hours ahead. Except when we're not. You see, the US changed Daylight Savings Time to start 3 weeks earlier this year. This was the Bush administration's Big Idea to save energy. Seriously. Evidently no one bothered to figure out that if you shave an hour of daylight off the beginning of the day and tack it on to the end, people would have to turn on their lights in the morning instead of in the evening. Duh. Oh, and it cost something like a gazillion dollars for IT departments to fix. It was a mini Y2K, except no one spent two years planning for it. Who needs hydrogen cells when we've got Dubyah .
Anyway, for those three weeks in the Spring, the US is 4 hours behind the UK, until the UK switches to British Summer Time, and we're back to 5. If you're ever in doubt, www.timeanddate.com has a great timezone converter. The time difference isn't frustrating, exactly, but you really don't fully appreciate the magnitude of a 5 hour time difference until you're on the other side of it. People in the States don't start work until about 2pm my time, and then they expect that I'm going to be available until 5 or 6 pm Eastern (that's 10 or 11pm here, in case the math eludes you).
There's also the language difference. "Wait, what language difference" you ask. As well you might. I mean, we both speak English, right? Well, not exactly. English is slightly different here, just enough to make things a little complicated. There are the obvious differences, like loo for toilet and bum for butt, and other words that we think are funny. But then there are problematic differences, like when you need to use the loo, you ask for the toilet, not the restroom or the bathroom. After all, wou'd want to take a nap or a bath at work?
(note to grandma - you may want to skip to the next paragraph)
'Fanny' is a really obscene word here, while, oddly, 'fuck' is comparatively mild. When you come for a visit, don't bring a 'fanny pack', bring a 'bum bag' instead. Ass is arse, unless you're talking about a donkey (the animal type, not the investment banker type - they're arses). Busting someone's chops is 'taking the piss out of them', while taking a piss is 'having a slash'.
Some foods are different. Eggplants are aubergines, and zucchini is courgette. Or maybe I have it backward. I'm not a big fan of eggplant or zucchini, so not a big loss there. But what do you call London broil? Just broil? Children eat dinner early, and it's called children's tea. Which makes for some confusion for us Americans, since 'eat your tea, darling' sounds a little odd.
There are some expressions I just can't puzzle out and need someone to translate for me. 'Doing the messages' means grocery shopping. 'I'm not bothered' means I don't care one way or the other. 'Potty' means crazy, and I think there's a subtle distinction between 'quite good' and 'really good', though I don't know what it is yet.
Monetary denominations are somewhat confusing. The pound is divided into 100 pence. There are only £1 coins, no notes. For notes there are £5, 10, 20, 50 and 100. So far so good, right? But for coins, there are £1 and £2, and there are 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p. I'm not as fast at counting the change in my pocket as I should be, so I end up paying with a note, and just getting more change. By the end of the day, my pants are jangling around my ankles with the weight of all those coins.
These aren't annoyances, they're just trade-offs. They're things to get used to, and we will in time. But there are other things to get used to, too. It costs me just £105 a month to get to work and back. It would have cost me twice that in gas alone back in the States, not to mention car payments, maintenance and insurance. And then there's the travelling. Not that we've done much yet, but when people talk about going to the beach, they're talking about going to Greece to the beach or to the Canary Islands or to Sardinia. When they talk about going to the mountains, they mean the Swiss Alps. And when they talk about going to Octoberfest, they mean Munich. In October.
Yeah, I think the trade-offs are OK. Now if I could just find that damn backslash.
But recently someone asked the question in a more open-ended way - "have you found anything really frustrating?" Hmm. Why yes, in fact, I have. The computer keyboard.
You see, I've been banging away on one keyboard or another for most of my life. I remember as a kid, dragging my mother's Olivetti Underwood manual typewriter up to my room to try to teach myself how to type. I figured if I typed the same letter over and over, I'd eventually learn. I didn't, though I did end up with a page full of A's for my effort.
Somewhere along the way, though, I did learn to touch type, though not very well. I have a hard time typing for long stretches, and sometimes my fingers just don't find the right keys and I still have to look down. (I've made about 15 mistakes in this paragraph so far). But I manage, or at least I did until I came here.
For starters, the @ and the " are reversed. So I'm forever Googling for @pubs in london@ and sending mail to drinkers"myfriends.com. As if that wasn't bad enough, the and \ keys, which I do use with some regularity in my profession, have been banished to the western frontiers of my keyboard, and reside in the same labor camp as the lower-class letters like Q and Z. This change was made, apparently, so that the Enter key could extend upwards. The result of this is that every time I mean to type a backslash, I end up hitting Enter. This is more than annoying, it's downright dangerous.
I'm not at all sure what happened to the curly braces ({}) or square brackets ([]), but that doesn't matter so much since I don't do a lot of programming any more. The pound sign (which is called a 'hash' sign here) is in a random spot, but the British pound sign (£) is in its place, so I guess that makes sense. The good old dollar sign is still above the 4, right where it belongs, though, so I take some comfort from that.
Apart from that, though, the adjustment isn't really too bad. Most of the other differences are just things to get used to. For example, it takes some getting used to stores closing at 7 on weeknights, and earlier on Sundays if they're open at all, and not being able to phone my bank at 2am on a Thursday is odd, though one might well ask why I don't have anything better to do at that time.
Many of you have also inquired about the time difference. If you're on the East Coast, we're 5 hours ahead. Except when we're not. You see, the US changed Daylight Savings Time to start 3 weeks earlier this year. This was the Bush administration's Big Idea to save energy. Seriously. Evidently no one bothered to figure out that if you shave an hour of daylight off the beginning of the day and tack it on to the end, people would have to turn on their lights in the morning instead of in the evening. Duh. Oh, and it cost something like a gazillion dollars for IT departments to fix. It was a mini Y2K, except no one spent two years planning for it. Who needs hydrogen cells when we've got Dubyah .
Anyway, for those three weeks in the Spring, the US is 4 hours behind the UK, until the UK switches to British Summer Time, and we're back to 5. If you're ever in doubt, www.timeanddate.com has a great timezone converter. The time difference isn't frustrating, exactly, but you really don't fully appreciate the magnitude of a 5 hour time difference until you're on the other side of it. People in the States don't start work until about 2pm my time, and then they expect that I'm going to be available until 5 or 6 pm Eastern (that's 10 or 11pm here, in case the math eludes you).
There's also the language difference. "Wait, what language difference" you ask. As well you might. I mean, we both speak English, right? Well, not exactly. English is slightly different here, just enough to make things a little complicated. There are the obvious differences, like loo for toilet and bum for butt, and other words that we think are funny. But then there are problematic differences, like when you need to use the loo, you ask for the toilet, not the restroom or the bathroom. After all, wou'd want to take a nap or a bath at work?
(note to grandma - you may want to skip to the next paragraph)
'Fanny' is a really obscene word here, while, oddly, 'fuck' is comparatively mild. When you come for a visit, don't bring a 'fanny pack', bring a 'bum bag' instead. Ass is arse, unless you're talking about a donkey (the animal type, not the investment banker type - they're arses). Busting someone's chops is 'taking the piss out of them', while taking a piss is 'having a slash'.
Some foods are different. Eggplants are aubergines, and zucchini is courgette. Or maybe I have it backward. I'm not a big fan of eggplant or zucchini, so not a big loss there. But what do you call London broil? Just broil? Children eat dinner early, and it's called children's tea. Which makes for some confusion for us Americans, since 'eat your tea, darling' sounds a little odd.
There are some expressions I just can't puzzle out and need someone to translate for me. 'Doing the messages' means grocery shopping. 'I'm not bothered' means I don't care one way or the other. 'Potty' means crazy, and I think there's a subtle distinction between 'quite good' and 'really good', though I don't know what it is yet.
Monetary denominations are somewhat confusing. The pound is divided into 100 pence. There are only £1 coins, no notes. For notes there are £5, 10, 20, 50 and 100. So far so good, right? But for coins, there are £1 and £2, and there are 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p. I'm not as fast at counting the change in my pocket as I should be, so I end up paying with a note, and just getting more change. By the end of the day, my pants are jangling around my ankles with the weight of all those coins.
These aren't annoyances, they're just trade-offs. They're things to get used to, and we will in time. But there are other things to get used to, too. It costs me just £105 a month to get to work and back. It would have cost me twice that in gas alone back in the States, not to mention car payments, maintenance and insurance. And then there's the travelling. Not that we've done much yet, but when people talk about going to the beach, they're talking about going to Greece to the beach or to the Canary Islands or to Sardinia. When they talk about going to the mountains, they mean the Swiss Alps. And when they talk about going to Octoberfest, they mean Munich. In October.
Yeah, I think the trade-offs are OK. Now if I could just find that damn backslash.
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