The driving isn't the only thing that is backwards

Things that keep tripping me up here in Jolly Old London:

1. Of course, the traffic being on the wrong side of the road. I feel like I have to look both ways about 50 times before I feel safe stepping foot off of the curb.

2. The light switches are backwards. You turn it up to switch the light on. Most of the light switches are outside of the rooms (i.e. in the hall). Also, every single electrical outlet has a light switch on it that must be turned on before it will work. There are also numerous mystery switches for which we have no idea what they operate.

3. The metric system. Everything is in grams, kilograms, Celsius, etc. Not too much of a problem except when I am cooking. I'm having a bugger of a time trying to figure out how many kg=1 cup.

4. The commbination washer/dryer. It is *tiny*. It will fit about 2 bath towels and maybe a hand towel and that is it. And it will take about 5 hours for it to dry the above load, and even then it is still damp and extremely wrinkled. It has already shrunk many of our clothes, and I'm fretting about what to do for some of our nicer items that I absolutely don't want to shrink.

5. There are no electrical outlets in the bathrooms. The idea is to keep any of those zany Brits from doing something rash like blowdrying their hair in the shower. Since the only mirrors in the house are in the bathrooms, I've been trying to style my hair in the reflection of the brass light switch plate in my bedroom. Not looking too good these days.

6. No closets. I knew this, and yet it is still so bizarre. I've not figured out what exactly one does with all their shoes when there is no closet to put them in.

7. There is no standard format for phone numbers here. In the States, a number will invariably look like this: (123)456-7890. Here, it could be any combination of this:
000 1111 2222 or 00011 112222 or 00 0111 12222 and so on. It makes it very difficult to try to memorize any number. Also, the first digit of the number denotes whether it is a home line, mobile line, or business phone. This is important to know, since you are charged differnt amounts to call each one.

8. You have to pay to use shopping carts at the grocery store.

9. We don't have a disposal in our sink. I was so perplexed, trying to figure out how you do the dishes when you can't just scrape everything into the sink.

10. We also don't have a microwave. Reheating food has been a small challenge.

11. They don't sell eggnog, my favorite Christmas drink which I look forward to all year. I'd make it myself, but I don't have an electric mixer to beat the eggs. And Santa Claus is "Father Christmas".



I'm sure there are lots more things that I don't even know about yet, but those are the ones I've encountered so far.