For example:
This is our washer and dryer. Both are much smaller than our American ones. The washer can hold up to a whopping 6 kg. This means I do laundry at least every other day. One cycle takes approximately 90 minutes. Once you've waited an hour and a half, you put your wet clothes into our condensing dryer. The dryer isn't bad, but it takes almost another hour and a half to dry all those clothes. Our dryer isn't vented to the outside (like a normal American one), so it takes the water of the clothes and collects it in a container (which I dump after every load) and then pumps all the hot, moist air into the kitchen. Oh, did I forget to mention that these babies are located in the kitchen (and under the counter)??
If the weather is good, you could skip the dryer entirely and go hang them out on the line (or as they say here "airer"). I haven't minded doing this at all, you just have to keep an eye on the weather. Sometimes a little shower will pop up and then you have to run out and grab all your clothes (which has happened a few times already).
And then there is the refrigerator. Pretty different, right? The top part is the cold and bottom is the frozen. Not quite as much room as our American one, but it really hasn't been an issue.
We knew going in that the outlets were different. And Zach had mentioned that the flip of light switches are opposite from what we are used to. The only thing I didn't know about was the On/Off switch that you have to flip to turn on the outlet. It's a nice energy saving feature, unless you plug in your phone to charge for a few hours and then you realize that you haven't turned on the outlet and your phone isn't charged. Oops.
And speaking of outlets, should you come for a visit, you will find no outlets in the bathrooms. It is believed to be a safety hazard. To turn on the light, you will need to pull the light cord.
Another change we are adapting to is that our house does not have air conditioning. This is not unusual over here as temperatures don't really get warm enough to justify having a/c. It's been great being able to open up all the windows and let in the nice cool fresh air. We did have an unusually warm week right after we arrived and the temperatures got up to the high 80s/low 90s, which is fairly warm when you don't have fans in rooms or a cooling unit. In case you were wondering, the average temperature for right about now is 70s in the day and 50s at night.
Something else we are adjusting to is the daylight hours. The sun has been rising around 4:30am and sets 9:20pm. That's a lot of daytime and it makes it a bit difficult to try to sleep with the sun blaring in through your window. Thank goodness for sleep masks and blackout curtains. It's been a learning curve for the girls who want to be up and play when the sun is out, at 5am. We've had to explain a few times that just because the sun is up, it's still very early in the morning and sleep time. I won't complain too much because come this winter, the sun will start coming up around 8:30am and setting at 4:30pm.
Our vocabulary is changing a bit as well. There are a few British words that we are learning to replace our American ones with.
- sidewalk = pavement
- napkin = serviette (Do not ever ask for a napkin at a restaurant. Here that is a feminine product.)
- steak fries = chips
- potato chips = crisps
- baked potato = jacket potato
- excuse me = sorry
- highway = motorway
- sneakers = trainers
- pants = trousers
- vacation = holiday
These are just a few highlights of all the new things that we are adjusting to. We are just soaking it all in and enjoying everything. None of it is completely life changing and we are having fun doing things the British way :)
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