I was able to go home for Christmas for about 2 weeks. It was great getting to see all my family and friends. Of course everyone wanted to hear about my time here. The most asked question was what is the biggest difference. The answer to that one is obvious. Driving on the other side of the road, on the other side of the car. But you expect that one. What I find interesting are all the little things that are different that you wouldn't expect.
The first time I went to fill up the car I am driving I had to pay close attention. The Audi that I'm driving is a diesel. In America, that means you would use the pump with the green handle. Not here. In England, diesel has a black handle. Unleaded is green. So I always triple check myself when I fill up the car. I would hate to put unleaded in a diesel car!
One of the every first things I did when I first got here was log onto facebook to let my family know that I arrived safely. I didn't have internet access in my flat yet, so I used one of the computers at the office. I entered my e-mail and password as normal, but I got an error message saying that I didn't enter a valid e-mail address. When I looked at, I saw that I hadn't. Inside of the @, I had entered a ". Those two symbols are switched on a UK keyboard. I'm a little embarrassed to say that it took me about a minute to realize that.
I've noticed that when I am typing quickly, I will type I@m instead of I'm because I hold down the shift key too long. Talk about annoying.
Also on the first day here I went to the grocery store. The ladies that were showing me around town took me shopping and I didn't want to take up a lot of their time, so I just picked up a few of the basics. One of those basics was milk. When we were putting everything in the trunk of the car, one of them had laid the milk on it's side. I reached over and stood it up because I didn't want it to leak. Come to find out, I didn't have anything to worry about. They put a paper seal on the bottle as well as a screw off cap. I must say that I love that feature. Wish they would do that back home. I can't tell you the number of times when my milk has tipped over in the car and has leaked out on the way home.
People here also take advantage of public transportation a lot more than they do back home. But not only that, more people seem to walk and ride their bikes every where. Normally, I wouldn't find the need to comment on that. What makes it worth mentioning is that most of them are wearing high visibility vests or jackets.
The sidewalks here are close to the rodes and when I say close, I do mean really close. So when people wear these high vis jackets it makes them much easier to see. I know when I have been walking to my car at night and I have a little ways to go, I wish I had one on.OK, so that was just a few of the little differences that I have noticed over my time here. There are more, but that's enough for tonight. I promise to write more often in the next couple of months.
I hope everyone is having a great start to 2012!!
