When expat life is just life

I am just barely keeping up right now. I’ve had a long week, a lot to do, and have a lot of work stacked up for doing on the weekend. As such, I have had very little to say in the line of amusing expat anecdotes about life in Britain. Some days I actually see this as a small victory: my life is just my life right now, my job is my busy job, and the fact that it is in a foreign land goes oddly unnoticed. There are little reminders, the spell-checker on my office computer picks up words that I spell in “American” instead of “English”. When I have telephone conferences, on the other end of the phone I hear Scottish and Welsh, not “southern” or “Boston” accents. But this is definitely one of those weeks when I feel settled and happy here (except for the stressful and busy parts!)

Perhaps it helps that I have comfortable furniture in my flat now. Perhaps my new wardrobes and kitchen cabinets are making me happy. Perhaps my expat friends are keeping me sane without my thinking consciously about it. Who knows. But some weeks expat life is just life full stop. And when that happens, when living in a foreign country is not a total distraction and central to your mind, well that’s a very good thing.

Oh dear

Today I was in a building (associated with work) that I had never been in before, and as sometimes happens I visited the ladies room. I am not kidding, there were two black and white cartoons, word-free signs in the stall, one showing the person sitting on the toilet (not unlike the first panel of this), and the other showing how to throw toilet paper in the toilet. I realize that I live in a very multicultural place, and in my own building for work there are signs with words discussing the dire consequences of treating the toilets differently than they are intended to be treated. But it was still a bit much. I was feeling utterly ridiculous about the sad state of humankind until I saw this from diamond geezer. It really is true, the British authorities in some way or another really do think we are all morons. And people say America has a litigious culture? Surely in a land with all this ridiculous signage (none of which I saw in the states) the “over the top” element is far worse…

Oh happy day!

Anyone following the developments as I’ve tried to adapt my English flat to my American self will be glad to see the latest arrivals, as of this morning:

That’s right, no more sitting on the floor for me, I have a new love-seat that has the huge advantage of also being a sofa-bed (should anyone care to visit!).  Also, as of yesterday I also have a new pantry cupboard in the kitchen:

This was to address the odd circumstance of there being no “upper cupboards” in my kitchen–there were only cupboards below the counter-tops.  The stove is just to the right of this new cupboard, so my food and spices and things can go away instead of sitting out on the counter.  All of this combined with my new wardrobes and other recent acquisitions means that I have now finally got an apartment that is far more functional than when I moved here.  I admit it’s not all terribly decorative; the sofa is something that belongs in a basement, not in my living room with my Delft and teacup collections, but at the end of the day it was function I was after more than style.  This was my clear favorite of the sofa-beds in John Lewis, and quite frankly I was feeling too old to get another futon.

Do I just have a dirty mind?

In Minnesota we used to joke that there were two seasons, winter and road construction.  Here in England I find there are two seasons, winter and building work that requires lots of scaffolding.  Admittedly I live in an old part of an old town, but I have never seen so much scaffolding in my life.  It’s been going up everywhere in the last few days.  (I have no idea what they are doing with it–my knowledge of engineering apparently does not extend to this one!)

I walked by a truck this week, one with lots of scaffolding supplies in the back, and just about tripped over the curb when I saw what was written on the side of the truck cab in huge, bright letters:

Erection specialists!

I can’t even type it without giggling.  Do it, google scaffold and “erection specialists” and you get a whole list of companies advertising their wares (ahem).  I think this was the one I saw but it could have been this one, and don’t forget this one for a “specialty erection service.”  I’m not going to be able to walk around town straight-faced this whole construction season.  I guess I have a dirty mind.

It’s not easy being green

I’ve been planning the rest of my year in terms of trips, travel and general mechanisms of occasional respite from life on this island. I have two conferences to go to, a tour with my music group, the second annual pilgrimage to Minnesota for the state fair (we got tickets for JONNY LANG at the State Fair GRANDSTAND!!!) and that just gets me through the summer. Further adventures for later in the year still pending. OK, I admit it. I travel a lot. I fly a lot. My current goal is to fly enough this year to be promoted to BA silver frequent flier status. Apparently this makes me evil. I have been taking a lot of crap from my very favorite slightly-over-the-top environmentalist friend, who made a crack about my lack of interest in carbon offsets. I’m so very much of the opinion that they are like the things ancient Christians used to buy off the church in exchange for guilt. I’m just not having it that I am committing some horrid crime by flying. I live on an Island. I don’t own a car and I walk almost everywhere. I’m a pescetarian. I’ve donated lots of money to wildlife organizations and the US national parks system. I care about the environment but am unconvinced that an extra “tax” on my BA flight purchases is a meaningful way to address the problem, as compared to, say, promoting sensible first order basic environmental policies in rapidly industrializing countries like China and India. Of course, in the conversation it came to pass that “love miles” are seen as an acceptable justification for travel even outside of off-setting. So, to my friends and family, many thanks for providing me with an apparently reasonable excuse for my jet-setting lifestyle and poor environmental stewardship.

ouch!

One must always be careful when reading the opinion of Australians on Britain and the British; there is no love lost there for many young Aussies, especially the republican sort.  But I couldn’t help laughing at this article, “Welcome to England: fat, obsessive and TV-addicted” on The Age website.  Excerpts follow.

England, famous across the world as the country of Shakespeare, royalty, fair play and manners, is a nation of “overweight, sex-and-celebrity-obsessed TV addicts”, according to a new tourist guide.

The Rough Guide to England, which was written by four British travel writers, says that there is nowhere “so fascinating, beautiful and culturally diverse, yet as insular, self-important and irritating, as England”.

The country has been scarred by the 2005 London bombings and the Iraq war, making it a “querulous, quarrelsome country” that could be in the grip of an identity crisis, it says.

Reserve is still a key national trait - attempting a conversation with a stranger “can be seen as tantamount to physical assault”, the guide says - and a person’s accent is the equivalent of a consumer brand.

Foreign tourists are also warned that the English are “the most contradictory people imaginable”.

“However long you spend in the country you’ll never figure them out,” it adds.

Fortunately after all of that vitriol, the article ends:

But the guide is not entirely negative, reserving a soft spot for the country’s love of animals, generosity to charities, irony, its openness to refugees, thriving arts and culture and the soothing quality of BBC Radio 4.

Egad.  For anyone who thinks I am too hard on the British, see, it could be so much worse!!!

Chilled

There was a story on the Guardian today about all the food that Brits throw away.  I can totally see it.  I do it.  I don’t mean to, and I wish I didn’t.  But food here seems to spoil so fast.  I don’t know what that implies about the typical amount of preservatives in things in the US… even silly, small things like a pint of milk go off here and get washed down the drain.  I drink coffee with milk every day and yet can’t manage to avoid this little pitfall.  I also go to the grocery store on average every other day, with my tiny fridge, and must still not be adjusted to how much food I need to buy.

Preservatives (or lack thereof) aside, there are really really obvious things going on here that don’t get mentioned by the article.  All of the ready meals are refrigerated.  As I have discussed previously, a freezer is apparently not standard issue in apartments here.  I thought I was doing quite well without one when I first arrived, but now I’m not so sure.  Aside from moving and severe freezer burn of the six-months variety, I don’t remember ever having to toss out “ready meals” in the states (where they are called frozen dinners!).  Yes I buy more fresh vegetables here since I can’t buy frozen, but that also means I throw out broccoli past its prime on a regular basis.  Even cheese seems to get damp and moldy much faster.  And I swear I never, ever recall seeing mold on mashed potatoes in the US.  So yes, Brits throw away a huge amount of potentially edible food, but it seems to me a great deal of it would be preventable with the simple addition of frozen foods.

Dear men of Britain

Dear men of Britain,

Since the weather in the UK has turned warm, many of you seem to have switched to your motorcycles for transportation.  I am fully in support of this, especially if it means you have abandoned you automobiles.  However, I am baffled when I see you walking around my town in your motorcycling leather trousers.  I would think that such gear would be inconsistent with the warm weather–are you not sweating in all of that knee-padded leather?  Not to mention the addition of matching leather jackets.  I am perplexed by your wearing this gear when shopping or wandering around my town, do you wear it every day?  How do you clean it?   I am also somewhat perplexed by the need to wear such fancy padded gear, are you taking turns like Valentino Rossi such that your knees might drag on the ground?  In the US, I seem to recall most bikers wearing jeans, are they missing out on something, or are you slaves to your own brand of biker fashion?  Just wondering.  Many thanks for any insight you could provide.

Sincerely,

NFAH

Nearly missed 5/5

It is 11 pm, and it is of course Cinco de Mayo (the fifth of May) but it nearly passed me by without notice. So distracted was I by it being a bank holiday that I missed any opportunity to go out for a margarita or anything else vaguely Mexican. What can I say, my state of ennui continues. I click the heels of my red shoes together, and say “there’s no place like home” but oddly nothing happens…

Some weeks are better than others

And this was not one of the good weeks.  It was rough, tough, and its greatest redeeming factor was the sense of “that which does not kill you can only make you stronger!”   Time to review a few “light at the end of the tunnel” moments to try and keep perspective.

• It’s been so cold that the windows have been necessarily shut and there has been no fly infestation in my flat.  When it does warm up, thanks to my father who scouted around online, I have some new adjustable fly-screens to try.
• The housekeeping staff came by after nearly two months without stopping in for no apparent reasons (albeit only after I flagged it up) and actually vacuumed (”hoovered” in the local lingo) my carpet.
• I found another blog of Americans in London who seem to be equally mystified as I about the way this country works (or just doesn’t as the case may be!)
• This extraordinary article on Slate on the use of computer based therapy in England (where the NHS is overwhelmed and there is a therapist shortage) gave me a good chuckle, especially the opening line, “England is crazy and so am I.”  I could NOT have said it better myself.