Top Ten Things

We will be returning to the US in approximately a week and a half. This is a mixed bag for me. While I'm excited to be able to see my family and friends again, I am definitely not excited to be going from 62 degrees to 98 and I'm going to miss my new friends that I've made here. So, to sum up our experience, Sean thought we should do a Top Ten Things We Will Miss and Not Miss about England (We will not include friends since that is assumed). So, here's mine...

Top Ten Things I'll Miss About England:
1. Walking: Walking to get my groceries, to dinner, to get my hair cut, to the library, to the post office, to the bank, to buy some clothes, to the bookstore, to Coffee, and to Evan's school.
2. London: the theatre, the concerts, the city
3. The Trains: on-time, frequent, you can get almost everywhere
4. The Weather and Running in the rain: I am a pasty-white person. I like not having to put on sunscreen every time I go out.
5. The Airports: they are only an hour and a half away and will take you anywhere in the world (not just to LAX or SFO)
6. Being in a very old place where almost every building is beautifully detailed and Castles are a dime a dozen.
7. Fruit and Vegetables that taste like they should
8. BBC Radio (even though they talk too much and repeat music too often)
9. Location, Location, Location...You can DRIVE to France! It also exposes you to a lot more cultures and languages.
10. The English People: the accent, the politeness, the more formal dress (love that the school-kids have to wear ties/jackets/skirts).
Sorry, I have to add one more:
11. The NHS: Everyone should have access to health care and that's all there is to it. I've used it and it works, even if it's not perfect.

Top Ten Things I Won't Miss About England:
1. PARKING: We sometimes have to walk about a mile to get to our car and if you forget to fold in your side mirrors, you could lose the cover and it may get run over (this happened to us).
2. Almost Getting Run Over: Pedestrians just don't have right of way and there are not enough pedestrian crossings. I take my life in my hands every time I cross the street because people don't even slow down for you.
3. Harry: Our Nice but Noisy Neighbor
4. Breakfast Options: I like pancakes, and waffles, and french toast, and omelettes, and hash browns. You can't get most of these things here for breakfast.
5. Narrow Roads: Some roads just weren't made for two cars. I've actually been in a bus when I heard it hit the side mirror of the car traveling in the opposite direction and the bus never even slowed down.
6. Tiny Washers and Dryers: assuming you actually get a dryer, which is not assumed here.
7. The Weather: I know, it made the last list, but it would be nice to be able to plan for a sunny day. You never know when you will be able to play outside here.
8. The Bank: While I know and like my bank tellers here it really peeves me that I can't deposit money into the ATM machine, I have to go see a teller, and there are no weekend or evening hours. It also takes DAYS for transactions to show up into my account like deposited checks or transfers. Whereas my Bank of America account posts transactions within minutes and will credit my account.
9. Retail Hours: People like to shop Sundays and evenings and almost everything closes during those times.
10. Paying in Pounds: It's just a painful experience when you're earning in dollars.

A Rant about Music

One thing that took some getting used to over here is the way you listen to music. Radio stations are not separated so much over here by type of music or era. You could be listening to Madonna one minute and Neil Diamond the next and the stations aren't by city, they can be heard throughout the entirety of the country. So, while Radio 1 is directed at a more youthful audience it will play all kinds of music (except country, no one plays country, which I think is a blessing. Sorry country fans).

At first, I found this frustrating. I don't want to listen to Kid Rock followed by Rihanna. In a strange turn of events though, it's grown on me. And the most beautiful thing about the Radio over here is that the DJ's are allowed to talk about the music. If they think it's brilliant they'll say so and if they think it's rubbish they'll say that, too. They actually seem to love the music which I think is something that the US has lost in the corporate take-over of the airwaves.

Now it's time to pass on some of the great stuff I've been exposed to.
The Fratellis album "Costello Music" absolutely rocks and pretty much anything by the Kooks will make you feel good (thank you Shaun M for the introductions). These are available through Itunes.

Now the part that makes me REALLY angry....

There are some new songs out here that are really popular both here and on the continent but when I went to Itunes to see if they were available, I couldn't find them. Not until I pulled up the itunes UK store. Then, when I tried to log in, it immediately pushed me back to the US store where I couldn't get the music. Does this make any SENSE?!! I want to share music with my friends and they can't buy it!! No marketing, no concerts, no airplay and they could be making money and you can't buy it (if you wanted to)!!!!!! So, I had to set up a UK itunes account with my UK address and bankcard. So, I have the music and as soon as I can figure out how to share it, I will.

A Last Look at London

The last two weekends we've spent our Saturdays in London (check out Evan in front of the Paddington Bear statue at Paddington Station). The first time we went because it had been a good solid week of cold and rain and we just had to get out of the house so we checked out the London Science Museum. The London Science Museum is free and it's great! There are all kinds of cool exhibits about materials: the evolution of plastic was a great display (with thousands of the plastic strips you use to block the passage of contaminants/air between rooms), exhibits about space, cars, and best of all a place called Launchpad that is a hands-on activity area for kids where they can look through giant lenses, make giant bubbles, play with light, waves, pulleys, and build their own bridges out of foam blocks. It was a bit chaotic but lots of fun. Then we visited Covent Garden, a market area of London. It is also a place where the street performers congregate (sword swallowers, jugglers, etc..) so it was just an exciting place to be. We did a little shopping and headed home.

This last Saturday we drove to the London Zoo. It's on the outskirts of London so, while you can avoid the city congestion fee zone, you don't avoid the congestion. It was worth it, though. The zoo has a little bit of everything and it's laid out in a nice open plan so you feel a little closer to nature. There's a small aquarium there, the reptile house where they filmed a scene from Harry Potter (for you fans), there are animal shows where ferrets run around and parrots and hawks fly right over your head, and there's a playground, carousel, and butterfly house.