Things take some getting used to...Part 2

Laundry: I did laundry this past Sunday, starting at 3PM and wasn't done until about 11:30PM. GEEZ. I feel like I could have used a washing board and a blow dryer and would have gotten it done faster. As I mentioned before, the washer and dryer are really small in capacity so I had to wash about 3 loads of clothes. The first cycle I did not put on quick wash, so it literally took a good 2 hours for the entire thing to run. I lost time after about the 6th time I checked to see if it was done. 

This is an accurate depiction of the relative size of my washer.

Prior to this, I was staring at the settings trying to figure out what the hell was going on. In the States, we have the easy settings of Cold, Warm, and Hot, with possibly a setting for delicates and perm press. This was all crazy symbols, temps in celsius, and repeating symbols in different colors. I don't think I can even tell you what I eventually set it on. Then the dryer has another set of crazy settings: Super Intense Dry (which made it sound like my clothes would catch on fire), Cupboard Dry, Damp Dry, Wet Dry (how does this even make sense), and a Why Bother (j/k, but there might has well been). With that, another load of swirly symbols. 

None of these laundry settings were for less than 2 hours, so a thousand years later when I finally could put stuff in the dryer, I just put it to Cupboard Dry. When it was finished and I had grown a full beard, the things were STILL WET. So I put it in again for another century and they were STILL WET. I don't know how laundry even gets done. Most people I have asked this to say they just hang their clothes, but there is literally no space for me to hang stuff because all the banisters in our house are occupied with sheets, sweaters, and whatever else all the English folks in my residence are drying. When I told people this story, their first question was "How much were you washing?" I don't think it was an insane amount, but they all wondered at how many pairs of pants (underwear) I owned that I could go for so long without doing wash. From what I can tell, it seems most English girls own 14 pairs of underwear. At least I hope they do. 

Appliances: To continue with crazy symbols, almost all the major appliances I encounter have wackadoo symbols all over it. You probably thought to use a toaster, you just press the lever down. Nope, I had to choose from 3-4 settings. One was a snowflake, which I couldn't even understand what possibly something referring to cold had to do on a toaster (I did come to find it meant defrost). I went to use the oven the other night and again was confronted by no words, just symbols. It's like ancient Egypt up in here. The oven has a temp knob in celsius (normal), but then another knob with about 6-7 settings on it. I am used to everything being bake unless I set it to broil. After toying with the oven for 5 minutes, I just gave up. Once my roommate came home, he showed me what the settings were (in the "how come you don't get this? Are you retarded?" - tone), there there was an extra step of literally fiddling with random knobs until a light came on. Perhaps the house I live in is just ghetto?

Stone: Someone asked me "How many stone do you weigh?" My reaction: "What kinds of stones?" After the laughter died down, they told me that this is how people gauge their weight. After consulting my Conversion widget, a stone = 14 pounds. What if I am not a multiple of 14? How do you then express weight? I would guess I am a little less than 7 stone. Is that what I say? Why were they asking me my weight anyway? How rude...

Tescos: I have given up on doing my own grocery shopping. I tried and tried, but the idea of having to go to Tescos after work makes me want to pop 3 Xanax. I started doing online delivery of Sainsbury, so hopefully it will be better. E-mail me some good, easy recipes so that I can start cooking properly if you guys know any!

Cycling: So I have been cycling on and off to work for about 3 weeks, and I can say that I can get to and from the office pretty safely. I need to get a new helmet because the one I have IS huge (as Suzy can let you know as I modeled it for her on video chat). It's still rough work, but it actually feels pretty good on the soul in the morning. Not sure if I can keep it up when it gets colder, but we'll see how much I can take. I also find that cycling is definitely the fastest way. It rained the other day so I took the bus, and because the bus doesn't stop at each stop, I missed mine and ended up getting off at the next stop which was like 5 minutes away. Total time into the office: 45 minutes, 35 of it which was walking. Riding takes me about 15 if I don't get interrupted by cars and buses. However, this week while I was riding my shoe flew off into the middle of the street as I was mounting my bike, so I need to get some bicycle riding kicks or shoes that actually fit me.

Pronunciation: If I thought that vocabulary was a slight issue, now I have trouble understanding words that I should know. My co-worker asked me why I was out of work last Wednesday, and I told her I had a bad headache. She goes "What? A meegraine?" It took me a few seconds to get that she was saying migraine, but each time she repeated the word in this conversation about meegraines, it still sounded really strange. Then we were talking about making a good ragu sauce, and she kept referring to oregano as ore-GA-no. Again, slight pause before I could understand. Also when people say herbs, they pronounce the H like in horse rather than honor. Maybe it's because she is from Northern England? It makes me wonder, is British pronunciation correct because it came first? Should I be saying words the way they do?

Dryness: For a country where it rains a lot, my face is always dry. As I have told many of you (and some of you have seen) my skin for the first two weeks here was flaky, gross, and at the same time breaking out more than ever in my life. I thought I caught leprosy from somewhere! I think I have it under control now, but I am a low maintenance gal, and the lotion regime I have to go through now is tedious and annoying. I guess this is what it means to be a girl? I used to just use face wash and lotion. Now its using cream cleanser, then a toner, then eye cream, then night cream. How do other chicks do this?! 

The reason for the eye cream is that my eyelids feel like they are going to flake off at any second. Then because my eyelids are dry, my eyeballs start getting itchy and feel like they are going to fall out. My contact lenses become like cornflakes, and drops don't work, so I have started to wear my glasses towards the end of the day at work because my eyes are so irritated. I used to be able to wear my lenses all day and night, but here the max is 6 hours it seems, before I start having issues. In summary, I look insane.