The quirks of London
As promised, here is a quite incomplete lists of the quirks of London:
Hot and Cold Water
We have one faucet for both hot and cold water in our kitchen and our bathroom. However, you have two choices - hot or cold water. You can't get warm water, because the cold water comes out of the front half of the faucet and the hot comes out of the back. You sort of have to mix the water together in your hands to make a half hot/half cold combination in order not to scald or freeze yourself. Why? I have no idea.
Russian Mob
In Bayswater (where I live), the Russian mob owns everything. Our renting agency, the Internet cafe, the liquor store, the supermarket, and we're sure there's more. It turns out that this makes our area one of the safest in London because, seriously, who's going to mess with the Russian mob? It does make for a scary Internet cafe experience when a big Russian guy is staring you down, demanding a pound an hour for insanely slow Internet access (which we no longer have to put up with! Score!)
The Damn @ Key
Which I now cannot find on American keyboards OR British ones, so my typing speed has slowed to the point where you can actually see my fingers while I'm typing. British keyboards have the @ key where the double apostrophe key is and the double apostrophe key over the 2. I'll now allow you all 5 seconds to look at your keyboards and see what I'm talking about.
Ready? Good. So I was doing data entry on my first day at my internship, and this consisted mainly of inputing e-mail addresses, which became infinitley frustrating when I couldn't find the @ key. Now I'm sort of used to both methods, which is just making me sad, so moving on...
The Circle Line
I'm sure I've moaned (British term they use instead of complained/ranted... see? You're learning!) about this before, but the Circle Line is SO slow. Someone sneezes, and they have to shut the Circle Line down for emergency antibacterial repairs. Unfortunately, this is how we get everywhere, but it lets us take a lot of adventurous side trips around - like today, when we took 3 lines to get home. Fortunately, they are shutting the Circle Line down this weekend for repairs, which I'm hoping is code for update to the 20th century (I'm not even wishing for the 21st). I found out today that the first underground train ride in London was in 1863, and that was on the Circle Line as it exists today (the second half, not so true).
The Obsession with the Left
Everyone drives and walks on the left. This is just wrong, and we'll leave it at that.
Too Many Cash Denominations
We have: 1 pence, 2 p, 5 p, 10 p, 20 p, 50 p, 1 pound, 2 pounds...
And those are just the coins. Then we have bills for 5, 10, 20... and I'm sure more but I've never had that much money to my name.
Basically, our wallets/trousers (don't say pants here... that's just underwear and you'll sound silly) weigh a ton and we spend 4 hours everytime we check out somewhere trying to figure out what's what.
I think that's it unless I have any input from my fellow Londoners! Let me know!
posted by Alyssa Gardina @ 8:51 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Don't forget how the 20p and 50p coins are heptagons.
FUCKING HEPTAGONS. Seven goddamn sides!
Now I'm all for polygonal coins. But you should be able to draw them without getting out a goddamn protractor. And calculator, come to think of it. What's 360 divided by 7? Don't even try to figure it out, it's not even a real freaking number. Sorry, the American in me is just not willing to accept a 7-sided shape with any sort of familiarity. Maybe if in addition to the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force, and Marines we also had the Somewhat Hilly Terrain Fighters and the Walrus Brigade or something and our military headquarters had to accommodate 2 more sides, then we'd be a bit more accepting - after having taken the patriotic visit to the Washington Monument, the Capitol Building, and the Heptagon.
Alyssa,
On the subject of money: You forgot to point out the concept of 'the quid'. Something we're not sure if we've figured out yet. It may be slang for the british currency, it may also be that we've gotten the name wrong and squids are legal tender. If that is the case we should go fishing. Also, the british don't yet understand that you don't HAVE to make things unbelievably expensive for people to want to buy them.
On the subject of the Circle Line: it wasn't built in 1863, it was discovered. The circle line is actually a natural phenomenon, like the old man in the mountain used to be. The circle line is actually powered by subterranean hot springs that run under the city. But unlike the American old and faithful hot springs, the schedule for the british ones have gone a bit pear shaped.
-Tim
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