Just like I mentioned in my last post, part of the adventure
of living on the other side of the world is adjusting to little everyday
differences from home. When I was compiling my list of little loves and little
loathes, it was much easier to think of the things I would miss over the things
I wouldn't. Nevertheless, no place is perfect and there are some things about
my UK life that I won't be sad to see the back of...
1. Dog poo & spit – If you ask me what I saw in London over the last two years, don’t be surprised if I say “not a lot, just footpaths really”. Because there are two filthy habits (i.e. spitting and not cleaning up after your dog) that cause me to constantly stare at the ground as I make my way through a minefield of gollies & poop.
2. News coverage – You know in Australia when you watch the news, you get news, sport and weather together. Over here, the news reports are usually limited to a few domestic stories, and there is often no sport report at all (especially on breakfast TV)! Obviously weather gets a big focus because it’s a bit of an obsession in Britain. But as a sport lover, I've found I have to seek out sport news, fixtures, results and details myself. E.g. The Ashes are on at the moment and unless you’re interested, you could easily avoid hearing about it.
3. British milk and beef – I used to love milk in Oz. I could easily drink a big glass on its own. But I find full cream here is thicker and creamier than Aussie whole milk, and semi-skimmed is too watery and not as nice. British beef (unless you go to a good restaurant) is just plain rubbish! Beef mince is awful and there’s basically no such thing as a beef sausage. The number one food I want when I get home is a beef sausage from our local butcher.
4. 6th vs 6th – Sixth [siksth] The ordinal number for six; one of six parts. Why is this even an issue? Because people don’t pronounce it properly! The correct phonetic spelling of 6th is siksth. That means you say six and then add th on the end, so six-th. There should be an S sound in the middle of the word. It’s not sick-th!
5. Cool drinks – Sure the UK is not the warmest of places, but when I buy a cold drink, I still want it to be cold. Nothing worse than a coolish coke. They should be cold enough to produce condensation. Drink fridges have no doors on them so cold drinks are only ever cool at best, especially unsatisfying on the odd occasion when it’s actually warm.
6. Good weather hype – When a lovely day becomes headline news and the main topic of conversation I realise how much I took sunshine and Sydney weather for granted. While it’s nice to get excited about great weather, I won’t miss that mentality; I’d rather just have nice weather more often.
7. Phone reception – As soon as you enter many buildings you can say goodbye to phone reception! I'm pretty sure this isn't just my service provider because no one in our office gets a good signal.
8. Monthly pay – In Australia, fortnightly pay is the standard, whereas monthly pay is the norm over here. In my case it was the last Friday of the month. So first of all you have to be pretty good at budgeting to stretch your money evenly over 4 weeks. But then every few months, the pay period would be 5 weeks! Those were tough months.
9. A few things in my flat – I love my little homely flat I've shared with Kaitlin and Chloe, but there are a few things that annoy all of us, like the shower and the kitchen bench-tops and the fact that our plates don’t fit in our (now kaput) microwave.
10. Sunshine hours in winter – During the winter the sun rises at about 8:30am and sets at 4pm. This means that unless I went outside at lunch I could go through a working week having barely seen daylight!
11. Hard water – You often hear people talking about London water being quite hard. My hair hasn't coped well. It’s seemed really difficult to get clean and used to be super soft and dead straight. Now it’s not as soft and kinda frizzy if I don’t blow dry or straighten it.
12. The doorbell at work – My office was part of two buildings - #14 & #15. Reception is at #15 where all visitors need to register, except ours because we had a doorbell (with our logo on it). The following would happen numerous times every day... Doorbell rings. Get up to answer the door. Either no one is there (because AFTER they ring the bell, they read the sign that says go to #15) OR someone is there (who didn't read the sign at all) and asks for so&so from xyz! Staff at #14 know to tell their visitors to go to #15 so it used to really infuriate me, probably more than I should have let it to be honest.
They’re all quite trivial really, and none of them make me want to pack up and leave. However, I am packing up and leaving… in 3 days! Seems weird to end my UK blog on this note. But I'm sure you can tell from all my other stories that I'm not leaving on a low. Coming here was the best decision I ever made. And I think this blog will continue as the next chapter begins. My only regret is calling it Tania in the UK. Stay tuned for more stories. I might even catch up on a few of the adventures I haven't yet written down.
Until then... xoxo
1. Dog poo & spit – If you ask me what I saw in London over the last two years, don’t be surprised if I say “not a lot, just footpaths really”. Because there are two filthy habits (i.e. spitting and not cleaning up after your dog) that cause me to constantly stare at the ground as I make my way through a minefield of gollies & poop.
2. News coverage – You know in Australia when you watch the news, you get news, sport and weather together. Over here, the news reports are usually limited to a few domestic stories, and there is often no sport report at all (especially on breakfast TV)! Obviously weather gets a big focus because it’s a bit of an obsession in Britain. But as a sport lover, I've found I have to seek out sport news, fixtures, results and details myself. E.g. The Ashes are on at the moment and unless you’re interested, you could easily avoid hearing about it.
3. British milk and beef – I used to love milk in Oz. I could easily drink a big glass on its own. But I find full cream here is thicker and creamier than Aussie whole milk, and semi-skimmed is too watery and not as nice. British beef (unless you go to a good restaurant) is just plain rubbish! Beef mince is awful and there’s basically no such thing as a beef sausage. The number one food I want when I get home is a beef sausage from our local butcher.
4. 6th vs 6th – Sixth [siksth] The ordinal number for six; one of six parts. Why is this even an issue? Because people don’t pronounce it properly! The correct phonetic spelling of 6th is siksth. That means you say six and then add th on the end, so six-th. There should be an S sound in the middle of the word. It’s not sick-th!
5. Cool drinks – Sure the UK is not the warmest of places, but when I buy a cold drink, I still want it to be cold. Nothing worse than a coolish coke. They should be cold enough to produce condensation. Drink fridges have no doors on them so cold drinks are only ever cool at best, especially unsatisfying on the odd occasion when it’s actually warm.
6. Good weather hype – When a lovely day becomes headline news and the main topic of conversation I realise how much I took sunshine and Sydney weather for granted. While it’s nice to get excited about great weather, I won’t miss that mentality; I’d rather just have nice weather more often.
7. Phone reception – As soon as you enter many buildings you can say goodbye to phone reception! I'm pretty sure this isn't just my service provider because no one in our office gets a good signal.
8. Monthly pay – In Australia, fortnightly pay is the standard, whereas monthly pay is the norm over here. In my case it was the last Friday of the month. So first of all you have to be pretty good at budgeting to stretch your money evenly over 4 weeks. But then every few months, the pay period would be 5 weeks! Those were tough months.
9. A few things in my flat – I love my little homely flat I've shared with Kaitlin and Chloe, but there are a few things that annoy all of us, like the shower and the kitchen bench-tops and the fact that our plates don’t fit in our (now kaput) microwave.
10. Sunshine hours in winter – During the winter the sun rises at about 8:30am and sets at 4pm. This means that unless I went outside at lunch I could go through a working week having barely seen daylight!
11. Hard water – You often hear people talking about London water being quite hard. My hair hasn't coped well. It’s seemed really difficult to get clean and used to be super soft and dead straight. Now it’s not as soft and kinda frizzy if I don’t blow dry or straighten it.
12. The doorbell at work – My office was part of two buildings - #14 & #15. Reception is at #15 where all visitors need to register, except ours because we had a doorbell (with our logo on it). The following would happen numerous times every day... Doorbell rings. Get up to answer the door. Either no one is there (because AFTER they ring the bell, they read the sign that says go to #15) OR someone is there (who didn't read the sign at all) and asks for so&so from xyz! Staff at #14 know to tell their visitors to go to #15 so it used to really infuriate me, probably more than I should have let it to be honest.
They’re all quite trivial really, and none of them make me want to pack up and leave. However, I am packing up and leaving… in 3 days! Seems weird to end my UK blog on this note. But I'm sure you can tell from all my other stories that I'm not leaving on a low. Coming here was the best decision I ever made. And I think this blog will continue as the next chapter begins. My only regret is calling it Tania in the UK. Stay tuned for more stories. I might even catch up on a few of the adventures I haven't yet written down.
Until then... xoxo
LOVE IT!!!!!!!
ReplyDelete