Unexpected differences (part 2)

So apart from driving and minor language differences, which actually can be a bother when you're trying to communicate (our Greece travel info recommends we pack a torch, but no lighter fluid for some reason, lol), there are some other things that are surprisingly different here.

First, let's take the restroom.  Now, what do you do when you are ready to flush, and see this (it's only about 1.5 inches across) on the top of the water cistern:

OK, so you choose to push one side.  The button sinks an inch!  But nothing happens.  You think, ok, this is ok, and push the other side.  Nothing happens.  Both?  Nothing.  Finally, some random-seeming combination of the two causes a flush.  This is at the bowling alley on base, and I still haven't figured it out.

So, at our house, we have this mounted on the wall in the restroom:

Guess what!  It flushes the toilet!!  The cistern (that holds the water) is built into the wall.  I finally looked up the difference between the buttons, and it's intuitive - the big button is for a big flush, the smaller is for a smaller flush.  Ha!  

Speaking of household items, check this out:

This is our clothes washer, I'm pretty sure the numbers are temperature settings, since there's a digital display that shows how long the cycle you have it set on will take.  It took me a bit to realize it was showing the length of time, since it said things like 212 and 238, but yes, some wash cycles take over 2 hours to run!  If you hit the "quick wash" button, it only takes an hour.  And the load is small, maybe 5 bath towels.  Crazy!  We are learning to re-wear our sweaters and what not.  :)

Same washer, left hand side.  I'm still wondering why you would want to change the spin speed.  It DOES sound like it's getting ready for lift off at the end of the cycle, but what good could come of under-spinning your wet clothes? 

Just to complete the picture, this is where the soap (oh, such a small amount!!) and fabric softener go in.  :)

Now for the dryer:

I'm still trying to figure out the difference between Cupboard Dry and Ready to Wear, though in practice Ready to Wear seems to get the clothes dryer.  Which makes little sense to me, since wearing damp clothes is better than folding them up for storage.  Go figure. 

Oh, and I mentioned this on FB, look, this is the cartridge that holds the water that the dryer gets out of the clothes!!  You have to dump it out each time, and it collects at least a quart from most loads.  Crazy!

Ah, the appliances.  This is the control for my oven:

You push the knob and it pops out so you can spin it.  But to what?  I get "light"... then broiler and half broiler?  Oven with fan, and without?  And what's the difference between the symbols at 5 o'clock and 9 o'clock?  I don't really know.  I use the "fan oven" most often, and so far, so good.  :)

Above is part of the oven controls... I don't understand them at all.   I think the one on the right may be a timer, but it might set the oven to turn on at a certain time, so I'm not messing with it.  :)  Oh, and this picture doesn't show it, but lots of the clocks here are 24 hour clocks, and business hours are often listed that way, like 0800-1700.  We're getting used to that too. 

Above is one of our wall radiators, with it's knob control.  Now, there IS a thermostat, AND a timer system, but every radiator except the one in the hall has the knob too.  Apparently, we're supposed to turn them each down or off and close the door when we're not in a room.  As I understand it, there's a boiler in our pantry, and it pumps hot water through the radiators in the house.  This occasionally sounds like mice running around, and freaked me out for the first few days.  But, listening carefully and following the sound, I figured it out.  :)

Now, a word about food.  Thank goodness Jason and Shelly warned us that "bacon" here is a thick, wide slice of ham, but I'm still surprised when I order a bacon cheeseburger off base and get a slice of ham on my burger.  Weird.  On base, we have plenty of crispy bacon, so no worries.  :)

But the weird difference in food here is two fold.  First, we have the military weird stuff:

Apparently the US Forces in Europe have a dairy.  I'm sure this is old news to lots of you, but I still get a giggle when I buy my US Forces whipping cream.  BTW, I am generally against "light" anything, but that was all they had in stock that day.  The commissary here is much more hit and miss than Winco.  :)

Then, there's the produce we buy in town. BTW, I was talking about the difference I'm about to describe with a British spouse at Scott's work Christmas party, and apparently "produce" is not what they call it.  He was like, What?  Anyway, it's all wrapped in plastic (you get a full package, even if you didn't want that many), and check out where it comes from!

This picture is just of the lid, the strawberries didn't last long.  :)

 

These eggs are from the commissary, off base not only are eggs sold only in 6 packs, they are also sold on the regular shelves, not the refrigerated section.  This has made it hard to find eggs in the stores, I can't figure out what they usually are sold next to here... pasta?  I need to figure that out. 

I know it makes sense that a bunch of produce would come from Europe, but I still think it's cool that my strawberries are from Egypt.  :)

Bicester

So I haven't done a comprehensive photo shoot of our house, but I do have a few pictures to share.  First, the front of the house with Scott and the girls, this was before we got snow.  Our house is at the end of a dead end lane. 

The garage is detached, to the right of the photo.  We have two doors into our garage, which is attached to the neighbor's garage.

Next, after it snowed, this is looking down the lane from our house.  The neighbor on the right of the picture built an arch over their gate in snow - it was pretty neat.

Above is our lane as you turn onto it - you go straight, then jog to the right around the bend, then straight back again to our house. 

We took a walk into town for lunch on Saturday, and I got these pictures.  From our lane, this is the road you'd turn onto to leave.  I think the main building is a private house, but to the right of it is the Littlebury Hotel.  We've had lunch there, it was good. :)

This is the way into the main part of town, there are a couple pubs you can see on the right in the background.

Big Old church you pass on the way into town. 

Sheep Street in Bicester - a collection of shops and pubs.  I'm still trying to learn the differences between the markets, there are so many!  This part of the street is closed to cars, which is nice.

The girls were watching the pigeons on Sheep Street.  You can maybe see a bakery in the background. 

So that's it for now, a little glimpse of our new town.  :)  Once we get a few more boxes put away I can post some pictures of the inside of the house. 

Bath (December 5, 2009)

The base was offering a day trip to the Christmas Markets in Bath, so we decided to go.  We went more for Bath than for the markets, and that turned out well since most people were there for the markets.  The actual Roman baths were not crowded at all.

We paused outside the entrance to the Baths to get a picture of the beautiful Bath Abbey outside. 

We got inside and the tour wand came with the admission price, so despite our Tower of London experience we tried again.  It turned out you could listen to a variety of recordings and you could pick which to listen to as you went along.  It was a better system by far for a family trying to stay on the same page. :)  They even had a special group of recordings for kids, which weren't as graphic and were more silly sometimes.

The main bath, seen from above.  There would have been a ceiling back when the Romans used it. Much of what you see today is recreated, at least on the top part.  It was rediscovered and excavated in the 18th century. There are many baths in the complex, there were some that were hotter, some that were colder, some that were really cold.  There were even locker rooms (so to speak) where they used the steam to heat the room from below the floor.  Very cool.

While we were up on the walkway above the baths, we could look over the wall and see the shops set up for the Christmas Market.  Neat, but crowded!

Looking out a window at where the hot water comes in.  This is as close as we got to the hot water coming in, and it was bubbling, but they said it was natural gasses, not boiling bubbles.  :)

All of us by the main bath, downstairs.  What's crazy is that you could totally jump in if you wanted to.  There's nothing stopping you, not even any guards around.  Of course, the pool is lead lined, so that can't be good for you... but still.  I do wonder how many people "acidentally" fall in every year.

We just stepped right over where the water came into the main bath.

This was inside, and it's just a drainage canal, but the Romans knew how to make everything aesthetically pleasing.  It seemed to be a waterfall, not run off. 

In the Pump Room, you can taste the water from the spring.  It wasn't as bad as we had heard, it was minerally, but fine.  One sip was enough, though back in the day it was recommended that a person drink liters and liters of it to get healthy!

Scott and the girls at the counter for the mineral water.

We left the baths and went out into the Christmas Market, and the first thing we saw was a carousel.  So the girls rode it.  :)  The markets were like Disneyland on New Year's Eve - WAY too crowded.  So we shopped a tiny bit and headed out of the crowds and over to the river to get some fresh air.

This is the Avon river, the bridge is the Pulteney Bridge - it looks just like a regular street when you're on it, with shops and everything.  Very cool. The weir sure was pretty.

Don't ask me why they have stairs in the middle of the river, they just do.  LOL

Cambria took a picture of me from on top of Scott's shoulders!  Nice rain hair, huh?

One of the main streets with market stalls.

On our way back to our shuttle bus, we thought we'd stop for something warm to drink.  Check out the name of this coffee shop - what a crack up!  LOL

All in all, a good day in Bath, though there is so much more to see.  We'll head back in the spring or summer when we can really enjoy the beauty of the town and its gardens.

London - Thanksgiving 2009 (last day)

Our last day in London, we wanted... well ok, *I* wanted to go see Kensington Palace and Gardens.  So we took the tube over.  

 

 

When we arrived, they said we should allow 2-3 hours to tour the palace, and we only had about an hour before we had to head back to get our luggage and head over to the train station. So we ended up just walking around the gardens a bit.  

In front of the palace, there's this cool statue of Queen Victoria - she was born there.

It was a rainy day, and though we wandered a bit looking for the Peter Pan statue and I wanted to see the Princess Diana memorial fountain, the kids were complaining pretty early on, so we headed back.  Another time.  

We got some lunch in the Marylebone train station - pasties, yum! 

Apparently a chain... good nonetheless.  :)

The station is a little marketplace... I thought the flower vendor was cool. 

And that's it for London for now.  We missed so many things, but we had a great time seeing what we did.  We learned not to expect to get so much stuff into one day with the kids.  Scott and I can knock out a city full of tourist attractions (like Boston or New Orleans) in a couple days, but the kids just can't move that fast.  And if you try to make them, woe is you.  I'm glad we're so close that it will be easy to go back, even just for a day at a time.  Everyone we talked to here was surprised that we were staying over since it's only an hour away, but we're glad we did.