Now that I have internet again for our laptop, I can regale you with the goings on of our life! When we contacted the internet company to get set up for our new house, they said the first day they could set it up would be the 5th of July: a good 3 weeks from when we called. I have definitely learned not to expect things to happen on an American time frame. Another interesting thing to note: we have to have a landline hooked up in order to use the wireless, and yet it's not dial up. I have no idea how that works, but I'm just glad the internet is leaps and bounds faster than my phone and even faster than I expected home internet to be here.
The house. We have been in England for a month now and are finally getting settled into our house. Getting used to British appliances is a task in itself. In the kitchen, there is a space for a dishwasher, but there was never a hole cut in the cabinet next to it to hook it up to the water. The handyman who was here before we moved in tried to drill a hole where he thought made sense, but he drilled it too far forward and our dishwasher stuck out from the counter about 7 inches. He came back and drilled a hole all the way back so it would actually be flush with the rest of the cabinets. We have yet to use the dishwasher because we own 2 bowls, 2 cups, paper plates and some silverware, so I just wash everything by hand. In order to use the dishwasher, you have to have the dishwasher soap, something called a rinse aid (which keeps the glasses from getting smeary) and you have to pour salt crystals into this other area. I was told that it's because they have super hard water here.
The washer and dryer are interesting because they hold less than half the size of a normal load, yet the machines themselves are the same size as US specs. I was really shocked when I did my first load (the washer dial doesn't have a timer, only temperatures) that a normal load takes about an hour and a half to complete. I finally discovered that there is a quick wash cycle which only takes probably 45 minutes. I was also expressly instructed never to put American detergent in the washer because it will overflow with suds. I had to put the clothes in the dryer for another hour and a half to get them dry. Since what we have is a condenser dryer, instead of the kind with the tube vents, we have this little drawer of water and filters we have to check on every so often to make sure it doesn't overfill.
We have a gas stove which we thought had a broken igniter until we realized that the switch to it (located away from the rest of the other cooking related on-switches) was off. See, everything in the house has its own on-switch. Electrical outlets, the stove, the igniter switch, the oven. I can see why this helps keep electricity drain down, but it's also a pain to have to remember to plug something in and then turn it on. The good news is no little kid could turn the stove on accidentally if the adult remembers to turn the switches off every time. The gas stove freaks me out because I had never used one before I came here and the open flame intimidates me, but I'm finally getting used to it. I realized that it cooks things way faster (even on low) than flat top or coil burner stoves. I can boil water faster on the stove than I could in the microwave! The oven seems simple enough, but so far we only fully understand what one of the knobs do (the timer). The other looks to us like temperatures in Celsius, but the handbook calls it a selector mode knob. And the other it calls a grill knob, and says to select the temperature with that...but the only thing on the knob is 1/1----1/2----OFF.
I have to wonder if we're so dumbfounded by all this because we're American and haven't ever seen this stuff before, or if British versions really *aren't* intuitive and people just learn it as they grow up. So far, every appliance we have has more hoops to jump through than its American counterpart. I want to bring the magic of large loads of laundry to Britain! "There is an easier way, my friend, it takes half the time, and you can do twice as much!"
Oh well, it's fun and interesting learning some new things and by the time I get back to the states, I will not take fast laundry, easy ovens or spacious fridges for granted again.
