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Oct. 1st, 2010 07:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vanessaramaWe have now been home for almost 36 hours and the ground has stopped swaying. The trip home was about as good as we could expect - I think I'm actually getting better at this 21 hour plane trip thing. The first shower afterwards is always wonderful! Jet lag has not really hit yet although we are waking up way too early. We picked up Oliver yesterday and he has been punishing us by yowling every time there are no humans directly within his line of sight. He's very purry and cuddly and affectionate though :)
While I wait for my 1500+ photos to download to the computer, I will list some of the things about the UK that struck us as very different to home and which either bemused or delighted us. List made by me with help from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vissy and Rohan:
1. Blackberries (and other weeds) aren't sprayed! In fact we saw people out picking blackberries on a Sunday morning! Here in Australia blackberries are a noxious weed and are regularly sprayed with weedkiller by local councils; you wouldn't dare pick them unless you were very familiar with your council's spraying dates.
2. Sheep have tails. I have mentioned before how weird this seems to us; sheep's tails are docked here to avoid painful death by flystrike. I did observe some British sheep with only partial tails, or no tail at all, so they evidently don't keep them universally, but here they're pretty much universally not there. To my eyes British sheep seem to have an extra leg :)
3. Pubs are actually good to talk in! Most pubs here (in the city, anyway) seem to fancy themselves as pseudo-nightclubs and consequently are full of doof-doof music turned up loud. British pubs are far more pleasant and people even take their kids there.
4. We stayed in eight different places and every single one of them had a different shower arrangement. There were dials, knobs, levers and buttons, but never had a simple pair of hot and cold taps.
5. There seems to be an aversion to using £2 coins. If you got £4 change, it would almost always be all in £1 coins. This is heavy. Also the money is all paper, not plastic like here, so the notes can be really tatty!
6. There are dogs everywhere. Even in castles and historic monuments! Even in pubs! People bring dogs into pubs!
7. People take strollers and prams everywhere. Including up spiral staircases and over very rough ground. I fear for the number of kids we saw who may get brain damage from the banging of their strollers over massive cobblestones!
8. England is amazingly set up for walking, with 'Public Footpath' signposts everywhere, even going across private property. I can't imagine how most property owners here would react to people walking across their private land. Also, most country towns are so far away from each other (and most properties out of town are far enough out of town) that you wouldn't walk it.
9. Roads. Oh, the roads. See, with the exception of Sydney and Hobart, Australian towns and cities were (mostly) planned during the era of motorised transport. Roads here tend to be wide and to go in relatively direct lines from A to B. Cities and towns tend to be grids. This is not the case in the UK where roads have occurred more organically. Roads are wee and winding and may loop and double back, and they are all connected by a massive network of roundabouts. Sometimes double roundabouts. There are also about a hundred times more cars on the road then here. Peak hour in a country town like Warwick is as bad as peak hour in the Melbourne CBD.
10. SO MANY PEOPLE. How do you fit so many people into such a tiny country?
11. SO MUCH VARIETY IN PRODUCTS. Even in the Boots near our hotel in London - which is a pretty small Boots - there were at least 15 different varieties of bottled water and a dozen different flavours of chips.
12. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. People are always banging on about how athletic and outdoorsy Australians are. I tell you, British people, and elderly British people, put us to shame. To SHAME! They're always outside. They walk everywhere. THey're tough as boots. Everywhere we went there were elderly people out for a stroll over insanely rocky and treacherous terrain. People with walking sticks! People with wheely-walkers! Clambering over rocks and up steep hills with nary a murmur! I salute them.
While I wait for my 1500+ photos to download to the computer, I will list some of the things about the UK that struck us as very different to home and which either bemused or delighted us. List made by me with help from
vissy and Rohan:1. Blackberries (and other weeds) aren't sprayed! In fact we saw people out picking blackberries on a Sunday morning! Here in Australia blackberries are a noxious weed and are regularly sprayed with weedkiller by local councils; you wouldn't dare pick them unless you were very familiar with your council's spraying dates.
2. Sheep have tails. I have mentioned before how weird this seems to us; sheep's tails are docked here to avoid painful death by flystrike. I did observe some British sheep with only partial tails, or no tail at all, so they evidently don't keep them universally, but here they're pretty much universally not there. To my eyes British sheep seem to have an extra leg :)
3. Pubs are actually good to talk in! Most pubs here (in the city, anyway) seem to fancy themselves as pseudo-nightclubs and consequently are full of doof-doof music turned up loud. British pubs are far more pleasant and people even take their kids there.
4. We stayed in eight different places and every single one of them had a different shower arrangement. There were dials, knobs, levers and buttons, but never had a simple pair of hot and cold taps.
5. There seems to be an aversion to using £2 coins. If you got £4 change, it would almost always be all in £1 coins. This is heavy. Also the money is all paper, not plastic like here, so the notes can be really tatty!
6. There are dogs everywhere. Even in castles and historic monuments! Even in pubs! People bring dogs into pubs!
7. People take strollers and prams everywhere. Including up spiral staircases and over very rough ground. I fear for the number of kids we saw who may get brain damage from the banging of their strollers over massive cobblestones!
8. England is amazingly set up for walking, with 'Public Footpath' signposts everywhere, even going across private property. I can't imagine how most property owners here would react to people walking across their private land. Also, most country towns are so far away from each other (and most properties out of town are far enough out of town) that you wouldn't walk it.
9. Roads. Oh, the roads. See, with the exception of Sydney and Hobart, Australian towns and cities were (mostly) planned during the era of motorised transport. Roads here tend to be wide and to go in relatively direct lines from A to B. Cities and towns tend to be grids. This is not the case in the UK where roads have occurred more organically. Roads are wee and winding and may loop and double back, and they are all connected by a massive network of roundabouts. Sometimes double roundabouts. There are also about a hundred times more cars on the road then here. Peak hour in a country town like Warwick is as bad as peak hour in the Melbourne CBD.
10. SO MANY PEOPLE. How do you fit so many people into such a tiny country?
11. SO MUCH VARIETY IN PRODUCTS. Even in the Boots near our hotel in London - which is a pretty small Boots - there were at least 15 different varieties of bottled water and a dozen different flavours of chips.
12. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. People are always banging on about how athletic and outdoorsy Australians are. I tell you, British people, and elderly British people, put us to shame. To SHAME! They're always outside. They walk everywhere. THey're tough as boots. Everywhere we went there were elderly people out for a stroll over insanely rocky and treacherous terrain. People with walking sticks! People with wheely-walkers! Clambering over rocks and up steep hills with nary a murmur! I salute them.
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Date: 2010-10-01 01:31 am (UTC)