heading east
The trip officially hit the “one month to go” mile mark on Sunday, and we are heading east. While we are traveling North at the moment (look out Europe! We’ll be rushing through!) We’re heading south after that, witha wiggle back to the west, we’ll be South East bound in a few weeks, and no wiggling around (besides a stop in Singapore) till we hit home.
While we are enjoying the trip and don’t really want it to end, on the other hand we’re looking forward to settling down somewhere for longer than 4 nights in the same place.
As I have the internet at the moment, I’ll share some of my observations about the UK.
- Loos. Public Conveniences. Toilets. They have funny ideas about them here.
- There must be a budding inventor or engineer working in every council. In every single public loo I’ve been in, (well, just about anyway) there has been a different way of locking the door. In the door, out of the door, slide handle, spin over lock, and a hundred little variations besides.
- Sometimes, you have to pay. it is terrible when you really NEED, dash around the corner and find that you need a very specific coin. ARRRGH! We found an alternate option when it would cost 30p (that’s about 65 aussie cents).
- Hand drying: paper towel. And/Or: air dryer. These need to have some OOMPH to them, (hooray Xlerator’s “Feel the Power” and Dyson’s “air blade”) not half heartedly whisper out the almost “trickle” of air.
- Flush properly please, without taking half the world’s fresh water supply with it please.
- A plus for UK toilets is the standards of cleanliness, you can be in the middle of no where and the toilets are still pretty good- even in the cities as well!
- Sinks- push and auto taps should be set to give at least a “Happy Birthday’s” (or ABC song) length of water, not a little dribble before you have to hit it again. and again. And, again again. (Those songs are long enough for you to wash your hands properly, like for working in a restaurant kitchen.)
- Some people complain about having two taps for hot and cold water (or cold and freezing sometimes) but I don’t
mind. - Oh, and make sure there is more than one toilet at a location!
- Road signs- often unclear and or hidden under leaves/branches/other misc. foliage. We’ve done so many “oops-turn-a-rounds” that we’ve got a new round-a-bout code: right round means take the exit-minus-1 and “double back” means go all the way round so we’re facing opposite to the way we came. Better than the US, but Australia still does it better.
Well that’s me for the moment, let me know what you think as always! Have I incredibly offended the Brits/Poms/Scots/Welshies/Irish? (Grin.)
More updates as internet availability happens. International Broadcaster’s conference and the Apple Expo, so that might be interesting enough to be blog worthy.