We’ll start our volunteering activities next week so we’re trying to take care of settling in, getting our bearings, and trying to conquer lingering jet lag.

Yesterday we needed to pick up our UK Identification cards – called BRP cards.  This required a trip toward downtown to a post office that seems to specialize in handing out the cards.  I envisioned this to be a bigger, more central post office – a place that handles international postal concerns.  Our new friend, Doug, told us it that it is hard to find and he offered to be our guide for the day.  He is also a volunteer at NTC and his having just arrived last winter makes him the perfect candidate to show us the ropes!

As I mentioned, I envisioned this “special” post office to be a big one.  Boy, was I wrong!  This post office consists of two windows in the back of a small Subway restaurant!  Had we not had a guide we would have walked right past it!  Within minutes of arriving we not only had our ID cards, but we had our sandwiches too!  On that front, I’ll mention that a Subway sandwich is pretty much the same here as at home.  However, I noticed that there are no diet drinks or an ice dispenser on the drink machine.  The British think Americans are kind of weird paying for a drink that is mostly ice!

Speaking of sodas, I see that a can of soda here is 330 milliliters.  A can in the US is 12 ounces.  So Americans get about 341 milliliters when they buy a can of soda.  Obviously, that’s an 11 milliliter advantage to the USA!

From there we headed on into the main city centre, followed by a trip back out to “home” on the tram (light rail).  It is faster than the bus, but the station is just a bit farther from the campus than is the bus stop.

Living without a car is going to require a bit more planning.  For instance, it’s rather depressing to get home and realize you forgot to pick up the bread.  At that point getting the bread will require a 10-15 minute walk each way.  Maybe we’ll just do without until the next trip out!

Also, we keep getting caught without shopping bags.  This isn’t completely new to us as we’ve experienced the same thing on the west coast, but no store supplies bags for things you buy.  Of course, you can buy a plastic bag at the counter, but having to pay for the bags make you want to bring your own.  Two or three times now I’ve bought something and found myself standing there waiting for the sales person to put our purchases in a bag.  Meanwhile, they’ve looked at me wondering why I haven’t bagged the items and moved on!

Everyone seems to use their credit cards for purchases with cash being seldom used.  Most of the time you just place the card over the “touchless” symbol on the machine.  When it lights up, the charge is complete.  I’m glad I upgraded my card to an “international” one.  For an extra $30 a year I pay no foreign transaction fees.  Otherwise, an extra 3% would be added to every purchase.  As it is, we have to pay the exchange rate which isn’t in our favor.  One pound is around $1.20.  I’m just rounding purchases up in my mind so for every £4.00 I think “$5.00.”

I mentioned jet lag earlier.  We are getting closer to the new normal, although if we wake up in the night it can be hard getting back to sleep.  It may be, though, that rather than jet lag our weariness is related to walking to the store, up and down the stairs, and around campus.  I walk a lot, and step-wise I’m not doing any more steps than I usually do.  However, my legs are tired and a bit sore.  I remember feeling the same when we visited London years ago.

Again, I expect my post frequency to slow down as time goes by, but with everything new it is fun to share our adventure.