Adjustments and lessons learned

I recently discovered that I have a back door in my kitchen that opens to an area where another neighbor’s back door opens as well. My kitchen has two windows and a door with a window in it –all facing the same area. It is the top landing on the fire escape – and our trash cans are kept there. I noticed that the neighbor has planted some herbs in pots just outside her door. I plan to introduce myself to the ‘back door neighbor’ when I see her.

This back door is very neighborly during the daytime. But at night, when it is dark – my imagination takes over – and I am filled with thoughts of an unsavory person climbing the stairs and coming to my back door. Because of all the windows in the kitchen, I don’t feel very secure. I remember also, from living in New York, that there are creatures that roam at night – especially around trash cans. So, each night, the back door area becomes a threatening place for me. Last night, I closed the kitchen door and locked it so the rest of the apartment (‘flat’) could not be accessed from the kitchen.

I think I have lived out in the country too long; I have to get used to being in the city again.

Speaking of locks, our flat has the old fashioned kind of locks – the ones with keyholes, (that is, all except for the deadlock on the front door.) So our keys look like the kind you see in old English movies – or the kind they have for jail cells. Every room in our flat has a lock with that kind of key in it. You can lock the door from either side with the same key.

All of these old fashioned touches remind me all the time that I am in London, England.

Someone just dropped a letter through the slot in our front door. There is no bank of mailboxes in the lobby. (I think our building is too old for that.) Instead, the postman comes up through the elevator (the lift) and delivers the mail to each of the two apartments on each floor. The letter was from a neighbor – for the previous tenants. They don’t deliver mail here on Sundays.

The sound of the letter dropping through our mail slot and onto the floor startled me. I am not yet used to having people so close by. For the first couple of nights, when I heard the elevator door open or when someone was in the hallway just outside our flat – I almost jumped out of my chair. I have spent the last 25 years living in the woods – where there is nobody close to my house without my knowing it.

I am sure I will soon adjust to this new people-filled environment. Otherwise, I'll be jumping out of my chair on a regular basis.

We live on the sixth floor up – the top floor – of this building. Yet, here it is called the fifth floor. That is because the ground floor is called just that – “the ground floor.” The first floor up – what we would call the second floor – the Brits call the first floor, and so on.

You can see how easy it is for a misunderstanding to occur in a discussion between Americans and British – even though we are speaking the same language. Identical words don’t have the same meaning in each culture.

Another area where we can make mistakes is on abbreviated dates. The abbreviation, 8/2/54, to Americans means August 2, 1954. In England, it means 8 February, 1954.

A lesson learned: English yellow mustard is VERY HOT. If you spread it on your sandwich as if it were Guldens or French’s, your throat will burn, your eyes will water, and your nose will run – instantly. It is best to apply it sparingly.

Carl has visited the office where he will be spending much of his time working -- at least in these early weeks. They are, in fact, creating a new office for him out of a rather large area that has been vacant for a while. He reports in tomorrow - Monday- for the first time.

Today, Carl once again spent several minutes on the phone with Capital One. He was cut off three times and had to call back each time. He has been assured that the credit card is functioning properly and that there are no restrictions on it. Still, the card is rejected at some of the stores. What an uncomfortable feeling it is to be waiting at the cash register wondering whether or not your credit card will be accepted. We now warn all the sales people - so we can avoid the resulting embarrassment if it is rejected. If and when it is rejected, we just pull out one of the old standby cards and use it instead.

The reason Carl opened the Capital One credit card in the first place is because Capital One does not charge any fees for converting pounds to dollars. All of our existing cards charge the fee. With hindsight, I would say it is probably not a good idea to move to a foreign country planning to use a brand new credit card.

Dinner tonight is the reheated dinner that we never got to eat last night. I roasted a small chicken with carrots and potatoes -- which should have taken an hour or two.
After three hours when the chicken was still not fully cooked, we decided to take it out of the oven and finish cooking it for dinner today. We had sandwiches instead.
It turns out that our 'rule-of-thumb' estimate for converting Fahrenheit to Celsius was off the mark just enough for the oven temperature to be set at 300 instead of 350.

Thank goodness for the internet. I now have a complete listing of oven temperatures in Celsius. It is another lesson learned.