England Made Me Cry, Post Codes and Other Nonsense

Mood: Relieved
Theme Song: “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” - Dead or Alive (the 86 Version!)

What a day, what a day. I woke up with a horrible stomachache, which I can’t help but attribute to the bizarre hotel food - or to the fact that I’ve pretty much been eating the exact same thing for 8 days now (what the hotel calls - and this is their spelling, not mine - “Chilli-Con-Carne”). That meant I didn’t eat breakfast, and not having at least something in the morning makes me grumpy. Plus, when I went downstairs to await my taxi, there was no one at the coffee stand - which means I didn’t get my morning tall semi-skimmed decaf latte. :(

Lunch was an adventure. I went over to the Pheasant - a pub/restaurant across the street from our office. Guess what I ordered? Jacket potato with chili con carne! No joke! I tend to stick with things I recognize and that I know are reasonably healthy and tasty. The adventure came when I asked for “sour cream”. The waiter brought me something called “salad cream” - which is a DISGUSTING (sorry British people) type of salad dressing. After clarification, I was brought the pub’s version of “sour cream and chive dip” - which tasted nothing like sour cream, chives or dip. Even the British person with me was confused.

And now to the latest round of me vs. England, and England is thus far up 2-0. The first loss on my side was due to the fact that I cannot shop online because my credit card has an American billing address. And for my “security”, I must present the card in person. Reminds me a bit of the U.S. and the insistance on putting those stupid safety caps on gallons of milk. This second loss involved me doing something as simple as calling a local store and asking for directions from my office.

Sounds simple, right? (insert buzzer sound) *WRONG*!!! I tried Google Maps, Mapquest and Yahoo! Maps before also trying the store’s website “Locate a Store” function. For some reason, I was not getting anything - none of them really seemed to recognize the address. I called the store’s customer service and explained my predicament. I explained that I was American, new to the UK and so I needed some fairly explicit driving directions.  After getting the woman to understand that the website was not working (despite her insistence that it was), she started giving me directions from my postcode. I interrupted her to explain that I didn’t want directions from the postcode, I wanted directions from my office - and I gave her the street address. So she then gives me directions again - from my post code. This went on and on (a good 5 minutes) until I finally explained to her that I didn’t know what she was talking about and I didn’t know the area. She responded in a very snippy voice - “You don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you’re going - you don’t know much of all, then, do you?” At which point I hung up on her and started crying.

It was at this point that a co-worker took pity on me and explained UK post codes. Unlike in the states where a zip code represents an entire area or neighborhood (i.e. 98012 is Mill Creek, WA), a post code in the UK refers to the actual building or a small block. The first four characters refer to the overall area - i.e. my post code is TN25 4BF, so the TN25 refers to Ashford, Kent. But the final three characters actually pinpoint the location to street, block and sometimes a building, if the building is large enough.  Therefore when the Snippy Lady was giving me directions from my post code, she was giving me directions basically from the office park where my building is. And I had no idea.

It doesn’t help that there are 9000 names for the same thing over here. My company is in something called Eureka Park. Which is also Lower Pemberton. Which happens to be on Trinity Road. But the mailing address says nothing about Trinity Road. Madness!

Now, to explain my song choice of the day, let me just say that I have driven, for the first time, on UK roads. And survived. Granted, I went 1.5 miles from the office to the hotel - but I encountered THREE roundy-roundys (roundabouts) and I made it safely through every one. I stayed on my side of the road and aside from looking for a rearview mirror where there was nothing (on my right), I did okay. It was so weird, though. I naturally wanted to veer right and I had to really pay attention so that I didn’t accidentally drift.

And finally, in other exciting news, my work friends are helping me hire a “Man with a Van” for moving my boxes on Friday to my flat. The whole thing sounds decidedly like a B-level movie on Cinemax and I can’t wait to see the aforementioned man who comes with the van. According to Jenny, he should be a “right burly chap” - but I apparently don’t want one from Folkestone because all the men from there “look like frogs” (quote from Louise).