Riddle me this science people - platelet donation

I was dinking around online, the UK version of the bloodmobile is in my corner of Essex next week. In the US I was a regular blood donor. In Germany I donated three times through the on-site company bloodmobile visit, but found the officious brute of a bloodmobile doctor to be obnoxious on the third visit and thereby stopped. (She chewed me out that I did not have fluent German and she did not have time to talk slow German and on and on.) As it is an American company with many nationalities who do not speak German, I pointed out that they shouldn't put the posters up in English then. (The rest of the staff was very nice as they find her pompous as well, but I really didn't have the energy for such events in Germany after a while.)

So onward...I was looking online at the UK blood donation rules, having previously been a UK blood donor when I last lived here. I was specifically interested in donating platelets. I had looked into this one of my home visits to Philly after the above Germany debacle, but having lived in the UK during the Mad Cow years, I was ineligible to even be a blood donor anymore. I was interviewed by the platelet people by phone and then invited in but my travel history then disqualified me.

I was looking at the UK platelet donation site, apparently I'm already disqualified from the get go, due to being female. Really now. Off I went to google to figure this one out. I stumbled across platelet donation in Singapore which seems to shed some light on this mystery to me, although they only 'prefer' males as oppose to 'require' males like the UK. Funny the US doesn't set gender or size requirements for platelets, (although they do set male/female height/weight requirements for double red cell donation.)

I find it funny--for relatively similar cultures (OK, perhaps theoretically different in their means of providing healthcare) that one would allow females and one not. If we were comparing a country with a more conservative viewpoint of women (say, Sudan) and the UK or the US I wouldn't be so surprised. But this difference between the UK and the US surprises me.

Enlighten me please, science minded people.

keeping it moving

Now that I've been in the new flat for almost three months, I'm starting to get some ideas of how I want it to look. I've been living with the very minimal included furnishings (bed and sofa), and slowly putting together the rest during the evenings and weekends (a new mirror, a shoe rack etc.) while I try to figure out logically how the space should function based on how I'm using it each day.

One of the 'missing' things has been bookshelves. I couldn't bring myself to battle the crowds at the nearest Ikea (45 min away), and nothing at nearby Homebase really appealed. I've been keeping an eye on ebay, but a critical limitation is that 1. it needs to be a few shelves tall to maximize space here in the tiny flat, but it would need to then fit into my car so it cannot be so tall--a catch 22.

Until I happened to see some Habitat stackable cube shelves, gently used, on ebay. I managed to get lucky and win it so off I went to disassemble the shelves, fit everything into the car, bring it back, carry it up four flights of stairs and New friend Ian and I spent the afternoon resassembling it. I'm pleased as they are only very slightly used and as they were habitat they were hella expensive new and seem to be of good quality. In addition, the stackable function gives me a lot of flexibility to completely change up my tiny living room on a whim. :-)

Finally, my books which I started to pack up in December in Germany, which stayed boxed since my arrival here in February are getting to come out and play. I've missed them terribly, but didn't want to create a further mess of clutter here with uncontrollable books out and about, so thus they were kept boxed up. The camera cord is currently on vacation, but when it returns I'll get a photo up...

My new nickname

Growing up, 'Heather' doesn't really lend itself well to nicknames as to shorten it ends on a soft 'th' sound; it just doesn't work. I do, however, love a good nickname. As I've worked with the same people for years, most of them somehow have picked one up along the way, cute short versions of their name, English names for Germans, names which started from a funny incident on a night out, and on and on. I don't directly have one, although there may be a few I don't know about. ;-)

So I found it so terribly endearing then, that my parking spot owner found it fit to bestow one upon me. I sent her an email to make sure that she knew when I was coming to pick up the car (as I don't move it much, I have the spot behind the gate blocked by other cars). Her response:

no problem poppet. See you later xxx

Strange--I don't see in the definition 'cranky person who wears too black too much and tends to be too focused and serious' next to this one in the dictionary... :-)

Influencing consumer behavior and marketing to me

One area in the UK which reminds me more of the US than Germany is the ability and willingness of vendors to modify prices to change consumer behavior to meet their business goals.


Specific examples in the past week:

1. Asda - As mentioned, I'm a big fan of online grocery shopping to avoid the queue and hassle of carrying everything down the street and up four flights of stairs. As I don't buy fresh things online but rather heavy/bulky things (cat litter, paper towels, fizzy water, wine, etc), I have a good deal of flexibity in my ordering and am gearing up to do a big order once per month.

I was looking online and starting to put together my order last week, for this week. Asda (for whatever business reason they had--numbers to make, knowledge of consumer spending during school holidays, whatever), dropped the delivery change down to 2.50 GBP per order for a few days in the last week of August.

As it is, I'm already on the low end of the online delivery food chain. Prices from the big supermarkets generally go anywhere between 3.50 and 6.50. Tuesday/Wednesday from Asda tends to be the rock bottom 3.50 rate. Drop me down a pound further and I'm influenced to order a week earlier. I never felt that Germany was able to vary in their prices so much, or to be overly responsive to the market. Strawberries are cheap in July as they're in season, my favorite fizzy water would be sold 2 crates for 6.66 once per quarter (yeah, that one was easy to remember), but everything always seemed very planned in relation to prices or sales, or maybe that was just my small area with limited competition or choices...

2. Papa John's pizza - no better way to celebrate the end of vegan month than a discount pizza. I ordered online from them once, and now I get an SMS once a week with a special offer which isn't available online. It's specifically from my local outlet, so I guess they can be clever and anticipate what they want to move (if anything) during a particular week. Tonight it was 'any pizza 9.99 tonight or Wednesday'. In Germany I always went with the local pizza places but none of them 1. had online ordering or 2. did any sort of midweek special. The price was the price which was the price, be it Tuesday afternoon or Friday night. Although carryout did get you a 10% discount. Here these offers tend to come during slow times. Usually they would be Mon, Tues or Wed pizza at a special price, but with yesterday's bank holiday their offer came out today for today and tomorrow.

Speaking of UK pizza delivery--another thing I'm a big fan about here is ordering online. I hate to call and be on hold or not understand the UK accent. Even better, let me order and pay online--then, send me an email that the order is received and then an SMS when the delivery guy is on his way out the door. I'm a big fan of technology when used well.

into a 3 day weekend

i like how the UK seems to put all bank holidays on a monday. i'm also pleased with this one as it seems like a great time to schedule a bank holiday--the last week of August--odds are good for sunny weather. much nicer, than say, the November 1 one in Germany where it was usually raining that day in my corner of the world. ;-)

and even better--the stores are open here on a bank holiday, although on limited hours. therefore none of that crazyness of last minute shopping due to the stores being closed on sunday/monday--so feeling stress-free tonight. :-)

6 months

August 15th marked 6 months in the UK for me. I've been busy with other things, as well as that time is flying, so I haven't been overly introspective on this point.


However--I was out watering the roof terrace garden, specifically the pepper row that week:

Tucked behind them, between the peppers and the glass wall was a greeting card.

The front says 'Congratulations', inside is a handwritten message to someone (not me) about a training contract.

I'm not an overly religious person (although I have no issue with those who are), but I do retain some spiritual belief in the connectedness of the universe. I took it as my mother sending me a card from heaven congratulating me on 6 months here, and that things are going well.

Uninformed, analytical, agnostic Semi-significant other who misses some of the background details on this topic, looking at this from face values says: 'this card isn't for you.'

Heather: 'I'm four floors up off the street and getting a card down from Heaven isn't so easy in general, let alone four floors up onto a private roof terrace. It was deposited in my peppers on an anniversary, therefore it was most certainly for me, so that I knew she was thinking of me. And such good taste, a Marks and Spencer card no less, very impressive of her.'

I believe that the universe works in mysterious and impressive ways sometimes... ;-)

From the Saturday market and the rooftop garden

I went at 16.20 so the prices were starting to drop for the 17.00 shutdown. :-)

-In the photo, starting at 12 o'clock, 3 packages of strawberries from Kent, all 3 packages together were 2 GBP

-1 o'clock - 5 ears of corn for 2 GBP

-4 o'clock - 6 peaches for 2 GBP

-center - 3 bananas for 60 pence

-6 o'clock - 3 packages of berries for 2.50 GBP

-8 o'clock - young purple broccoli shoots and leaves, the giant bag for 1 GBP

So everything in the photo came to 10.10 GBP (16.51 USD/11.52 EUR). Food tends to be more expensive here in the UK, so I was pretty pleased at the above. To preserve the berries I am drying them as I would only be able to go through one package of the raspberries and one package of the strawberries before they would start to go off.

What aren't I buying there?

- Lettuce - I'm still a big convert of lettuce in a bag with the roots in dirt from asda as that extends its shelf life for me. Next week my roof terrace lettuce should be ready.

- Tomatos - those are coming from the roof terrace as well.

-Peppers - I'm not a big fan of eating them although I do enjoy growing them. Unfortunately, the roof terrace favors pepper growing. This proficient one has produced 3 so far with 18 more still growing, nevermind what her 3 sister are doing in their own right (the scotch bonnet, bell pepper and sweet pepper plants).

Other people get overwhelmed by zucchinni, I'm stuck with peppers. I never imagined this would be the case in the UK...

I've now taken to inviting people over so that I can make pepper based dishes. ;-) Tonight's guest is being treated to Mexican with a variety of chopped up pepper based salsas and fresh pepper toppings for the tacos.

Some German English fun

Yo H, where've you been?
Still here, busy with work and some holiday planning. In addition, I have a German visiting. She came to me through http://www.hospitalityclub.org/, similar to http://www.couchsurfing.org/ if you know that one.

She is a student who has never been to the UK before or to any native English speaking country. She's spending her time and limited student funds trying to see as much of the country as possible and rachet up her English, which until now has been only 'school English'.

Not wanting to deter someone from their dream, I've only been speaking English to her-- although I will give her the English word when she only knows the German term. She wanted to 'mitfahren' to save on expensive British train fares but was having difficulty to find a source in English without knowing the term 'rideshare'.

Of course she makes the classic German mistakes: 'I drive with bus'.

But I love the other mistakes or how someone comes up with a way to say something in English, which while correct is not how a native would usually say it, because it gives you better insight into their language and seeing things in differently in English. This morning as I'm trundling out to work she tells me:

Your cat, she was broken in this night.

(Pause, Heather thinking--looks at cat who is noisily gulping down breakfast--she is physically fine having ran into the kitchen upon hearing me...)

(thinking.....The cat does meow a lot, I did warn the girl that the cat can be locked in the hall so she is not so disruptive....or maybe the cat was walking on her while she was trying to sleep, meaning she's broken or not well trained, although I did warn her that she wakes up at 2 AM full of energy....the girl is not so much a cat person, she's always had dogs....I haven't yet had any coffee so I'm not awake enough to figure this one out....she's broken...kaputt sein...defekt...lots of words ending in brochen, what can she mean?)

On the floor...where you are standing...?

Oh! She threw up, she was sick = she is broken.

Sheesh, I must be losing my touch, I don't think I would have figured that one out even with coffee.

The face of new Europe

While shopping on High Street on Sunday, I saw these two. (Yes! in my corner of Essex, all the shops are open on Sunday--but that's a different post.)

Unfortunately I missed to get the fellow's face in the photo--his is painted with the Lithuanian flag, while hers has the Polish one.

I've been to the store they advertise, it's close to my flat. Specifically--this store has all sorts of Eastern European goods--frozen pierogis and jars of mushrooms from Poland, Russian juices, frozen Lithuanian cepelinai, that sort of thing. There's little in the store which isn't Eastern European--unless it's something from elsewhere in Europe which one can buy in Eastern Europe--i.e. German Milka bars.

I find it interesting that they advertise the store as 'European' rather than 'Eastern European'--or maybe that's how they see themselves--as opposed to British.

They have little competition in my corner of Essex, beyond Tesco's token attempt to sell to the Eastern Europeans here by importing their cheeses and jars of pickles.

Vegan day 9 - Fresh Saturday

Were you wondering what happened with the food from the Saturday market?

Everything looked so great and fresh, so I went extremely basic on the cooking--minimal spices and low, short cooking.

Here is a third of the carrot bunch. The were sliced in half and given a short fry in olive oil.

Here are potatoes, fresh from the roof terrace garden:

The broad beans were in the '1 pound' markdown area, so I knew they needed to be used Saturday or Sunday. They had gone for about three minutes into boiling water and then were rinsed in cold water. Right after that they were shelled. Here new friend Ian is demonstrating the appropriate shelling technique.

The cooked potatoes and beans were then combined together. I had some ideas from http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/recipes/, I like their photos, as well as that their recipes are not too complex. They were suggesting mint as the appropriate spice, but I wanted to leave out anything heavy as I wanted to truly taste the potatos.

Super Saturday - from the market

August is a great time to buy local produce here in the UK. Most of the 'local' produce here is coming from Essex or Kent. It's especially good if you go at the end of the market day on Saturday as the prices start to drop. ;-)

My photo isn't so great, but starting at the bottom and moving clockwise:

1 bunch of carrots
2. cauliflower - the carrots and the cauliflower were a deal together, for 1 GBP
3. 3 kilos of onions - 1 GBP
4. bunch of 4 bananas (the only non-local item) .90 p
5. in the back - tomatos on the vine and small tomatos - the gigantic bag weighing a few kilos for 2 GBP
6. broad beans - 1 GBP for the lot of them
7. strawberries - 2 containers for 2.50 GBP
8. in front - rosemary/olive oil bread - 2.50 GBP

I'm now set for the next few days with veg, excluding lettuce. :-)

Vegan dinner - day 7

Yeah, back to Mexican. :-)

Tonight: two bean burritos I assembled at home, easy peasy. A can of beans plus two flour tortillas. I was feeling a little edgy so I applied liberally jalapeno peppers to the interior. ;-)

To the right, I whipped up a little tomato mix to liven them up. I had roma tomatos from the weekly market. I added chopped garlic (from the roof garden) and as well as a pepper from up here. I finally have my first rooftop tomato which is about ready to be picked, looking forward to that one tomorrow...

Vegan dinner - day 6

It was warm and humid here today through this evening, now it's cool and rainy.

Today's dinner was pasta, two zuchinnis (we're in full zuchinni season here, they're dirt cheap!) in Dolmio's pasta sauce and a bit of bread. These pasta sauces have been on sale at asda, two 500 gram jars for 3 GBP. I'm a big fan, because there is nothing in these sauces which wouldn't be there if I made them from scratch.

You may notice this is a little carb heavy for me. I've noticed when I go vegan, to drop the cheese out of meals really knocks out a lot of the fat/calories. The rest of my work days usually look like this:

Breakfast: 08.00 - coffee in the office

09.30ish - cereal in the office. (I keep Bran Flakes in my desk drawer)

Lunch: 11.30ish - lunch in the office. Lunch is usually a leftover dinner. So when I made the above tonight, I made enough to have a second, smaller portion which will be tomorrow's lunch, usually with a side of salad, but sans bread.

Dinner: 17.00ish - tonight's dinner was the above.

19.00 - tonight a small bowl of cereal (again, focusing on the carbs a bit more than usual to keep the energy up--not normal when i'm my normal vegetarian self).

My morning commute

I walk about five minutes from the center of town to enter the park.

Most people are coming into town to work or catch the train to London while I'm heading out of town.

After about 15 minutes through the park, I continue on pedestrian paths.

The pedestrian paths finally end in a cute little neighborhood.

The final ten minutes are industrial areas similar to what you'd see on the intro to the Sopranos, so we'll skip those photos. :-)

A little over two miles each way, twice a day, usually four days a week = 16 miles of walking/week for the purpose of 'commuting to/from work'.

On each trip I burn approximately 145 calories for my walking speed/weight.

vegan eating - day 2 Mexican Sunday

It's difficult to find good Mexican food in Europe. Thankfully, finding the ingredients in the UK is a little easier and less expensive than it was in Germany.


Breakfast was coffee.

Here is the late lunch. Starting around the table, here we go...

11 o'clock is Old El Paso refried beans.

12 o'clock is a veg chili mix from Asda. The suggestion is to add mince to it, but it perks up nicely with dried soya chunks.

1 o'clock is some of those mushrooms from the freezer with Old El Paso Mild Fajita Sauce. I orginally bought this sauce because it was a markdown due to a torn label and I was pleasantly surprised with this one. It has a mild smokey flavor.

3 o'clock is partially hidden behind a glass, it's the lettuce, tomato and pepper salad from yesterday.

4 o'clock is fresh tomatoes, a smattering of garlic, and more garden fresh pepper - a light little flavor

6 o'clock is mild English cheddar for New Friend Ian.

7 o'clock is Heather's sauce. Chopped tomatoes, garlic, and Dave's Gourmet Insanity Sauce which I bought at Asda in the UK.

9 o'clock is some fajita wraps.

The setting is outdoors on my patio table, slightly in the shade because it was hot as heck.

Later in the day was leftover Chinese from yesterday.

Aug 1 - vegan eating day 1

Saturday started off with a long 'to do' list of things to do in town and tasks at home. As I've been living in this flat for almost two months, I'm starting to get more ideas about how I want to use the space in some areas.

Breakfast - coffee at home.

Lunch - since we were out and about in town, we went to Nosh+Coffee. The one in the center of my corner of Essex is relatively new...

On the plus side:

-they are less expensive than their coffee counterparts Costa or Starbucks

-their food selection is more expansive--salads, sandwiches, containers of fresh fruit for 1.50 GBP

-they have a vegan option - salad with beans, hummus, and falafel for 3.50 GBP (which I had), as well as plenty of decent veg options like a feta cheese salad or egg and mayo sandwich.

On the negative side:

-I suspect the people management is lacking at this particular one, or maybe they're all this this, it's the only one I've been to. When you go to the main Costa in my corner of Essex, it's staffed by friendly Eastern Europeans or Spaniards, the Costa above the bookstore is staffed by friendly students, the Coffee+Nosh people are always sour faced, or complaining to one another about their work hours. But anyway...the salad is quite nice...

Dinner: We start with fresh peppers from the garden...

I'm not a fan of eating peppers, but I enjoy growing them for my guests...

I did a stir-fry--it's broccoli from the Saturday market, zuchinni from my garden and tofu, which later had Sharwood's Kung Po sauce added:

The final results....

At 12 o'clock on the table is a fresh salad with lettuce, tomatos, and olive oil.

1 PM is a homemade dipping sauce: tamari sauce, olive oil, water, dried chilli pepers.

3 PM is homemade vegan spring rolls that oversprung

The bottom are our two plates in action

center of the table is the fresh peppers chopped up.

The fancy table setting is a giant cardboard moving box which gets a new round of paper to cover it weekly. I still haven't decided upon a dining room table or coffee table yet, so I'm making due with this one until I figure out how I want the layout of the flat to be.

25 things

I finally managed to put this together when I had no home internet, one of those '25 fact about me thingys'. It was a facebook thing; but I'm not so fond of facebook, it requires way too much daily commitment so it never ended up there...

1. I play sports like a left-hander, always have. In particular, I intrinsically do it in sports where a fast reaction is required and I don't have time to think.

2. I'm a very visual person. Don't tell me something, show it to me. Even better, just hand me the problem, I'll figure it out on my own.

3. My earliest sport activities as a child were taught by a left hander. I think that's where I picked up some of that influence.

4. When I'm thinking or singing, thoughts or songs come out in a particular language (English, Spanish, Polish, or German) based on my mood.

5. Spanish thoughts or songs come out when I'm content or pleased. German comes out when I'm angry or annoyed. Polish comes out when I need an intellectual challenge, something to chew on, probably due to the myriad of endings and forms to consider.

6. Living in Germany, I found myself drawn to the heavier and darker music I found there like Die Toten Hosen, Rammstein and Kool Savas, rather than chirpy pop like Die Ärzte or Fettes Brot.

7. I learned how to drive manual transmission autos as a necessity while living in Europe as my desire for a small car trumped the challenge of learning a new mechanical skill. I'll never go back to an automatic transmission, even once/if I return to the US.

8. It took me about a month of smacking my right hand against the car door in the UK to figure out that I need to shift with my left hand here. I'm amused when people in the UK are surprised that I drive a manual transmission auto.

9. I've now lived more than one-fifth of my life in Europe. It's not that I don't like the US, but this is the right place for me to be at this time. In the work environment people treat me very well here and that's nothing to dismiss lightly.

10. I plan to go back to school in the fall; I'm intellectually bored. I've been accepted to the London School of Economics into a Master's program, not sure if that will be the final landing spot though.

11. I've been a vegetarian since 2000, but the topic is not something I'm militant about--I won't bring it up in conversation, and I could care less that you eat meat. Occasionally I go vegan when I'm not feeling up to par. If you wish to joke about it, I have no problems and in fact I'll shovel it back at you. I feel better not eating meat--it's a personal choice.

12. I make up for my healthy eating by drinking too much coffee and alcohol. My ultimate weakness is french fries (chips)!

13. If I lived somewhere with pure fishing waters such as Iceland or the Faroes or northern Norway I'd probably start eating fish again.

14. I am an extremely private person and purposely put a limited amount of personal data about myself on the internet, along with no recognizable photos. I've been known to invoke EU Directive 95/46/EC in the office, on principle.

15. If you know me personally, the previous statements won't surprise you.

16. I appreciate people who tell me where to put it, how high to put it, and how I should have put it there last week.

17. I don't suffer fools lightly, never have.

18. I believe in the power of self. If you want something bad enough, you can make it happen. I wanted to work in Europe since forever. Was it easy? No. Could I do it? Of course, it's only a matter of figuring out how to make it happen and having the patience and enough attitude to see it through.

19. Is it easy to work in Europe as an American? Hell no. You must be prepared for your dream to go through the massive spin cycle (multiple times) and see if it survives. You must be prepared to look like an idiot at least once (and probably closer to three) times a day. You must be prepared to endure some very dark and cold days. Would I trade it for anything else? No way.

20. I grew up poor and statistically probably shouldn't have ended up where I did. Was it easy to be the first person in my family to graduate from university? Of course not.

21. In some ways that makes me a little tougher on people. I managed to do it, so should you.

22. I chose to study Spanish when the choices where Spanish, French or Latin because it gave me the best career possibilities from where I was. It has served me very well.

23. I believe that growing up poor is actually an advantage in life. You're not expected to amount to much, so the world is yours for the taking, no expectations. If you can get your act together and have a vision, you become smarter, faster, and stronger. You don't fail, because failure is not an option. You have no safely net, so you excel automatically, as an ingrained habit.

24. This background causes me to root for the underdog. Intelligence coupled with motivation is unstoppable. These are the people whom I seek to work with me.

25. I have a job I like where I'm paid very well to do what I do. The people who report into me are superb and my boss is great; I cannot complain. I believe that you create your own reality and I've created mine.

Recycling in the UK

One thing I really liked about life in Germany was the prevalence of environmentally friendly options which were readily incorporated into daily German life. I had very little garbage there because much of it was placed in the various paper and yard waste containers and yellow sack. So at the end of the day I had less than a small shopping bag of 'true' garbage per month. Glass would be deposited in the pods less than a block from my flat.

Here in the UK I've already noticed more packaging and more plastic. I've researched from the local council's site the recycling options and overall, I find the system to be unconnected at best, disjointed at worst.

To start, I live in a flat building. Recycling is not available to my flat building the way it is to local houses. Boooo Essex! So we have two large dumpsters for 12 flats in the basement of the building which are absolutely full every two weeks. In Germany we had four garbage bins (smaller than those giant wheelie ones in the US or UK) which were emptied twice per month and never packed.

So if I want to recycle, how can I do it?
Here are the giant recycle pods down the street behind 'my' bar, located in a pay parking lot. On the plus side, ther are no quiet hours on them like in Germany so I can bring my glass at any hour it appears.

On the negative side, I can only bring the following four items to these four pods:

1. brown glass

2. green glass

3. clear glass

4. 'food and drink cans' - this category is only for tin or aluminum, not plastic.

So where does my plastic go?

5. I need to haul that with me to the big supermarkets such as Asda or Tesco, they have giant pods too. Or I need to drop it with a friend who has a bin which will accept those.

Where does my paper go?

6. Paper can go to the Tesco box.

What about cardboard?

7. Cardboard is harder to find a home for. There is a box for it in the hidden long term parking lot.

8. The same parking lot has a bin for shoe donations as well.

So why not take everything to Asda or Tesco in the car?

A. I try to avoid the supermarkets in person and don't go so often. Plus--I'm not in the car every day, I'm trying to go to and from the office on foot.

B. Tesco and Asda have a variety of bins depending on which one you go to. This one takes aresol cans, that one doesn't. This one takes plastic and squashes it in an instant machine, that one has pods which are always full and on and on...

Overall--not so impressed yet on this point for my corner of Essex.

Let the games begin...

One thing I was afraid about in moving from Germany to the UK was a rapid (and detrimental) change in my eating style. I ate well in Germany mainly because of a lack of processed and readily available vegetarian foods. It took me a long time to kick the processed, prepared and packaged foods from my daily intake.

Sure I made my periodic sojourns to Holland (where prepared vegetarian food is plentiful) or Belgium (land of the breaded cheese) and then rationed for a few weeks, but for the most part I prepared meals from scratch because I couldn't find good vegetarian options in the German supermarket, beyond frozen french fries and frozen pizza. Yeah sure, there's plenty of bio salad material there, but I try to vary my diet and only have salad as one main meal per day; the other should be something different like pasta and a cooked veg or two. Veg Schnitzel just turned me off, and for the most part I found German convenience veg food to be terribly salty.

Moving forward...mid-August I will have been here six months. I find the UK supermarket options to be closer to the American ones, and I feel myself becoming lazy. The vast availability of Quorn is slowly becoming my undoing as I've attempted to shed all vestiges of my life in Germany...

Periodically I go from vegetarian to vegan when I'm feeling a little sluggish and it's easy enough. To really kick it up and make it a real challenge, I decided for the month of August:
1. to go vegan
2. to give up alcohol

I periodically do both and sometimes inadvertently overlap at various meals, but this time I will purposely overlap for the entire month.

Why?
Why not?

1. I need a bit of a challenge. Just going vegan doesn't phase me, but it will be new to do it in the UK. Giving up alcohol is my January thing; I've never tried it in the summertime.

2. August is a great time to go vegan, the best local produce is in. Many people go on a new diet as of Jan 1, but January is an awful time to go vegetarian or vegan, the options where I've always lived are potatos, onions and cabbage.

3. I'm feeling partially healthy from the 4 miles a day of walking I get in on days when I walk to/from the office. I'm already in this mindset.

4. A side comment someone made to me over the weekend, who then looked up to make sure that I heard it. Noted.

5. I have some friction below the surface trying to figure out how to emerge. Somehow it should be positive change, but I can't yet figure out what it's trying to be.
(If you ever watch House, you're familiar with the tactic when he medically pushes someone to recreate the symtoms of the mystery illness by maxing them out under the same scenario, to try to cause more clues. It's a little of the same here; my ruffling up the status quo I can try to unearth what I'm currently not able to figure out.)

6. It will be great blog fodder, and it's all about you. ;-)

I'll try to keep up the posting on the sorts of things I'm eating here in the UK. Because it's me, they're guaranteed to be frugal. ;-)

Anything specific you'd like to know during this fun-filled month of healthly living (food photos, ingredients, cost, etc)? Leave a comment and I'll be sure to address it.

The cat in action

*don't worry, this won't become a cat blog!
however I took the cat out on a leash on the roof terrace tonight...since we're four floors up and she's only been an inside cat, we're working only on the halter leash at this at this point.

I'm not sure which part of this video is most fascinating:
-where she bops her head against the glass wall (and really, they're not clean enough to justify that one away!)
-or where she steps on her own leash
-or where she blatantly stares through the fence at the neighbors
Slocombe at her finest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnnyPNsPLG0

In front of Tesco

Can't you imagine a bunch of UK marketing folks...
What is American?
-Cheeseburgers?
-No brownies!
-No chips!
-What about soda??

Heck, let's just do it all...

Online grocery shopping in the UK

If you read even 10% of my posts you probably know that I despise shopping. It's not just brick and mortar shopping, I don't want to spend hours online shopping either. Not sure if it's the cheapness factor, or moreso the desire to limit the amount of clutter entering this tiny flat.

The past few times I've been schlepping cans of refried beans and bottles of fizzy water up the steps, I've been heavily considering alternatives. I had dropped fizzy water from the Heather rotation, as well as beer (glass bottles too heavy for four flights of stairs and I'm not so fond of cans as they don't go cold enough), plus having to park down the street after 6 PM as I don't have parking yadda, yadda...

Perhaps my brain was being slow (and thinking only in German mode where online grocery shopping is not yet available--correct me on that?) but it took me about six weeks to give this a spin. I think I'm a convert based on this first experience.

I was guessing I needed to go with Asda, Tesco or Sainsbury online. Asda is my mainstay, so I decided to start with that one. Sure there's deliver to my postal code (I'm in the heavily populated area, so I'm not surprised there.) Now it becomes interesting...supply and demand...different delivery times have different prices.

As we all know--Heather in Europe may have well have grown up in a depression because I went for one of the cheapest slots. Most interesting to me--for my postcode, shopping on a Tuesday evening, I could book until 10 PM for a Wednesday delivery which was the cheapest. I love economics. Wednesday and Thursday are the same for me this week--make Wednesday 1 GBP cheaper and you can influence my behavior.

More interesting--certain slots have a little truck icon:
'Reduce carbon emissions. A van might be in your area.'
However, those prices are the same as the ones immediately before and after. I expect You, Asda, to be smarter and manipulate my behavior using your technology and data. If you'd knock it down another 50 p or 1 pound, I'd sign up. If you're already coming to my building for another order it's a sunk cost for you...

So off I go online to shop. I know the Asda prices of the items I buy regularly and they were the same online. I know I need a refill on items like cans of catfood. In addition, I'm in one of my Mexican moods so every dinner for myself alone for the past 10 days has been Mexican. Load up the fajitas and refried beans!

So I go through the online browsing and clicking and paying. I love techonology! Tonight, my delivery slot is 6 to 8 PM. Tick tock. At 7.50 the driver calls--where are you on your street? At the end, where it meets this street. OK, be there shortly. Ten minutes later, another call...I'm in front of (Heather's local pub), but I cannot find you? Hold on, I'll pop out.

So seeing from whence I came, he now found me and is able to schlep up my Entire Order in one go, up four flights of stairs. Keep in mind, I was going all out with the heavy things thinking this would be a once a month or once every three weeks adventure. Therefore, my very heavy order included:
-4 bottles of 2 liter fizzy water
-7 bottles of wine. I was very excited to find some non-alcoholic wine options to try as these are not available in my local store
-12 cans of cat food
10 cans of refried beans
And such a sweetheart, at the door he says, 'well that was a workout, but at least I now know where you are for next time.'

I can only imagine what he thinks--no veg or fresh things (I still want to pick those things out myself from the farmers' market), a plethora of white wine and every el paso Mexican item made in the UK because there was a good sale on.

Final verdict: I'm a big fan. OK--so I had said 'no substitues' on any out of stock items and they were out of my on-sale organic eggs. However, I like fizzy water and I've missed it over the past few weeks. 3.50 GBP (4.05 EUR/5.76 USD) is a very small price for me to pay to avoid 5 miles of driving/exhorbitant petrol cost and the hassle of wandering around the store and waiting in line and packing it up and putting it in the car, parking up, and making multiple trips up and down the four flights of stairs.

I'll definitely do it again, and probably with Asda. Tesco gets on my nerves because their computer system is not up to date so I cannot register my address online for their loyalty card (the address has been here for almost three years so I expect some better technology) and Sainsbury charges more for delivery in general, so those 3,50 slots are few and fair between for my postal code, whereas they're pretty easy to get with Asda.

So here it is Wednesday night and I'm already looking forward to a weekend which won't involve going to a supermarket. Things couldn't get much better on a Wednesday night...

Frugal clothes drying - the roof terrace clothesline

One of the things which caused me to fall in love with this flat is the outside roof terrace space, although primarily I was thinking of the gardening and bbq prospects...

Here in Europe I've lived in various temporary accomodation over the past six plus years, or visited the places of colleagues. As most have been flats and not houses and most have been older places, seeing a clothes dryer has been a rare sight. My first UK company provided place had a combination washer/dryer, but it didn't dry so well...

I had one place in Germany with a dryer-it was in the shared cellar and I was on the top floor so washing clothes and then trekking down to put them into the dryer and then remembering to get them before they sat too long and wrinkled was a hassle. Although I couldn't complain--my two colleagues in company provided housing had shared dryers; one had allocated days/times in which it could be used, the other shared with four other washing machines so one had to move their clothes quickly from this one dryer lest someone either complain or take it upon themselves to fold your clothes.

My new place came with the existing washing machine included (in the kitchen). I like having the washing machine here in the flat as opposed to the German option of in the shared cellar. It is a perfectly fine machine which should last a few more years, but it is a washing machine only, not a combination washer/dryer. (I don't have a dishwasher either, but that is a separate post!) I must say, I do like the UK standard of white goods staying in the flat, as opposed to the German norm where they tend to move with you.

As I moved into the new place and was looking at the space, I pondered whether or not a clothesline would possibly work, mainly because I was spacing out my outlay of cash (the trashpicked German drying rack didn't make the move), as well as that I figured that line drying outside would allow the clothes to dry faster.

I gave it a spin on the corner of the back terrace, the one which gets afternoon and evening sun:

Here is the view from that corner. The neighbors below have a great outside area which they rarely use:

This direction is actually stores: two hair salons, a dentist, a pizza place, a pet store, etc, so I don't feel that I'm influencing the view as this back space is never used.

While standing in the corner, here is the view of the rest of the terrace (before the garden was established):

The verdict after 1,5 months:

-so far so good, but it's summertime. I like the freshness of clothes drying outside, and I do get a good breeze up here, so I think in general they dry faster than they would inside.

-I'm definitely saving any electricity costs associated with a dryer, which is a good thing, as well as any envirnomental costs, nevermind the cost of the machine itself.

The negatives?

-It is the UK, so it tends to rain a lot, and often unexpectedly. So my clothes could dry while I'm in the office during the day but by the time I get home and there's a sudden rainfall I'm stuck to give them time to dry again. Doing the one set of bedding involves excessive planning and weather watching. ;-)

Would I change to a washer/dryer if I could once this washer wears out?

Eh, maybe. I wasn't so impressed with the only UK washer/dryer I used, and air drying seems to be more gentle on my clothes and more a habit now, (similar to how having a dryer is a standard habit in the US).

the catching up: the cat

now that the internet is back, here's what's been shaking around here this past month. introducing Slocombe:

-->Yes, the name comes from where you think it comes. Looking back, this probably wasn't appropriate for American Public Broadcasting, where I grew up watching it on Channel 12 WHYY in the Phillyland area.

She's 11, she came from here. (11 in cat years is around 60 person years.)

So far, she's adjusting fairly well. She's a mighty huntress of fake mice and live moths. I'm not quite sure what she does during the day while I'm at the office, but I suspect she sleeps on the sofa and gets on the kitchen counter. Otherwise she's quite a spendid cat, very clever. Or perhaps even more clever, to save those forbidden activities for when I am not present. ;-)

Return from the dead

After a painfully long hiatus, I am finally on the internet at home. Saturday morning with my coffee and online access and suddenly the world looks brighter. So much catching up to do...

Vaguely impressed

Four days of walking to and from work (over an hour together per day), plus additional walking in the evening for errands, etc, (two nights was another hour in addition) and I can feel the difference in a positive way. Funny how little effort it takes really to make a difference.

My commute

Is a 30-35 minute walk of 2.03 miles, 75% of which is through the park system, the remainder being sidewalks. I find it to be the perfect start and end to the work day. My old commute in Germany was 4 kilometers over sidewalks but the most direct route was also the most direct auto route so it was a constant stream of BMWs in the morning and evening. I find this one to be a more agreeable, although I may switch to the main thoroughfare and avoid the park once winter sets in and it's dark and with few people.

Right now it's interesting to observe the people coming and going; I have a reverse commute in that I'm heading toward the city outskits from the center while others are coming in for their jobs or the train station. It's a great mix of people being creative--today I saw a man in full suit, perhaps 40 or so, on a skateboard. Usually bicycles or scooters are the mode of transport when not on foot. For now I'm sticking with walking as I think it gives a decent form of exercise and the distance doesn't justify a bicycle (at this point) for me.

My tax money at work

Living on the fourth floor rooftop flat with no elevator, I very quickly came to the conclusion that I will get a compost bin to avoid carting ridiculous amounts of compost up the stairs to support my gardening habit, as well as having to avoid carrying large amounts of garden trash down the stairs. (I acknowledge, this one is more lazyness than environmental do-goodism.) I checked the large homegoods store down the street--there were a few nice looking options. Although, grumble, grumble, why does a big plastic box cost 50 pounds?

So I was pleasantly pleased to find out that Essex County Council offers a subsidized compost bin scheme. A giant subsidized box has now been ordered. I love living here!

Texas-sized

Everything in Europe is smaller than in America, and my flat in my corner of Essex is smaller than my flat was in Germany. When recently purchasing a litter box for the cat at a big-box pet retailer, there were four options: small, medium, large, and jumbo.

I had a moment of confusion, because small was about the size of a 9 inch cakepan, and medium didn't look much bigger. Jumbo was on par with a litterbox one would find in America, but it was labelled for two or more cats.

As I mentioned this out loud and that this wasn't much space for the cat to use, my UK shopping partner politely pointed out that of course the boxes would be smaller here--everything is bigger in America, and that the cat would be accustomed to this small size.

Duh, of course. I've gotten used to the smaller housing, cars, and McDonald's portions--I never considered it would apply to the cat too.

So I went with the medium sized version and she's getting along fine for aiming and use, excluding the issue that she sometimes in trying to cover the output she whacks the top edge of the box repeatedly with her paw instead of the inside litter. Not sure what that is about...

The minimal lifestyle

Living in my Heather-sized flat in Essex, I have the opportunity to stay minimalized in possessions. Coming over from Germany, I took the chance to cull out anything which did not please me or no longer fit my lifestyle--clothing, dishes, books, etc. with the idea that I would replace anything I eventually missed. Now, being in a smaller space, there's no chance to purchase anything new unless something is outgoing. It's somewhat of a pleasant, de-cluttered feeling.

Friday evening

Will be having a glass of Spanish wine on the roof terrace, because it still feels like Spain here...

Still continuing to get things in order and watching them slowly fall into place.

A veritable heat wave

UK temps have been clearing 30 with a few days of this weather planned.
Even my jalapeno pepper plant is wilting today, but I'm not complaining one iota, it's true summer weather. :-)

Thankfully, the new cat has enough sense to hide underneath the bed, in the coolest room in the house. I was a little afraid that I'd come home to roasted cat today if she chose to be in the sun. I'm under the roof, so the heat rises up.

For the first time in the UK

I turned on the airconditioning in the car. I didn't realize it even had AC. The weather here in my corner of Essex has been hot, sticky, and humid--think Philly in mid-August.

I don't feel the supreme guilt here like in DE to turn on the AC. I remember one of my (American) work colleagues--his wife had bad allergies so he started the car a few minutes in advance of her coming outside, so that it would be cooled off. A German promptly walked over to his car after one minute and knocked on the window and said something in German. My colleague spoke almost no German, so the fellow then translated it to English for him--
'Thank you for taking care for my environment and turning off your car when you are not driving." Different mentality I guess.

In the DE office of benevolent company J, we had no AC, even though it was company HQ. We had some kind of 'air cooling system', my colleagues explained that it kept the building 6 degrees cooler than the outside temp. Here in Essex we have 'real' AC for a building 1/20th of the size, both in people and perhaps area. It gets turned on most sunny days at this point because the building gets full sun from 10 AM until 6 PM ish if the sun is out. Closer to the US way of thinking perhaps...

The answer-->it's a girl!

The question-->
Make up your best guess....bragging rights go to the most creative or most correct answer. :-)
*The 'real' answer will be revealed later this week. ;-)

**I'm still using the computer at the library after work once per day, so I'm slow to repond to comments, but still here and reading them each day...

On the agenda for today...

A home visit from the cat rescue people, now that I own my own place, I think I'd like to have a cat. I'm thinking about an older one which sleeps a lot and won't mind me being at the office for 7.5 hours each day. Stay tuned...

English breakfast for lunch

I don't yet have a routine of shopping as I have only really been here a week in the new place. In addition, the new place has a tiny kitchen, so I don't have so much storage space so I'm still trying to figure out how to use it best. In coming back from Germany the other week, I was a bit stuck...I had nothing fresh due to being gone, I don't have frozen meals, as it's summer I don't even have soup, just a mishmash of things which came along with me on the move...gravy, mushrooms, and lots of dried pasta. The only ingredients that could make a proper meal...fixings for an English breakfast: veg sausages, baked beans, an egg, and mushrooms. No bread, was out. And there was enough to make two lunches.

I really need to figure out how I can get shopping into my schedule now that it's not on the way between the home and office and in addition since I'm on foot is becomes more difficult or more frequest--or to get clever and start the online veg delivery as was previously suggested.

In the meantime, breakfast it is!

A glorious, sunny day

In England. One would expect that to be a bit of an oxymoron perhaps. I'm enjoying immesely the roof terrace and mentally contemplating future garden enhancements. I'm chalking this year up to a learning year. So far the real winners have been the strawberries so I'm considering more of those next year. The potatos have been brilliant in leaf action, but some of them went to close to the top and reached sunlight so they turned green. I think I need some larger containers next year if they are going to be so impressive again.

I'm adjusting to life in the city, having spent the past few months in the suburb about 35 minute from here on foot. I don't have parking so this takes a bit of getting used to, as there is plenty of free parking withing 15-20 minutes by foot. And really, the 30 min walk each way to and from the office is probably much better than driving in any event.

The bathroom closet shelf and hallway mirror and a mattress were finally purchased last night. Putting the shelving together (an industrial grey metal unit) took the remainder of last night's free time as a team effort, so tonight will be devoted to putting the things on the shelves. I probably won't stockpile as much of my 'US medical goods' here as I did in Germany, mainly because there are a few more items more readily available here, that I don't need to cart them in from America. Although, with the prices of things, it may behoove me to do so.

Overall, things are shaping up into a good summer...

Missing the internet...

slumming it at the library every other day instead. :-(

on the positive side, i've been plowing through books and continuing to slowly get the flat in order.

the food importer

Other people transport drugs or other nefarious products across international waters, I transport basic foodstuffs across the pond.

From the UK to Germany-->Proper looseleaf English breakfast tea. My work colleague is primarily a tea drinker and claims there is a huge difference in what you can buy in DE vs. in the UK. Thus a few boxes came over.

From Germany to the UK-->Miracoli kaese pasta and German chocolate. The Miracoli is for me, I came back with 9 of the 4-5 portion boxes. Add some spinach or broccoli to it and you have a super meal.

What else should have come along? Two more German pillows to complete the ensemble are still to be purchased. I'm thinking about maybe driving the next go round in September so that I can bring back some bulky items such as that. And a case of regular miracoli in addition... :-)

Pleasantly surprised

Granted, I've only been gone from Germany for four months...however, I was expecting to see a marked decrease in my (albeit limited) German. Granted, I have almost daily exposure to it still by phone or email or (shudder) a random German speaker in the UK office, or some connection to Germans speaking English to keep me in the mood, or to a bit of German music. And granted, as the Germans would be quick to point out, I shouldn't be so proud of a B1 level after so long here... :-/

However--have previously gone through the ups and downs of learning Spanish and that painful transition after summer break. Here, I notice absolutely no difference in skill from the moment I left until now. I imagine if I would have had a true break and no connection to Germany I may have lost a bit.

Go figure.

Apparently new habits die hard too

It's my last night in DE for this trip. I escaped having to drive too much as my work colleague drove each day but the one where I had after hours plans and I drove myself. I didn't mind to rent a car from the airport--I wasn't sure if my colleague wanted a car pool buddy, and I like to drive in Germany. I like the order of the autobahn and the driving is on the 'right' side.

Before coming back, I was figuring that driving on the 'right' side (both literally and figuratively), would be like putting on an old pair of shoes, something that I would ease right back into.

I love being proven blatantly and obviously wrong!

I was a little tired on Thursday, but ok. I was in the office all day and then had a meet-up with a colleage after work, and then with my English student after that. Coming back from beyond Leverkusen to Cologne, I was able to follow the signs back to the A3, where I know my way back to my colleague's.

I was in unfamiliar territory, beyond following the markers to the A3. As I approached a traffic circle, I slowed down to think through--which way should I be going into it?
(Yikes)
Fortunately, there are blue signs with arrows showing the flow (something I've never noticed before.)
This one was a little odd I think, because:
1. I didn't go through so many traffic circles when I lived in Germany; there was one I went though perhaps every two weeks or so when I went to the train station. As opposed to the UK where I must go through multiple traffic circles to get into the office each day.

2. I was not in a familiar area, so I had no autopilot on which way to go into the circle.

Then, the icing on the cake--I whacked the door twice with my left hand, going to shift gears.
OK, so it's less than when I 'converted' to driving on the left...

I find this interesting because I was not expecting to have any issue whatsovever. I figured that I would revert easily to that which I have always known.
Hmm...

Night 4 in DE

There's something to be said for people who know you from way back...say, March 2003.

Life is a whole lot easier now that I don't live here!
At the same time, I've managed to gain some level of acceptability.

Last night we got our stuff together and managed to produce a team dinner. We were not fully attended, nor was anyone over the edge, like previously...

Our big boss left, and colleague 1 lit up a cigarette.
Colleague 2: I thought you did not smoke indoors? Or that you did not smoke because of Heather in Europe? (I am staying at the flat of Colleague 1) Or of course because of big boss instead? (Big boss had just left).
Colleague 1: I do not smoke when people are eating food.

and then everyone (excluding me), lit up a cigarette, now that non-Euro boss had left.
No one asked me. I did not expect them to. They knew I wouldn't mind...

It was a mishmash night of mixed languages. I drifted in and out of conversations...
This is why I live here!

It is no stress, only 'to be'. This is what keeps me here...

What's growing on the roof terrace so far?

Cucumbers
Tomatos
Peppers
Potatos
Onions
Garlic
Spaghetti squash
Zuchinni
Strawberries

Still to come...
Lettuce
Basil

Still to be decided--what can I get away with planting for the winter?

Hopefully everything survives the week without me. Once I'm set up with home internet I'll post some photos. It's more space than I ever imagined and a lot of sun (as much as the UK can muster), so it should prove fun.

4 months

It's been exactly four months to the day since I left DE. Oh the irony of being back here today.

How did I celebrate it? I went shopping at Lidl (walking distance to my colleague's flat) for breakfast cereal and lunch provisions. The one thing I cannot knock Germany for is their musli. The office mainly works through lunch at one's desk and I'm still a fan of the hot lunch. So on the menu for lunch the rest of the week for me:

Cheese tortellini with a side of salad and mixed veg, arrabiata pasta sauce, and some bread
all packed up in a tupperware container and good to go!

I'm spoiled here a bit on travel having access to a nice kitchen and all the dishes I need, along with containers for the leftovers to take for lunch. :-)

On the flight back to DE

More pre-posting from the library as my day will be messed up from the travel to DE. Pleasantly, I'm on AirBerlin to D'dorf. Ryanair to Krakow last week was OK for vacation, but for business travel I'm not so fond of them. In particular, the 06.15 flight time from Stansted required us to leave the house by 03.45. Did you know that the sky is vaguely light at 0415 in my corner of Essex? I certainly did not.

Coming back was the opposite--it took off at 21.50, getting us back at 23.20. Then with the passport controls, the shuttle to long-term parking and driving back, it was 00.30 before we were at home again. But then again, at a total cost of 100 GBP for everything, I'd say that was worth it. Krakow itself was a very nice city and I would recommend a visit. It was the first time I've been to Southern Poland. The Poles say that the Southerners are nicer than the Northerners. Not sure if that is true, but I cannot imagine that people could be any nicer than they were.

Home furnishing on the cheap

I hate shopping. While I've been off for work, the idea of spending the week in the stores is painful. Not so much from the 'spending money' aspect (although that's probably part of it), but more for the idea of the effort of having to schlep around, look at things, find things, buy things, and carry them up four flights of stairs.

(Do I sound like a German here-->why do we need to many choices? why do the stores need to be so big?)

For the basics, I've resorted to Poundland just to get up and running, and because I can get there without the car.

One more thing to love about my corner of Essex

One hour of free internet usage per day with my library card. Yes, my 'free' library card--as opposed to the 'pay' library card in Germany. It's probably better that I don't have the internet at home as it's easier to stay focused on getting unpacked and the flat in order. :-)

So far this morning (my last day of holiday in this round), I made coffee, planted strawberries, harvested the first item from the garden--a spring onion--and made it outdoors and down the street to the library on my day out and about.

It's absolutely roasting here today, so I figured a mid-day break out of the sun is in order.

I'm slowly becoming accustomed to the idea that I own a flat, but I'm not quite there yet. There still remains quite a bit to do to get it in order...

Still here...

but no internet in the new flat yet.
off to work in Germany starting Sunday, so offline for another week.
back with you after June 21.

Different climate, different culture?

The past weekend when we went to Maldon was hot as heck--it reminded me of Philly weather for this time of year. Everyone was out and about enjoying it. One big difference to me--in Phillyland, the public pools open on Memorial day weekend (at the end of May) until Labor day (first week of Sept).

Here in the UK is not quite warm enough in the summer to justify public outdoor pools like in my corner of America, so instead they have these 'water parks' or whatever one calls them:

Although--I do recall freezing my *** off in the early morning summer swimming lessons in the summers growing up. I'm not sure the climate is so much cooler here or if it's more a matter of culture...

The backpack is packed - Poland!

To Poland we go! It's off to Stansted at the crack of 'hella early o'thirty' because it's ryanair. but i cannot complain, you get what you pay for, and the flight was cheap. Because it's ryanair, we had to go on the cheap and stuff everything into the (limited) carry-on allotment. If you're wondering at home, it looks like this:

So for a four day trip we're looking at:
-1 pair jeans (worn from day 1 to 4)
-3 t-shirts (1 worn day 1)
-3 sweaters, of varying weights, useful for layering. it's supposed to rain two entire days
rain/wind jacket
-1 sweatshirt with hood
-4 days socks/underwear (usually i'd take half and then launder)
-the poland dictionary/phrasebook and the lonely plant guide, for all the polish words i've forgotten
-the 1 quart ziploc bag of toiletries 100 ml or under
-wallet
-passport
-file of important papers - guesthouse reservation, maps, ryanair checked in flight, etc. including the heather created 'currency cheatsheet' of GBP to PLN to EUR cross-currency triangulation, sorted by GBP and then PLN.

i have some pre-posting going on the next few days while i'm away...

Fascinating politics

The election is coming up June 4, so we're getting deluged with various leaflets and propaganda in the letter box, on TV and generally everywhere. Here was yours truly over the weekend in Maldon. In particular this party fascinates me.

They have an overview guide on their website. From page 5:
"Our government doesn't even know how many immigrants are in the UK, thanks to no border controls."

I'm not sure what non-existant border controls they could be referencing, unless it's the land border to Scotland or the shoreline if one were to sneak over from France.

In applying for my work visa, I had to list all travel in the past 10 years. Thankfully I track this detail for tax purposes and was able to cross-reference against my passport. I have been into the UK and transiting through it 20+ times, through various water entry ports and airports. I have never entered the UK without seeing border controls. Granted, I didn't float across in a dingy though. Although I am more of an 'expat' than an 'immigrant', so maybe not their target population.

I do recall entering other EU nations without passing through passport controls. Once I waltzed into Brussels from the UK--no one blinked twice as I stumbled through. Germany also didn't seem to care so much on those intra-Europe flights...

Even when coming from Northern Ireland, I was questioned by UK passport controls. (I am the person in front of you, EU person, clogging up the line when they only open one or two windows and fail to designate one of them for non-EU nationals.)

Sidenote: I was always amused on a Sunday night in Duesseldorf when they would open three and allow them to co-mingle on a flight from say, Estonia. Without fail you ended up with someone from Africa in one, someone with a German work visa but from a red flag country in the Middle East, and enough dumb Americans and Canadians to slow down the third. Big sighs from the Germans all around as everything ground to a halt...

So we'll see how everything pans out on Thursday. D has offered to take me with as he goes to vote, just so that I could see the activities and atmosphere around it and the last minute campaigning, so I may tag along to see...

The new flat

When I first arrived in Essex in February I was fortunate that I could stay with a work colleague so I was able to check out the area and take my time in finding a place to live. A six month lease is standard, so I decided to try to find a furnished flat in the area from the office for six months and then to give further thought to the topic after that, once I had a better idea of where I wanted to live.

When I lived in Germany, renting a flat was easy. In the tiny town of B one looks in the newspaper or on the bulletin board at the office; to accept a flat one signs a contract and puts down a deposit of first and last month's rent. Perhaps because it was a small town, it was rather uncomplicated. I had no credit, reference or employment check. I signed on the dotted line and moved in.

Upon arriving in the UK I found out that it was a little harder to rent a flat.
1. I needed a landlord reference. My very nice landlady spoke absolutely no English, at all.
2. Because I had no credit history in the UK, I would be forced to pay the entire six month lease up front.

The other option would have been to try to find a sublet or a room in a private house that would perhaps be less stringent about the above standards. I found an interesting place in the center of town, furnished and with parking and all utilities excluding television and internet, which would have come to the princely sum of 5000 GBP. I had decided to move forward with it, but we ran into a bit of a snafu in that they needed to independently collect the reference of my German landlady but no one on staff spoke German. (sigh.)

Around this the amazing thought of 'something is easier in Germany than in the UK' crossed my head. While I was waiting for them to find a German speaker, I became curious and looked at how much it would cost to buy a place in the building where I would be renting. (too much!) I looked up how much the flat I would be renting had been purchased for (over 200k, ouch!). On a whim, I started to look through the real estate ads online to see what I would be able to afford when the time came.

My requirements are not necessarily many, but they are very specific and non-negotiable. I've had the same ones for about five years or so:
1. Must not be on the ground floor.
2. Must get a lot of light-->even more important with the UK rainy days :-(
3. Must have a balcony or somewhere for me to grow things.

I don't think it's so much to ask for. ;-) One particular flat caught my eye, so I decided to pop over and see it while I was waiting on the rental option. It was 2,5 years old, in a 're-developing' part of downtown, about 10 minutes walk from the main train and bus stations.

What really caught my eye was that it was:
1. Top floor (4th floor of a four story building, three flats per floor)

2. Complete floor to ceiling glass wall in the bedroom and living room, facing West, glass door on the other side of the living room facing East. In essence, my living room will be bathed in sunlight (as sunny as my corner of Essex gets!) the entire day.

3. The absolute selling point: the glass toward the West is actually a roof terrace which is larger than the bedroom. There is a door from the bedroom and the living room leading onto the back terrace. The glass door toward the East is to the front roof terrace. I will have two roof terraces which will be perfect environments for growing all my outdoor veg. Lord knows there's so little sunny and short summers in the UK so I need every bit of help I can get. The architecture here isn't really given to large balconies or roof terraces for that matter. Perhaps it's the weather or maybe just the style. Where would you like your coffee when you visit—on the morning terrace or the evening terrace? ;-)

The place had been on the market for nine months and dropped twice in price. I could see why it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea. Specifically:

1. There is no parking included with the place. That's the biggest negative I can come up with, but there is free parking hidden around town, or parking is free in front from 6 PM – 8 AM, or I can leave the car at the office during the week. It's 2.03 miles to the office, a perfect 'Heather length' walk twice a day.
Sidenote: I'm not sure why the town approves flats to be built without parking as the parking situation in downtown is tight, or why they don't get their act together and put in more lots to make more revenue for the town.

2. It's four flights up, without an elevator.

3. The ground floor is under the application process to be a restaurant serving alcohol. I can see if you were in the second floor flats, this would be an annoyance, especially when the bars and restaurants have gone smoke-free and everyone must go outside, i.e. below your balcony, to smoke. At the 4th floor level, I'm not expecting a problem, especially as I expect to be more toward the back terrace in the evenings as that will be the sunny side. In addition, the front terrace is slightly recessed from the 3 beneath it, not straight in line with them (I think this is for the overall building look.) It means that there is another noise buffer in that the noise must go up and then inward to reach here, not just straight up. Plus I see the convenience factor of having a restaurant below. Maybe I'll change my mind at some point on that one...

4. It is a flat in a building with maintenance etc charges as opposed to a house which has less charges.

5. The space is small and a little quirky. I instantly fell in love with it, but I could see how it would not resonate well with a lot of people. Specifically, the roof terraces are a large part of the area, and therefore mainly 'unusable' space during the colder months. I'm guessing that my living space is decreased by about one-third during the cold and wet months. Personally I prefer small living space as it's easier to keep in order and less expensive to heat.

A few things played in my favor here which told me this was the right thing to do.

I asked to be allowed to visit again, but at an evening instead of during the day when nearby offices were open. I wanted to see how the place felt then. For perspective, I brought along a work colleague who tends to have very different opinions than me, to hear what he would see in it--nothing negative.

I was coming to the table as a cash buyer. In a backhanded way, I was blessed in that I came of working age in an IT job during the late 90's, although it didn't seem so at the time. I did consulting for a while living in hotel rooms and visiting friends on company paid tickets home on the weekends. The job market was on its way up as I came into the system but I arrived with a poor student mentality and student loans. When I took a permanent job I took a room in a shared house and saved my pennies for a few years. After a few years, into the 2000's when I could have qualified for a mortgage based on having a solid income and some work history and a little savings, I was living in the San Francisco Bay area where I was completely priced out of the market as the bubble had yet to burst.

I didn't want to be tied down anyway to California and jumped when I had the chance to come to Europe. For three years I lived the expat life in company paid (although taxable to me) housing. Later, when I finally got dumped off the expat gravy train I took the smallest solo place I could find in the tiny town of B and furnished it with trash-picked furniture. Was the goal to save money and live as cheaply as possible? No, the goal was to avoid having to 1. go to Ikea in DE, the place was a madhouse, and 2. I never liked having to put together the flat pack stuff in any event and 3. I knew DE was a launchpad to another area, so I saw no reason to really invest in anything which probably couldn't come along (financially or emotionally).

As a US citizen with no UK credit history, I wouldn't have qualified for a mortgage, so I could only buy something which fell within my cash payable means. Heck, the bank won't even give me a checkbook under my piddling 'passport' account. I must prove my financial worthiness for one year before I am allowed a checkbook or an interest bearing account. I'm rather not impressed with those rules, but it's all part of the expat game.

The other benefit of this flat is that my corner of Essex is considered an affordable commuter city into London. If I ever need to get a new job and want to stay with my current profession, I'll need to do it in the city—there just aren't similar jobs here in Essex. So if I had to, I could live without a car, being within walking distance to the main station which goes into London. In addition, that serves to make the flat rentable should I ever want to leave it.

So I put in a bid on the flat. I realized they had dropped the price twice, but I went under the asking price anyway. We hemmed and hawed back and forth as I could see online their original purchase price 2,5 years ago, so I knew they were losing money. They had a price floor they didn't want to go below, their psychological breaking point. Having recently left Germany and gone through the hassle of selling off all of my furniture and remembering what it was like to have to buy all of that stuff, I agreed to their number, if they would leave all major pieces of furniture such as the bed, sofas, wardrobe, patio furniture etc. There was no way I want to live through another Ikea shopping trip, schlepping up the four flights of stairs and then assembly session. They accepted.

Good thing as getting the German reference was still not progressing after two weeks, so I dropped out of that one and long term onto my colleague's sofa for the duration of this adventure. As we were heading into summer I knew I could pitch the tent as needed, as well as that some business travel would be squeezed in. (Memo to self: I'm almost too old to be slumming it for 100 days on someone's sofa. Almost. ;-))

So through the stages of house surveying, reviewing, etc. we went. I got annoyed as the process was taking too long and ended up pulling out of the process late in the game. An intentional bluff? No, just annoyance. They invited me to make a lower bid as it was the 11th hour and they didn't want to start over. Unintentionally I picked up a small discount there and was back in the game.
I transferred the first 40% of the purchase price on Tuesday. The last 60% was winging over (or does it go under?) the Atlantic Thursday night, where it arrived on Friday. It will be sent over to the sellers tomorrow for the keys to come over to me on Friday.

After 30 some years of life, I finally became a flat owner for the first time, yet not in the US. Go figure. Curious for a quick view? These are the photos I took when I was seeing it for the first time, so it's their decor. Better ones will come once I am there and unpacked...

only the sofa in this photo stays. will take better photos of the view from the terrace once there. this side faces the downtown rooftops.


not my tv either ;-)

where the vegetarian magic will happen:

not sure i like the white bedding look they had, although it does add to the brightness factor. My Dark blue German bedding did come along fortunately. :-)