UK Muesli

In general I'm not much of a breakfast person, but I do like cereal anytime during the day. In Germany I fell in love with all natural unsweetened musli. While in Germany I ate cereal every day in the office at around 10 AM, and it's a habit I've continued here. Gotta keep the priorities straight--coffee at 0730 first and foremost, food later. Since arriving I've been trying various UK crunchy cereals and mueslis, this is my current one:

**Today's quiz: Where was this Swiss Style Muesli which I bought in the UK (at Asda) produced?

Your prize? A postcard from the South, where I'm going for the next week or so. Or we can be environmental and skip the postcard and give you online bragging rights instead. ;-)

Chalking up another cultural faux pas

I still hold that language and behavior is learned through unconscious effort as much, if not more than purposely learned skills. Since I am highly cognizant right now of cultural norms, as I try to figure out what I don't know, I'm picking everything apart that I see, hear, and feel and analyzing it to try to make sense of it.

(Sidenote: be glad that you're not a British person with regular communication with me--otherwise you are subject to daily grilling on topics like 'what is the correct response to 'Cheers' like when someone holds open a door?-->Answer: to make eye contact and nod.)

I find it somewhat fuzzy to pick up the cultural norms. On one hand, the shared native English language and many similar societal norms ease the process, but at the same time that comfort level only serves to make one lazy or complacent in not studying closely enough the rules as one would in a vastly different landscape. To pick up the correct behaviors one needs to concentrate as many of these habits are not remotely in the same ballpark as as their American equivalents. Or--I've been too long out of American to recognize what I see here.

S0 in the early wee hours of drunken debauchery on Saturday I had asked someone a question which was met with hesitation before answering. It was in line with a standard German dinner table question (which would make the average American blanch, as well as the average Brit apparently) where anything along ths lines of the below would be fine, such as:

-how much money do you make?
-how much did your house cost/do you pay in rent?
-any question about bedroom behavior...
-any questions about whatever physically can be seen (weight, ethnicity, disability etc.)
-->if you are an expat living in Germany, I suspect you could add at least 10 more...

Even more interesting (and painful) to me--I didn't catch it before I asked it, that this question wouldn't been seen as innocuous. Just call me German direct, Ach mein Gott! Even worse--I had asked this exact question to a German once and it was honestly answered without blinking, leading to an interesting discussion. It's not something I would have done before living in Germany. This directness was something I really fine-tuned upon living there, and after about the third year I was comfortable with it.

But here--the last thing I wanted to do was to make someone uncomfortable. And worse--I'm not German, so I should have known better.

If this post appears

It means that the weather is great here in Essex on a Monday and I'm working in the garden on the side hustle. I spent 6 hours inside there on Saturday, because the weather was too wet to work outside.

My latest conclusions from this gig:
- You couldn't pay me enough to own a farmhouse. It was raining buckets on Saturday and the water flooded the floor of the laundry room area. In addition the gutter was clogged so it was dripping through a wall seam into the kitchen.

- Big space requires major upkeep to look nice. 6 bedrooms plus 3 bathrooms and a full living room, dining room etc. requires a lot of work plus a lot of heating costs, in particular with the lack of double glazing. Just to maintain it weekly once it's cleaned up will require hours in vacuuming alone. Not that I can complain--more work for me. :-)

Back onto the letter mystery

A while back I mentioned the Greek mystery WW2 letter which I need to get translated at some point for my genealogy research. The colleague who was going to do it left the company and then I was busy with the move from Germany to the UK. Right before I left Germany, I had dinner with my French colleague.

My French colleague's town is twinned with a Greek town. Each year the students travel between France and Greece for a week on each side to increase their cultural understanding. So the Greek student comes for a week and spends it in the French household and then the French student does the reverse, visiting Greece. My work colleague's daughter and her 'Greek sister' were randomly paired up and hit it off so well that they chose to be paired off together in subsequent years and still remain in close contact years later as a result of this program.

So my work colleague told her daughter about this Greek letter. The daughter told her Greek friend who told her family who are intrigued. So tomorrow a copy of the letter goes to the older sister of the Greek sister who is good at English to translate.

How did I come to these arrangements today since it's a weekend and I'm not in work to be speaking with my French colleague?
French colleague's daughter and I are connected on Facebook. :-)

Third country culture shock

This coming week marks six years since I first moved to Europe. Moving from Germany to the UK has put me in a bit of a strange position as an American expat to the UK.

-I'm in a completely different position in life than I was six years ago when I first arrived in the UK, and I was only here for 5 months before moving to Germany, so I find it hard to compare my 'new' UK time with my 'old' UK time.

-The people here tend to pick up that I'm an American and usually ask about the biggest difference I see in life here than in America. There's a moment where I stutter and then cannot think of anything to say. Because I've been mainly out of the US for so long I'm not making so many comparisons with the US, but more with my recent Germany life. This may also be because so many UK things are so similar to US things that they do not really stick out as differences, vs. there are differences between UK and Germany things.

-I convert all Pound Sterling prices to Euro in my head to figure out if something is a good price. Then if I'm talking to an American about prices I convert the Euro amount to US dollars. Not sure when I'll break this currency triangulation and go direct from GBP to USD.

-The only German I've heard here has been in the office.

-When I'm torked about something here, the voice in my head speaks German or my immediate response is to speak German. When I'm speaking German in the office on the phone to my colleagues in Germany, it's not because I don't want the UK colleagues to understand; it's because I'm annoyed and that's how it comes out of my mouth automatically, in a torrent. I'm wondering if/when I will break this habit.

-I'm shuddering at the amount of packaging existing in this country on everything one buys and the proliferation of plastic bags given away free. OK that I miss about Germany--the collective environmental nature of society there and how recycling is woven into daily life as a norm rather than an exception.

More frugalness: my new side hustle

"Good things come to those who wait, only the things left by those who hustle."

I'm a big fan of the side hustle (a little side job), always have been. One of my favorite frugal writers talks more about the concept here.

Side hustles I've done over the past few years:
-English tutor
-Spanish tutor
-Algebra tutor
-Statistics for non-math majors tutor
-Flower delivery person
-Babysitter for a couple who were starting up a restaurant
-Lawn mower

When I first arrived in the UK, I didn't have so much to do, not yet knowing anyone. In addition, I started working earlier hours to avoid the traffic thus ending up with even more free time.

In addition, I feel all my energy and creativity which has been dormant in Germany coming back. I find a side hustle a great way to learn about something outside of my normal work world.
For fun, I put an ad up on gumtree (more popular here than craigslist), offering to do odd jobs on an occasional basis, just to see what would appear. I have a varied set of 'Girl Friday' skills: gardening, cleaning, organizing, packing, grandma driver, babysitter, whatever.

A woman called me, she had a farmhouse which she had been renting, and she wanted help to put it back into tiptop shape after the last tenants (four young men). We spoke and then I popped over to see the place earlier in the week.

It's a 200 year farmhouse, with a large backyard, pool, overlooking rural land. It's beautiful, with all of the old woodwork, a solid structure which just needs a heck of a lot of work to put it back in order. It's the type of place that when populated by a family really needs a regular gardener, cook, nanny, etc. She's decided not to rent it again, but instead to get it in order to sell it sometime in the summer.

I was over there tonight for 3,5 hours and we spent the majority of time on the kitchen. The gentlemen didn't really do regular cleaning, it seems, as there was a layer of grease on everything. They spilled sugar in the cabinet and it melded to the shelf, they spilled rice in the back of another cabinet, left a large amount of useless crap to throw out, and on and on. After both of us working together for 2,5 hours, it now looks like a farmhouse kitchen which you'd see in a magazine. We scoured from the top of the cabinets to the floor. The pure beauty of the place is underneath all of the months of disuse. In addition, she bought some flowers and plants so that as it goes in order she's adding the staging bits to get it ready to show, so it really looks super.

I spent the last hour getting stains off the carpets, handprints off the walls, and scouring windowsills. These old windows aren't doubleglazed and it seems no one dusted for at least a year so there was a layer of grime on the windows and all of the woodwork.

I've been asked back for 8 hours on Saturday, to get the flower beds ready for spring and to tackle the other rooms which we didn't touch. Her brother has been up to do the heavy yardwork already, but it has a lot of flower beds to re-establish.

I've been asked to become the regular temporary caretaker for the next few months. It's only 12 minutes from benevolent company J and she doesn't live in this area. So she'd like someone to stop by regularly and check on the mail, water the plants, take care of mowing the grass and adding the weekly pool chemicals.

This one appeals to me for a few reasons:

-I'm considering longer term, to buy a property expressly for the purposes of renting it out. I was 50/50 on whether that should be a house or a flat. I'm now 100% feeling that it should be a flat, without a yard, having had this limited experience on the topic. I think there are more points here for me to learn regarding property renting based on this experience, so I'm here to learn them.

-The place is absolutely gorgeous. I imagine once it's fully back in order and only in maintenance mode, it will be divine to attend to.

-She hopes to have it on the market early in the summer, to use it on some weekends during the summer while it's still not sold, and then finally sold by the end of the summer. This schedule aligns perfectly with my (hopefully!) LSE October start (more on that soon--two more weeks to decide).

-The hours are flexible and not so many after this initial clean-up effort. For now, I could use the extra cash (and that's a whole other blog post still to come!)

-My lazy self likes a bit of physical activity after sitting 8 hours in the office.

-She paid me in exact change tonight, as well as offered me tea, coffee, etc.

The answer to the Betty Crocker quiz....

Since this was a tough one--the answer to the Betty Crocker UK cookie mix question....
-->India!

You sweet talker, Betty Crocker

I got in in my head to make 'American' cookies, and lo and behold, Tesco sold this chocolate chip cookie mix:

http://www.bettycrocker.co.uk/product_detail.asp?range=4 (the one on the left in the green box)

It's been at least 10 years since I've made cookies, but they seemed to go well, even with a substitute of olive oil in place of vegetable oil.

This cookie box had labeling to be sold in the UK, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland.

Here's the pop quiz question:

--> In what country was this Betty Crocker cookie mix which I bought in the UK produced?

Is there a prize involved here? Sure, a little something will be winging its way to you via post to the first right answer. :-)

*and if you were eating these cookies with me, you are disqualified from answering due to insider knowledge!

22.16 on Friday night

We went to the 24 hour Tesco:

Living in Germany didn't manage to break me of the late night shopping habit. While I can understand the arguments I heard while living there (the workers should have a day off with their families, you should be able to plan your shopping to meet their hours), I like having the option to shop late.

That being said, late night shopping here hasn't yet reached the true 24 hour status like in America. My Tesco's hours?

Monday 08.00-00.00

Tues-Fri: 24 hours

Sat: 00.00-22.00

Sun: 10.00-16.00

Who is at Tesco at 22.16 on a Friday night? Mainly:

-A lot of stock people.

-Kids buying beer.

It was easy to park, the sale items were fully in stock, and there were no lines at the checkout, superb!

The univited visitor

I came immediately home from work in order to get moving on my seed planting in the late afternoon sun. As I arrived, I noticed an univited visitor sunning oneself:

After two hours I now have the three house windowsills which get the sun filled with the small seedling pots, along with a few to take to the office. My desk is against a heating radiator, and I have a wide windowsill which gets sun from 13 onward.

I'm also considering to use my personal solar dehydrator/hothouse for the next week or two as we've been having fully sunny days and it would be warmer than the sunny windowsill.

How's life in the UK so far H?

The month (OK I was a week in Bratislava), has flown by.

Over the weekend I went to Sudbury, Suffolk (leaving Essex) with new friend Ian. We saw this graffiti and sunshine and blue sky there.

When my Polish frugal grandparents did spend money

Growing up on that side, I was the youngest of three grandchildren. Gifts were modest, but they were well-thought out and carefully arranged. In addition to birthdays and the December holidays there were always little things for other days like Valentine's day or St. Patrick's day.

When I was in my high school years, my grandmother has passed away and my cousin was getting close to graduating from the university. As she neared graduation, my grandfather got it into his head that to honor my grandmother's memory--as well as to be practical--he would give my cousin 500 USD for interview clothing. Here she was coming out of a four year degree program, maxed to the gills financially--although well-educated--and he was sure that she's be OK once she got a paycheck or two, but she needed to look her best to get that job.

My cousin and I were younger, but not to be forgotten. While my eldest cousin got the immediate cash, my grandfather searched around at local banks for find the one offering the best rates on 5 year cds, as both the middle cousin and I were more than five years aways from graduating from any university, so our equivalent 500 dollar gifts were deposited into cds for us to gain interest.

Upon receiving the gift, the background of the reason (my cousin's graduation) was explained. And the additional footnote I received with mine was: this is in honor of your grandmother, you're to save it until you graduate from the university, use it to buy interview clothes to get that job, as she'd want you to look nice. The five years will be up on this while you are in university, so you can use it for books or fees if you have to, but the best thing would be to put it into a 2 year cd so that it's ready for you as you finish.

It's probably imporant to note that my Polish grandparents were the first-born children of Poles who had recently emigrated to America. They grew up in North Philly speaking only Polish at home back when it was a Polish part of Philly and went immediately to work in manual jobs upon graduating high school. (I found their SSN applications in my genealogy research). Their entire working lives were factory situations, so the thought that went into this gift cannot be underestimated. It wasn't a matter of not spending money, it was a matter of knowing when one should spend money, and to plan it wisely.

Frugal garden beginnings in the UK

Spring is attempting to break through in the UK--daffodils are everywhere, and temperatures have finally jumped into double digits this weekend.

I've been thinking quite a bit about garden topics. The place it looks like I'll move into has the outdoor space. I've been reading up online about UK planting times and I stopped by the garden store to get an idea of what is sold here and the pricing. Seed and container prices are roughly equivalent to Germany prices. There is some variety here in what is sold: I saw more varieties of potatos than I've seen in my entire life! Also, they sell these sort of heavy plastic bags in which you grow potatos, or with holes in them on the sides for more plants, strawberries. The advantage which I see with them is that once you empty the dirt in the fall, they can be flattened down for easier storage.

I was thinking about that bittersweet moment a few months ago, when I freecycled my garden stuff on Freecycle Cologne. On a whim I signed up for my 'new' local freecycle in Essex this morning and cancelled my Cologne one, and noticed that someone was cleaning out their planting things.

I sent her a note an hour after she had posted, offering to pick them up anytime today. She named a time two hours later. So basically three hours or so after I had started this adventure, I was bringing home exactly the basis which I need to get started, at zero cost:

Everything was used and obviously well loved and cared for. She mentioned that it had all belonged to her father (and now they're getting rid of all of it, so I didn't inquire further). I am especially pleased with the seedling trays on the left--they're useful, but I find it irritiating to pay so much in the store for a little plastic box, first, because of the cost, and second, because it's plastic.

I'll still need to get some larger pots or those plastic bags described above for the summer season, but this is exactly what I need for right now to get started with seeds. This was a perfect end to a fantastic weekend.

Making my frugal grandparents proud

I was very blessed while growing up, to spend a lot of time with 3 people who remembered the depression and the lean years during war time. I imagine the take home message was the same as anyone else who had similar grandparents--work hard, study harder, think twice before buying, pay cash not credit, and be clever--preferably grow it or make it yourself.

I had not quite realized the impact until I was in Asda this week and was reviewing the discount shelf where they put the the dented packages or soon to be out of date jars and cans. I was very exited to find a dented can of coconut milk and a minestrone soup (items I would like to have in the cupboard), each for .25 p off due to the tiny ding on each can.

Making every cent count, credit crunch or not....

Veg English breakfast cost summary

The last time I did a vegetarian English breakfast post, it was in Germany.

Costs:
Approx 1/3 of the Heinz baked beans mega sale can: .25 p

Mushrooms: around .20 p

1/2 of 1 tomato which came in a 6 for 1 pound package: .08 p

1 free range egg: .25 -->I'm not fond of the yolk so I added it to D's egg.

1 Linda McCartney sausages, 1.89/6-->.31 p, one other veg sausage, guessing .31 p

1 piece of bread, toasted and lightly buttered (not in photos). -->let's guesstimate .12 p

Total cost--> around 1 pound
Frequency-->around once each week, usually Sunday

Germany from the outside

In the new office, I sit across from someone, I have no idea what he does. In fact, I have no idea what most of the people sitting around me do, and they are probably as puzzled by my activities. What we do have in common...this particular office has very close ties to the office in Germany where I was located.

This office and that office collectively supply things to big company F. Big company F's HQ is in Germany near benevolent company J's head office. This office exists to support company F's local office here. So needless to say, people in this office spend a lot of time in Germany at either company F or J. Some of them even spend Tuesday-Friday of every week there.

There is, however, a basis for shared understanding based on being a non-German having to work with Germans, which culturally transcends job details. The colleague who sits across the table from me was on a difficult phone call....

Colleague P (in English): Carsten, we need to blah blah. Carsten, you need to think about blah blah. Carsten.......
Colleague P (silent for a few minutes, head goes into hands).
Colleague P (phone on mute, to me): Aargh. This is like watching an episode of Laurel & Hardy. Instead of discussing how to fix Q, they're arguing amongst themselves as to whose fault Q is. It's like they have blinders on.
H: Are you on the phone with Germans?
Colleague P: How did you know? (rolling eyes)

(Although, of course, I realize on the other side of the call, the Germans are probably just as stymied by the non-German behavior). ;-)

Playgrounds in the UK

On Sunday it was chilly but sunny all morning so I took a short walk. I've been very impressed with the Essex neighborhood, and how these playgrounds seem to be seamlessly integrated into the local neighborhoods:




These three were all within a five minute walk of the residential neighborhood where I am. Somewhat interesting to me is that most of the time when I walk past, they are empty, even on a Sunday.

Supermarket shopping in the UK

As I've only been here two weeks or so, I've yet to figure out any alternatives to buying my food at the big supermarkets. I'm sure in spring/summer there will be some sort of farmers markets or farms to find, but in the meantime, I'm down to Tesco or Asda. Particularly--Asda is within walking distance to my temporary accomodation, although the 24 hour Tesco is on the way home from work.

I'd prefer to buy a little more local, less "big retail" but my longer term accomodation will be on the other side of town, so rather than trying to ferret out local options here only to move, I'll suck it up in the short term and go to Asda.

I still have the habit of shopping like I'm in Germany (= going to the supermarket 2 to 3 times in a week). This habit is a little silly here as refrigerators are closer to American sized so I can buy more, and further--the selection is virtually the same Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday, so there are no advantages to multiple trips.

Because I am temporary accomodation and trying to minimize the disruption, I'm a little limited in cooking properly, for example to have lots of spices on hand or to dirty every dish in the house. So I'm leaning more toward packaged goods than I normally would.

In case you're curious, here's what I've bought during the past two days (Friday and Sunday). In general, I'm flexible with what I buy, so will bend to accomodate sales or markdowns. From the below photos, everything was on some sort of price droppage.

To explain further--Asda has various schemes of pricing--'rolling back the prices' ala Walmart, multiple savings if you buy 2 for a certain price you get the discount, and markdowns due to items reaching their 'use by' date. For the most part, if you're willing to be fleixible--i.e. 'I want any green vegetable to cook for dinner tonight'--or 'I want something vegetarian as a main course which will reheat well on the next day', then you can make your choices according to price and do well. Here is how I did. All prices are in Pounds. Where I put a price (in parenthesis), that is the 'regular' price one would normally pay for this item at Asda.

Old El Paso Fajita Kit 1.50 (2.76)
Old El Paso Taco Kit 1.50 (2.76)
3x Quorn Mince 1.00 each (1.98)
Heinz baked beans .75 (1.24)-->840 gram can!
2x Asda cheese pizza 1.00 (1.58)
Bistro gravy 1.00 (1.58)
Frozen broccoli .84
Frozen peas 1.00
Grand total--> 12.34

There's a little cake/pie on the right side, someone brought those into the office and offered it to me. I'm not a cake person, but being new to this office I didn't want to decline, so I brought it home and D had it with his tea.



Today's trip....it's Sunday and I'm going to the supermarket. I have to say--I prefer Sunday to Saturday for the supermarket, mainly because I'm in the right mindset for food shopping since I'm normally making up my office lunch meals for the week on Sunday.

Today's take:
Asda Baking Potatos, hidden in the back--the only regular priced item - 1.48 for 7 large potatos
Garlic bread with cheese .68 (1.38)
Garlic bread (hidden underneath) .32 (.50)
2x strawberries .68 (1.88)
grapes .38 (.58)
herb salad .38 (1.00)
Quorn mince and onion suet pudding .83 (1.68)
Dairy free sunflower oil spread 1.00 (1.12)
Cauldron veg sausages .97 (1.98)
expensive cheddar cheese 2.00 (2,38)
the supreme bargain of the day - a small squash .10 (1.64) -->who would pay 1.64 for a tiny squash??
Grand total-->just under 10 quid


So what kind of meals are upcoming this week?
-Last week, I used a package of the Quorn mince and combined a can of beans with a cup of kidney beans to make a superb chilli. I'll do something similar to use with the taco shells/cheese.
-There will be baked potatos on the menu, mainly to heat up the house in the evening.
-The bag of salad will go into the office and will last three days
-The sausages and baked beans are the making for a full English breakfast, which is also great for dinner. The only thing missing to supply is an egg and toast.
-The squash will be tonight's dinner, with some rice
-The frozen veg will be combined with last week's pasta sauce and perhaps some of the mince, to go over pasta.
-The 'close to being out of date marked down' items the mince pudding thingy, the sausages, the bread, etc. all went into the freezer for a different day.

I hear the 'tsk-tsk ing' from Germany all the way over here, btw.
But H, grapes and strawberries are inappropriate for the season/location. Just think of your carbon footprint!
Yeah, I hear you. I went up and down the fruit and veg aisle to try and figure out what is locally grown here. It was somewhat surprising to me, that there was not a plethora of 'warmer' EU country items, such as strawberries from Spain or anything from Italy, like there is in Germany or Dutch or UK greenhouse items. Most of the off-season veg (including my strawberries in this instance) comes from more distant, exotic places like Morocco and Mozambique. Ouch.

My primary issue with these far away items isn't the environmental concerns of shipping items so far (although it probably should be!) My concern is in going outside of the EU that the regulation is not as strict or as closely monitored as to what chemicals are used in the growing process. My German colleagues have drilled in me a distrust of Spanish produce, never mind the non-EU varieties. In addition, something which travels such a distance never tastes as good as something local which didn't endure such a long food route.

The only local items which I found so far in the produce area were brussel sprouts on a stalk (last week's rollback deal--1 pound for a stalk which included approx 40 sprouts), and potatos. I'll keep searching...

All told, from the above, I'm under 25 pounds a week for food. While some of the multiple items will be stored for another week as well as the butter substitue will be spread over many weeks (spread, haha!). I'm using things purchased last week, so I think 25 pounds would be about average for a weekly shopping bill for me. For you folks at home, that's about 35 USD on today's conversation rates. Granted, this model is also taking into account that there is no cafeteria on-site at the office so I must buy enough to produce 5 weekday lunch meals, although that is usually just additional portions from my evening meals.

So how is this comparing from Germany, H?
I cannot make a full comparison yet as I'm doing a lot less cooking from scratch in this moment. Once I'm in the new place and back to that method, I think I'll run through this again and cost it out to see. In addition, I didn't shop at the big shops in Germany, so my comparison is additionally skewed in this moment.

If you enjoyed this sort of banal, everyday life analysis, let me know. Or any specifc UK food queries, I can look into it...

Two sandwich shops

On the street where I will probably live (fingers crossed!) there are two lunchtime sandwich shops. While I've been out and about, I've tried to interact with both, to get a feeling for the neighborhood.

Sandwich shop 1 (last week):
H: Can I have a jacket potato with cheese?
Sandwich lady 1: Oh......sorry, we're all out. But it's the only thing we're out of, you can pick anything else.
H: Hmm. What do you recommend, that is vegetarian?
SL: Well, we can do cheese on a roll, or a toasted cheese or an egg salad sandwich, or Tuna--if you're 'that kind of vegetarian', or you can say what to put on the sandwich and we'll make it.
H: Cheese on a roll sounds great.
SL: OK....type of bread?....toasted?....do you want a bit of salad on that? (good suggestive upselling there)
H: Super.
SL: Here you go. Apologies again on the potato.
H: Obviously I'll need to come back, they must be good to sell out!

Sandwich shop 2 (today), after waiting 3 minutes for someone to appear from the back:
H: (needing to break a 5 pound note to get parking meter change) One pack of M&M's please. (holding the 5)
SL2: Do you have 55 p by chance?
H: Sorry, no.
SL2: (pauses, with 5 in hand) Is this for change for the parking meter?
H: Yes.
SL2: We can't always be doing this, you know!!
H: (slightly shocked, after 2 stress-free weeks, mentally taken back to DE). (blink.) Sorry, I didn't know, I'm not from here.
SL2: (big German F-off sigh, and goes to the back. Comes back with change and then must go to the cash register.) Here....it has to be small change.
H: Sure.
SL2: Because we don't keep a lot of change.
H: Sorry, I'm a visitor, I didn't realize. (But don't worry, I won't bother you again!)

IF I live on this street--which shop do you think will get all of my business?

At the end of the day, both transactions completed successfully, I loosely got what I went in for (lunch, change). However, I was so turned off by the second shop experience. If I had visited there before I went to see the flat on that street, it probably would have colored my view of the flat. I was mentioning this experience to D later, who was completely peeved, as he explained that this was rude by UK standards. I was considering it by:

1. US Standards - as a business, you're sorta being stupid here. By not keeping change in stock and requiring a sale to give it, you're losing out on business.
2. German Standards - there would have been sighs about having to count out the change if it had been bigger than a 5 perhaps, but you buy something, you get change, none of this whining about not wanting to give it based on the purpose.

danger or opportunity?

The past week has been in flux. The universe finally coughed up a sign to answer my question.

In response I kicked off a few events which spawned even more surprising changes. Hmm. Not yet ready for prime time.

In other topics, I mentioned a while back that I was applying for grad school, to be able to attend part-time while working full-time. Today I received the acceptance letter from here. Now the question--do I want to attend? And how does it relate to other future plans now envisioned?

thinking...
thinking....