Things You Notice Living in the United Kingdom

An old cathedral in Edinburgh with construction scaffolding.

Today's my last day in the British Isles—or IONA, if you prefer—as I leave early tomorrow morning for Greece. I've lived in Vancouver most of my life and being in another country brings about a lot of change. These are some of the day-to-day differences I've noticed during my time in U.K./Ireland.

Old stuff

You can't get away from it. Even your average apartment here is probably several decades older than all but the oldest buildings in Vancouver. In the countryside you encounter castles, forts, or ruins thereof and inside the cities monuments abound.

The wisdom of the walls won't let you forget that a lot has happened here. And the construction tells you there's more to come.

Shower controls

The shower controls in my Edinburgh flat.

Yes, shower controls. The shower controls are often different. This caused me great confusion the first time I encountered them—in Mike's old flat. There were two dials which were unlabeled and had only an indication of gradation. "If you turn me clockwise you'll get more, counter-clockwise and you'll get less."

The controls weren't for hot and cold water, but for temperature and flow. Because of low pressure in old pipes, there's always some system in place for getting more water through the shower head. Some of them are gravity-driven but in most of the places I've taken showers you hear the whirring of an electric pump.

In the two Irish hostels you had to pull a ceiling switch before the shower would work.

"Quite Good"

Nothing impresses anyone here. Or if it does, they don't let on nearly as much as they do in Canada. In fact, the one Scottish flatmate in the flat in Edinburgh frequently chided Mike and I for our overuse of the word, "awesome." He would instead settle for something less... enthusiastic, like "quite good" or "not bad."

After much discussion about accents, it also seems to be the case that our Canadian accent makes everything sound really dramatic. I'm sooo hungry!

Massive Power Outlets

The U.K. outlet adapted to the North American standard, split, and then adapted back to U.K. What a mess.

The power outlets and thus the plugs here look super-bulky to North American travelers. In most cases they're arranged side-by-side and have power switches right beside them. I don't know why, but I guess it could be handy once in a while.

The effect of the huge plugs is even more obvious with the little Lego-brick assortment of adapters I use for power. I've got a U.K.-to-universal adapter and a North American 3-way splitter so I can charge my devices while working on the laptop.

In some hostels, when power outlets are in short supply, I'll plug a North American-to-universal adapter into the 3-way splitter so some one else can charge their U.K. phone or European laptop while I'm working.

Driving, or Walking Amongst the Cars

One of the many roundabouts throughout the U.K. You hardly ever see big intersections around here.

This one's pretty well known: everybody drives on the left side of the road. Pedestrian crosswalks will often have "look left" or "look right" inscribed in capital letters on the ground so nobody gets confused... especially in areas where you're more likely to get a lot of tourists. Like just outside the airport's front doors.

That's not the only difference, though. The city planners make obsessive use of roundabouts, some of them with more than one lane. I'm not talking traffic-calming roundabouts—they appear where you would expect to see traffic lights and a big intersection.

The cars here are much smaller, too. I've only seen three hummers in the last two months as opposed to Vancouver's shameful three a day.

Green pedestrian lights are often accompanied by an urgent beeping which now triggers me to spontaneously cross the road. Crossings are usually divided into two segments which run on different lights. When you've made it halfway you have to walk up the street on the little island for a few meters before crossing again. I'm guessing this is so the two sets of crossing lights are in different lines of sight so people don't confuse them.

It's usually easier to just jay walk.

Hang drying

Creative clothes hanging. I found some strange surfaces to hang my clothes on in Edinburgh when the drying racks were in high demand.

In the hostels it's not unusual to have washer-dryer pairs but you'll often see clothes hanging in backyards or by windows. In my flat in Edinburgh we had no dryer. This usually meant a little bit of planning since I don't have many clothes with me and they take a full day to dry.

Boy was I spoiled when I lived in an apartment in downtown Vancouver with five pairs of washers and driers. Every couple weeks I'd go down to the laundry room at midnight and take up all the dryers, washing nearly every bit of cloth I owned in one go.

Neds/Spides/Chavs

There are many more words but these seem to be the main ones used to describe the stereotypical group of uneducated youth. "Neds" is used in Scotland, "Spides" in Ireland, and "Chavs" in England.

According to the stereotype these guys wear white tracksuits, gold chains, baseball caps, and fake jewelry. In Ireland they all have the same near-shaven, bleached haircut. They're petty criminals, underage drinkers, and generally anti-social.

A pound is currency, not weight.

The closest thing I could think of in Vancouver was the term "wigger," describing white guys with a "strong appreciation" for African American hip-hop culture. It's kind of interesting how they seem to have a place in every culture.

That's Culture

One of the reasons for traveling is to have these encounters with different cultures. While the day-to-day differences between Canada and U.K./Ireland are pretty subtle, it's still been interesting to learn about them. Greece will be the first country where English isn't the main language so I'm looking forward to a bit more culture shock.