{"id":443,"date":"2019-11-30T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2019-11-30T17:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/?p=443"},"modified":"2019-11-30T15:08:58","modified_gmt":"2019-11-30T20:08:58","slug":"what-i-miss-about-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/what-i-miss-about-england\/","title":{"rendered":"What I miss about England"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are some nice things about England that I didn&#8217;t really appreciate until I lost them.  Here&#8217;s a list I&#8217;ve compiled of things I miss from England now that I&#8217;m back in the States:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Speed limit signs<\/strong> &#8211; In the UK (and most of Europe), speed limit signs are repeated every 200 yards.  In the U.S., I keep finding that I&#8217;ve turned onto a road and I have no idea what the limit is.  It could be a good 10 miles before a speed limit sign appears and I just have to follow traffic until then.<\/li><li><strong>1-day prime shipping<\/strong> &#8211; Yup, the UK is smaller, so it&#8217;s just 1-day shipping for Prime customers.  Basically, if you want anything, you&#8217;ll have it tomorrow.  I had no idea that 2-days was agonizingly slow until I&#8217;d been spoiled by 1-day.<\/li><li><strong>Walking to church<\/strong> &#8211; Your denomination is now Anglican.  The church is in the middle of town.  Just walk there.  It&#8217;s a pleasant part of life in the English countryside.<\/li><li><strong>Decent public transportation<\/strong> &#8211; Yes, the German and Swiss trains are more reliable.  Your UK train might be 5 minutes late.  I miss complaining about that.  I don&#8217;t know how reliable U.S. trains are, because they don&#8217;t go where I want, and that seems to be true for most Americans.<\/li><li><strong>Yoga pants are not worn as work attire<\/strong> &#8211; Seriously, America?<\/li><li><strong>Sales tax (VAT) is included in the price<\/strong> &#8211; You pick up a meal deal for \u00a35 and a newspaper for  \u00a31.  Can you guess how much it will cost at the till?  There&#8217;s a learned helplessness in the States where we wait for the cashier to tell us what we owe.  It&#8217;s like watching a game of the Price is Right.<\/li><li><strong>Pre-green lights<\/strong> &#8211; Do you ever watch the light for the cross traffic to see when it turns red so you can be ready to go?  No need in the UK.  When it&#8217;s almost your turn, the red light and yellow light simultaneously illuminate for a second so you can shift into gear before it turns green.  (Yes, you&#8217;re driving a manual.  Everyone does.)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For balance, there are a few things I missed in the UK and am grateful to have again:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Honeycrisp apples<\/strong> &#8211; I don&#8217;t know why they haven&#8217;t crossed the pond.  They&#8217;re the best.<\/li><li><strong>Decent bagels<\/strong> &#8211; I&#8217;d even take a West Coast bagel over an English one.<\/li><li><strong>Mexican food<\/strong> &#8211; Hmm, I keep listing food.  This is the last one.  The Indian food is great, but you&#8217;d be hard pressed to find a decent Mexican restaurant in England.<\/li><li><strong>Turning on a red&nbsp;light<\/strong> &#8211; It&#8217;s efficient.  I&#8217;ve seen intersections in Germany that allow it.  All countries should get on board here.<\/li><li><strong>Friendly banter with bystanders<\/strong> &#8211; I know that people&#8217;s friendliness varies by region, but even in Washington State I can make a joke to a bystander without being a weird American.<\/li><li><strong>Yellow stripes on road<\/strong> &#8211; Pop quiz: you&#8217;re on a road divided into three sections with dashed lines.  Which ones are going in your direction?  In the U.S., it&#8217;s immediately obvious: yellow lines divide traffic traveling in opposite directions.  In the U.K., all the dividers are white, so you&#8217;d better pay close attention to signs.<\/li><li><strong>Window screens<\/strong> &#8211; Would you like to open the window to let in fresh air without inviting bugs as well?  Americans have kept the secret of the window screen for over a century.  It&#8217;s amazing that no spies have brought it back to the Isles.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are some nice things about England that I didn&#8217;t really appreciate until I lost them. Here&#8217;s a list I&#8217;ve compiled of things I miss from England now that I&#8217;m back in the States: Speed limit signs &#8211; In the UK (and most of Europe), speed limit signs are repeated every 200 yards. In the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":445,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions\/445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}