LaughAtlantis

I was in the UK for nine days or so and the thing I was most looking forward to upon my return was a really good hot shower. This is not because England and Scotland are particularly dirty places; it's just that their showers suck.

It's very nice to be back in my own space again, in that my house has really good water pressure and the mattress on my bed is just perfect and Rod has Breathe-Right strips to keep him less snore-y.

But the thing is, my cubicle at work - my nice new cubicle, with the great view! - is waiting for me, all shiny and neat and ready to be attacked. And it will then suck me in like a gaping maw. Feh.

Next time I go on vacation I am bringing my bed and shower with me... and maybe I'll install a bed in the cubicle, so it will seem even homier when I get back.

(Clearly the jet lag is setting in, as I am now punchy, and yawning, and visualizing a bed next to my desk. Gah, I need another vacation.)

Stuff that's better in the UK:
* Street signs - clearer, bigger, and occasionally painted on the roads so you're sure to be in the proper lanes
* Chocolate - made with more milk, for creamy goodness
* Rude expressions - Sod off, mate!
* Old things - Castles in the US are of the pink plastic or bouncy variety. Stone ones are much cooler.
* Buses - I want double decker buses here in Boston, I really do.
* Movie scheduling - The theaters provide a time when the previews start, when the movie starts, and when the movie ends. Nice.
* The view from a train - rolling hills, farms, sheep... and (as my husband put it) "no poor people's back gardens!"
* Marks & Spencer - We don't have it here. We should.

Stuff that's better in the US:
* Plumbing - It's newer.
* Showers - They aren't electric. It's very odd to have to flip a switch on a shower that is outside the shower - or outside the ROOM. America also has better water pressure. (See: Plumbing.)
* Movie variiety - We have more multiplexes.
* Continuity - It was very weird, in London, to have Buckingham Palace next to The Gap (figuratively speaking). It's just a really weird amalgam of old and new and stuffy and wild and austere and commercialized.

I liked Scotland a lot better than London. London was congested and commercial and sort of cold... it was like Rome & New York combined, with this strange sense of history and significance surrounded by stores, stores, and more stores. I liked Edinburgh better... the sense of history there isn't as stuffy; it's castles (pillaging!) rather than palaces (being all courtly and that) and the city just integrates itself better. It's got gorgeous architecture and you just sort of walk around appreciating that, while also soaking up the fact that it's a cool city. In London, the Planet Hollywood and TGIFridays made it tougher for me to soak up the feel of the place.

So, in a nutshell... Scotland, wonderful; London, eh; Marks & Spencer's, huge thumbs up; American plumbing, BIG yay.