Things we miss from America

It's been more than four months since we moved to UK from America (that's how people refer to US here), so I thought it's a good idea to take stock of what we miss from America. We miss our dear friends the most. In addition to that, here is the list of others:

Shopping: We knew about this before, but we still can't get used to it: store hours are really short. In our town centre, all the shops close at 7 every day. It's "extended" hours Thursday - Saturday (meaning stores close at 8). The usual Sunday hours are 10-4. Call me a materialist, but I need things during weekdays. Another annoying bit is the need to bag the groceries ourselves. By the time I have successfully opened the first plastic bag after a lot of struggle, the person at the till has finished scanning all the items and just sits and has fun watching me struggle opening the other bags. There are some stores where they are kind enough to have plastic bags opened and ready for you to stuff things in, but it is not too common. We do miss our Costco and Indian grocery store (Patel Brothers) from Waltham.

Car Fuel: Aside from the fact that one litre of Petrol costs an arm and a leg, there are no credit card machines at the pump. You need to fill up the tank, note down the number above the pump, walk to the cashier inside, wait in a line for your turn and pay for the fuel. I could not believe it the first time that I went round the pump four times to make sure I have not missed a card machine that has been sneakily hidden somewhere. Nope, couldn't find anything. I really envy the guys in New Jersey where it's full service at all pumps.

Outdoors: It's really beatiful around here, but North East US was much better for outdoors. We miss it, especially Walden Pond, our famous haunt. Plus the weather was better there (at least when I was there). We have not explored much here, so hopefully there are equally good places to see.

Book stores: Wife and I miss Barnes & Noble. Before we had the boy, we used to walk into a store, get a coffee and spend hours together there. It was a great atmosphere to try out different books and catch a little sleep. Now that our boy is getting bigger, now would have been a good time to go to a store and introduce him to all the kids books there. We cannot find anything like that here.

Toll free numbers: In the US, you knew that if you call a 1-800 number (or a 1-877 or 1-888 number) from a landline, the call was free. If you use your mobile phone, you just use up your minutes. UK has something similar - 0800 numbers. But most customer service numbers are 0844 or 0845 numbers. They are neither toll free nor regular numbers. There is a per minute charge for calling these numbers - for example, we pay 6p a minute for calls from landline and 20p a minute for calls from mobile. It is the not phone company that is getting all this money, but rather the company that owns the number. What a great way to make money - offer lousy service, have your customers contact your 0845 number to complain and put them on hold for a long time.

Dunkin Donuts: In the Boston area, we were pampered with the presence of Dunkin Donuts around every corner. There are Starbucks and Costa in many places, but they are just too expensive (£3 for a coffee?). There are Burker Kings and McDonalds around, but they are few and far between. Now you could argue that national chains are evil and we should really frequent a local place. I have not seen anything good in our area and in any case, they won't be open when we want coffee. Now that I think of Dunkin, I do not see cops on the road or in fact, anywhere at all in Basingstoke, presumably because there are no DD's around. The interesting fact is that CCTV is used in all public places, for "our own personal safety and security". By some estimates there is one camera for every 10 UK residents, which sounds like an awful lot of monitoring to me.