This morning, as I scurried around the tennis court picking up balls blown about wildly by the spring wind, I made sure I had all four tucked into my pockets. As I lobbed them back over the net to my playing partner Emma, I had a passing thought. Back in my other life, I played tennis regularly in Evanston with Dawn but in America only three balls come in a cannister. I did a double-take the first time I saw Emma's seemingly extra-long English cannister of four tennis balls, but it's now become second nature to play with four balls instead of three.
There are so many other small, almost inconsequential differences about life over here that, when added together, sometimes make me feel the world is knocked slightly askew. For example, it took me awhile to realize that a standard sheet of paper is not 8 inches by 11.5 inches, but 8 inches by 12.5 inches. Notebook paper has four holes on the sides, not three, and it goes into 2-ring binders, not 3-ring binders.
More differences can be found in housing. The toilets or loos (bathrooms) in older homes are often carpeted, even around the toilet itself. Most front doors have automatic locks so you better make sure you have your keys when you leave the house! And typical English houses eschew the open floor plans so common in American residential architecture. Most flats and houses I've seen have narrow corridors (hallways) with doors opening into separate kitchens, lounges and bedrooms. An English ex-pat friend living in a big, open Evanston house recently told me she missed the coziness of having smaller rooms she could close off.
Then there are the outlets or, as they're called here, sockets. Every outlet has an individual on/off switch next to the part where the plug (cord) goes in. I've finally gotten used to switching them on (usually) but for months I'd sit there repeatedly clicking a light or trying to push down the lever on the toaster before remembering I had to turn the outlet on.
I've finally gotten used to the symbols on the television and the remote controls, too, though ovens still leave me mystified. I didn't even realize I was accustomed to seeing certain symbols for on/off, volume, channels and other electronic buttons, but those symbols are completely different over here. It's like trying to learn a new language.
However, I didn't realize just how much I'd adjusted to all of this until I sat in a restaurant last week with one of my dearest friends, who moved to London from Chicago this January after marrying a Brit. I glanced at the menu and quickly decided what to order, but she seemed to take forever. I was ravenous and we have a tried-and-true friendship, so I felt free to impatiently ask her if she was ever going to make up her mind.
"I'm sorry," she said. "It's just that I have to read the menu really carefully because I never know what I'm going to get. Everything is different from what I expect."
I suddenly remembered those days of feeling off-kilter and like I didn't quite fit in. I apologized to my friend and helped explain the menu to her.
It does amaze me now to understand how quickly what was new became normal. Usually. In our tennis game this morning, Emma and I reached the score of deuce and, when I won the next point, Emma didn't say, "Ad out," when stating the score on her next serve. Instead, she said, "Advantage you. That's the English way."
Leave a comment