Feeling a little under the weather - 27 May, 2009

Another picture of Aberdeen city centre

Jeff and I both have managed to get a little under the weather. Sore throats and such. We think it might be because of allergies and different climate. And this house, I cleaned and cleaned the other day and vacuumed over and over. They don’t clean places up here like they do at home when you first rent a place. So the carpet was less than desirable when I vacuumed the first time and since we’ve been sleeping on the floor practically, I am thinking that’s what made us both sick. We are starting to feel a little better though and I am hoping that cleaning this place up helped us both.

We had porridge (aka oatmeal) for breakfast this morning. We hit the grocery store last night to stock up for the week and I was really having a hard time figuring out what some stuff was and what they call it here. For instance cream cheese is called soft cheese and I’m not quite sure yet what they call sour cream. What I do know is that sometimes you can tell just by the package because like they have Lays potato chips here but they are called Walkers but you can tell because the logo is the exact same and so are the colors, just for some reason they are named something different here. Several things are that way. But I’m learning. When we checked out last night the guy was kind of laughing at us because of all the groceries we had. They just aren’t use to seeing that much stuff bought at one time. And Jeff and I had a hard time getting it all in the little fridge. They don’t have a lot of preservatives here, so things go bad rather quickly. They mostly only buy 2 days of food at a time. But we managed to get a weeks worth and think we can manage that without anything going bad.

I drove home last night from the market. Jeff feels like I need to learn now, in case something happens and I need to drive and he’s not around, etc. I was a little intimidated because they drive so fast here and very aggressive. But I think I did okay. It was a right hand drive with standard transmission and I thought shifting with my left would be the oddest part to over come but really it’s not. At least not for me. The hardest thing for me was being able to judge the curb on the left since I’m not right by it and getting adjusted to looking to my left for the review mirror. I’m just not use to doing that at all. I almost hit the curb once, because I just can’t seem to judge well enough to stay away from it yet. But I’m learning. I think when the Yukon gets here it won’t be bad at all since I will be driving on the left side of the car. I have seen some bigger vehicles on the roads and the biggest obstacle I have seen so far will be in the smaller towns where people park on the street and its only two lane road. I’ll have to stop and let people pass by in the other direction before I can move on.

The water here is really very different and having ice is kind of unheard of around here. You can buy ice trays but you really don’t need them. The water comes out of the tap ice cold and it’s like drinking spring water. Guys won’t get this part so skip on down……….but the girls will. It’s like washing your hair in spring water every day. It’s GREAT on my hair and I love it. The only thing I am not keen on, it’s kind of stripping the color from my hair.

Guys can pick up from here………..LOL. The water is so cold that in the toilet………..if you get the bathroom warm enough, you actual have condensation on the tank where the water is stored because it’s so much colder than the room. It’s so bizarre! LOL

I’ll leave ya on that note!