Out And About, 19 May 2014

Our day began with going to the mission office to get reimbursement for the extra baggage we brought.  The office is under our flat.  We met Elder Adams who was very helpful in assisting with our request and offered to drive us to the surgery this afternoon to register with a doctor.

Liz "knocked" our door at 9:45 a.m. to join her and others to catch the bus to the Tesco market at 10:10 a.m.  Since it is our preparation day, we are able to wear casual clothes.  We joined the group of  ten with lively conversation and waited for the bus to arrive.

The Metro

The driver rides in the compartment in the front on the right.  Boy can he aim down the narrow road, lickety split!  You can see the trees that grow over the road.  There are no sidewalks and the road is right up next to the trees.  We had thought of getting bicycles before we came over here, but seeing the roads and the speed of the traffic, we quickly dispelled that idea.  It will even been unsafe to walk!  Sidewalks are almost non existent and we did not see a continuous one from the temple into Lingfield.

The purple cart in the isle is called a shopping trolley - a bag on wheels.  Some shoppers use them for ease in getting their goods home.  Some in our group had them in tow.

Outside Tesco

Have you seen this before?  Look close and you will see two shoppers with carts going up the escalator? Is that what it is called?  We don't know, but that is what it looks like.

We were there two hours before the bus came back through to pick us up.  We had our list but of course we thought of other items as we shopped.  It was nice to be able to go down isle after isle and check things out.  Some things have different labels and are promoted differently in the USA.  Switching to grams and liters will be a brain stretch!  I realized that when I picked up a box of Bisquick and read the instructions for pancakes.  Thank goodness for the Internet!  There was no Stir Crazy so we settled for microwave popcorn.  Dad did find Dr. Pepper, so he is very happy.

Oh, we found Digestives, the dark chocolate covered biscuits Halie brought us last year from England.  Yes, cookies and crackers are called biscuits.  Do Americans put yellow in cheese?  Their cheddar here is all white.  The strawberries and oranges are delicious!  The milk and lettuce labels state the product is "British."

I went to Customer Service to sign up for their club "scheme," but didn't know my address so I will do that the next time.  I sure felt silly about it and quickly put an address card in my wallet when we got back to the flat.

Boarding the bus for the ride home. Yes, we are getting in on the left side!

Back at the flat, we had lunch, put the food away, and went to register at the surgery.  Elder Adams dropped us off while he went on to the bank to make a deposit.  We filled out the forms and finished up just as he returned.  Let me tell you, those roundabouts can put you in a spin!  You almost get dizzy watching the cars go this way and that way and you going another way!  Made me think of the movie, "The Man Who Knew Too Little," will Bill Murry - the part when the Bobbies are chasing him around a round about.

We fought jet lag during the afternoon.  We so wanted to go to sleep but pushed through the hours until bedtime.  We prepared and ate dinner, read to each other and read individually, went on a walk, and played Solitaire.

What a sidewalk looks like and why it is not very safe to ride bikes or even to walk in some places.  The vegetation grows over half the walking space and there are no shoulders on the roads.  We saw a couple of bikers and the traffic had to almost stop behind them until they could pass.  There is literally no extra space on the road.  The speed limit here is 50, and when large trucks whizzed passed us, we swayed with the movement of the air.