After just one week in the UK, I have discovered some, for me as a Swede, quite surprising things.
Busses are not going to stop unless you wave at them. I learnt this lesson the hard way many years ago when I visited my aunt in Cambridge. So luckily for me, I have not yet suffered from the consequences of being an unknowing tourist waiting for a bus. This system does make sense by the way but it’s probably too hard to implement in, say, Sweden today.
Another thing I noted was that Britts generally don’t use”disktrasor” (kitchen towels that can absorb water) nor do they use “diskborstar” (a kind of brush used only for doing dishes). I experienced the same shock when I moved to the US fall of 2018. Apparently the shock was not severe enough…
The most annoying thing so far has been the fact that the door to my room self-locks (as do all other doors in the house). Perhaps britts see it as a convenience to not have to lock one’s door using the key every time they leave. For me this this auto-locking mechanism has meant that I’ve climbed into my room twice within the scope of four days… I’ve never been happier that I (a) live on the first floor and (b) I tend to have my window open.
Overall, my first week in Oxford has been quite well. I talked with two really nice post-grad students in the Hertford quad during quarantine, went to London with Elliot (whom I met on the plane here, also starting a masters degree at Oxford), had a board game night with my old pals Kevin, Rebecca and Anthony before finishing off the week by meeting some of my MPhil coursemates. Oh, and I also found, and safely returned, an iPhone 11 on the street on my way back home tonight.
