Wednesday was another travel day – lots of time spent on trains and in train stations – as we made our way to the Lake District, an area that every native we’ve talked to has raved about.

Our destination was Windermere. We got on the train in Chester at 11:30, changed trains at Crewe, Preston and Oxenholme; and landed in Windermere at about 3. This gave us lots of time to reflect on our experiences so far with functioning in a new country.

Getting connected to the Internet has been a different experience here. While driving around the USA last summer we had an easy time getting onto the Internet, but it was hard to find time to write. Now that we are not driving at all, we have plenty of time to write, but we are still having challenges getting connected to share our observations.

Most of our access has been thru dial-up connections, as our ISP has access numbers all over Europe. There are numerous “cyber cafes” here, but they are useless if you carry a laptop. Connecting a laptop into a cyber-cafe’s network should be a trivial issue. But with the exception of one place in Glastonbury, none have been willing or able to provide this service.

The lady at the I-station in Chester was quite rude about it. “We can’t do it.” Obbie replied, “Is it because you don’t want to do it, or that you don’t know how to do it? Because I know how to do it. It’s easy.” “We can’t do it,” was her only answer.

Inquiring at Tiny Computers, a store down the street, resulted in the donation of a modem cable compatible with British phone jacks (Thank you!), and the owner of our guest house was gracious enough to allow access to a phone line so we could dial in. Since you’re reading this, we had success getting on-line.

Food is another thing that’s different. The Brits seem to like rich fried food, as well as things like pasties and pies and sausage rolls. Breakfast is usually eggs (they like them soft), bacon (not the greasy American style bacon, but something that’s a lot more like ham), sausages (the good ones are like small bratwursts, the bad ones are kinda dry, but bigger than the breakfast sausages we know), beans (kinda like canned baked beans), coffee, juice, and toast. We have found some “greasy spoon” type cafes – especially around London – that were a good deal for the money.

The pies are what we call pot pies (there’s no pot in the pies), small pies filled with a stew of meat and vegetables. Pasties are like the pies, but the crusts are folded into a wedge to make them easy to eat by hand. A nearly identical pasty is common in the old mining regions of northern Michigan.

We haven’t tried the sausage rolls yet, but they look like sausage rolled into the same type of pie crust. One of our favorite foods is what they call jacket potatoes – a baked potato, usually cut up and smothered with melted cheese and assorted other tasty enhancements.

And of course there’s fish & chips, one of the best food values around here. Like all deep-fried food, they can be kinda greasy, but you get a lot of food for your money. At the end of the work day, you can see people passing on the street carrying their fish & chips home in a bundle wrapped in white paper that looks a lot like a 5-pound pack of meat from an American deli.

There’s also a wide selection of ethnic food: Indian, Chinese (rice is extra, unlike in the states), some Middle Eastern, and Italian (pizza and pasta).

The language spoken here may be the “same”, but a lot of words are different. For instance…

When we got to the airport, we loaded our rucksacks onto a trolley to roll them about. If you hire a car, drive on the left side of the road, and use the motorway if you’re in a hurry. (BTW, petrol is 75p/litre. Do the math, and it translates to about $4.35/gallon. That’s why most people take trains, and most cars you see are little.)

Drivers need to get the hang of driving thru roundabouts, give way when you see the red triangular signs, and leave your car in a designated car park, or you may get clamped. If you forget to lock you car, you may get nicked.

If you travel by train, you must first queue up for tickets, and before you join the train you must make sure that it calls at your destination station.

If you have a dog (pronounced dohg), keep it on a lead; and if it fouls, you should pick up the waste and put it in a nearby dust bin.

If your room is on the first floor, be ready to climb stairs.

Burgers are served with chips, and crisps come in a sealed foil bag.

The lingo is the easy part. The accents are another story, as they’ve been getting thicker as we’ve gotten further from London.

After arriving in Windermere, we carried our packs around town for a while looking for a room. Most of the inns seemed too upscale for our tastes.

We stopped at a reasonable-looking place called the Queens pub to inquire on a room, and met Margot. Her daughter works at the Elleray Hotel nearby, and they set us up for £28/nite.

After hanging out and chatting with Margot for a bit, we walked around looking for food, only to come back to Queens for dinner.