{"id":5835,"date":"2017-05-04T21:10:02","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T02:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/?p=5835"},"modified":"2017-05-04T21:17:31","modified_gmt":"2017-05-05T02:17:31","slug":"accommodations-and-such","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/?p=5835","title":{"rendered":"Accommodations and Such"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Todays run: 3.5 miles (watson road)]<\/p>\n

I realize that regular travelers already know all of this stuff.\u00a0 Just skip today’s blog if it bothers you.<\/p>\n

Things are different in Europe.\u00a0 (I suppose they are even more different in Asia!)<\/p>\n

Last time I was in a motel room in the US it was at a Super 8.\u00a0 The room had two double beds, maybe queen size.\u00a0 There was a desk and a dresser, a chair, a TV, a closet, a sink area and a bathroom with shower.\u00a0 It was really kind of minimal for a motel room around these parts.<\/p>\n

Our room in London, like the one in Berlin two years ago, was about half that size.\u00a0 The king sized bed filled the room with barely space to walk around it.\u00a0 There was a closet and a small desk. We had our suitcases on the floor, frequently transferring things on and off the bed as the day progressed. \u00a0 Berlin had a shower only; London had a bath\/shower combination with the tub up on a bit of a pedestal so that you had to make a definite step up getting in and a big step down getting out. Both London and Berlin were nicer hotels than the Super 8.\u00a0 The fittings and such were nicer and things were in better repair.\u00a0 But they were much smaller.<\/p>\n

We borrowed an electrical connector\/adapter kit from my sister-in-law’s family.\u00a0 Plugs in Germany were one type.\u00a0 Plugs in the UK were a different type. The adapter kit did the job for us.\u00a0 One outlet in the bathroom of our hotel room in London actually would accommodate a regular two-prong plug.\u00a0 But the system was 200 volts I believe. That worked OK with our computer and phone chargers.\u00a0 My wife’s hair dryer definitely did not get along with the higher voltage and we ended up throwing it away.<\/p>\n

Money was Pounds instead of dollars.\u00a0 The smallest paper money was a 5.\u00a0 Coins were 2, 1, .50, .20, .10, .05, .02, .01.\u00a0 And the coins are not the predictable sizes.\u00a0 (Our .05 is bigger than our .10.\u00a0 Their .02 was big, almost as big as the .50.\u00a0 The 1.0 and 2.0 coins were gold colored, the medium denominations were silver colored and the lower ones were copper colored.)\u00a0 Being a big city, it was hard for me to calibrate how much things should cost anyway.\u00a0 So I really can’t say if it was expensive or not.\u00a0 I don’t think it was terrible.<\/p>\n

The toilets in the UK are different.\u00a0 Some have two flushes, either low or high flow.\u00a0 Some had two buttons, others had a handle but you had to work it twice to get the higher flow.\u00a0 I felt like I was just getting the hang of that when it was time for us to leave.\u00a0 There was some mild anxiety with this because I couldn’t count on getting things right the first time.<\/p>\n

We weren’t there long enough for me to get the hang of the left-hand drivers.\u00a0 I wasn’t driving myself, but as a pedestrian it’s good to know which way things are going.\u00a0 We had one instance I distinctly remember when we had no idea when it was safe to cross the intersection.\u00a0 We latched on to a native and did what they did.<\/p>\n

Our cell phone plan allowed us to continue on as we did at home for an extra fee per day.\u00a0 Wifi was everywhere in the hotels and such.\u00a0 There was wifi on the regional train.\u00a0 But none of that seemed to work in the Underground. We used our computers just like when we travel in the US.<\/p>\n

Time was different from home by 5 hours and from work by 6 hours.\u00a0 So I would get calls from the office in the afternoon and evening.\u00a0 Folks at work were going home when it was 11 pm and I was in bed.<\/p>\n

One thing was very reminiscent of home.\u00a0 I saw this kiosk in the fancy mall near our hotel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Todays run: 3.5 miles (watson road)] I realize that regular travelers already know all of this stuff.\u00a0 Just skip today’s blog if it bothers you. Things are different in Europe.\u00a0 (I suppose they are even more different in Asia!) Last time I was in a motel room in the US it was at a Super […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5835"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5840,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5835\/revisions\/5840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}