Wrong! Laundry in UK/Europe isn’t like America at all. Everything is different.
#1 is Most households do NOT have a dryer and if you are under 55, none of us know what life is like without a standard washer/dryer in America! Ok, so maybe if you grew up or live in Manhattan, you know European styled laundry- maybe.
But where I come from, washer/dryer is a MUST and have always had since University days. No coin ops for me please.
So you get to the UK or Europe and you are in a house, you will find a small, on the floor waist high, (usually in the kitchen!) washer No dryer. Or, in some cases, the washer IS the dryer! As strange/funny as it sounds, and as you probably guessed, No they don’t work worth a damn! (you run the washer load, then click over to the dryer load never removing the laundry)
Be prepared, you will either have a clothes line outside or inside or not at all and you just hang things on the back of chairs.
You ask, why do they not have a dryer? Well I’ve been asking and get kind of a blank stare from people! the standard answer is the electricity bills here are so high no one can/wants to afford a dryer cycle for their electric bill. I’m all for being frugal and saving money BUT I am not for having sand paper rock hard towels to dry off after a nice hot shower!
When we finally settle down and have a flat or a house, we Will have a dryer trust me!
As a vegetarian (newly for only 5 months) and 100% organic, Non GMO for 4+ yrs my food is my lifestyle not a “diet” and I am very concerned and focused on maintaining organic and non gmo.
I have spent hours and hours cracking the code in grocerers in England and here is what I have found so far:
Most all of the stores as of May 2015 are still 99% Non Gmo as England and Europe have stayed on the No Monsanto path. HOWEVER just late 2014 there was a break thru for the evil chemical company and England at least, has now folded its strong arms against GMOs and is allowing/letting a crack form in its grocery stores to carry GMO products under force of Monsantos evil ways. The top grocers are No longer standing true and stating they are 100% non gmo any longer
I can save you a lot of time shopping: do NOT shop at Sainsbury or M&S and parts of Tesco. they are no longer standing by their word and carrying Non gmo products. so its a crap shoot if you shop there.
Waitrose is the only one I have found so far that is standing by its word that no GMO products will enter their stores thus far May 2015.
Depending on what township you are in, there ARE small tiny independent grocers that are also non gmo and you have to google them for each spot you are in.
Organic? now that is an entire different rabbit hole and the very hardest one to find. Even in the tiny non gmo grocers, they won’t and don’t carry all organic. and it is a never ending search for my food on a daily basis! just when you think you found the best mom/pop shop on a tiny island BAM no, they are not organic 🙁
Waitrose again wins the war (and it is war on our food supplies in my opinion) of having the most Organic sections Usually. it totally depends on the township you are in, how much the grocer carries, some more than others.
But for me for now, we only shop at Waitrose as much as possible. In a pinch we go to Tesco and then you have to search and search for their Organic markers but you can find them. You just have to Really want/and mean your food to matter to you; I am finding here in England. The Blank faces we get when we ask is it Organic? is it Hormone free? shows us that England is educated as America was in 2000 not 2015 🙁 sorry to report negative. And even when they know Organic/non gmo means their following comment is its too expensive! and its REALLY not that much more, 20 pence maybe and yet you choose pesticides for you and your family over 20pence? really?
At the stores, the clerks have NO clue 99% of the time and we search it out together. So far in both Waitrose and Tesco their staff is highly misinformed and don’t trust what they say, do your own research. I found in both stores I cracked their codes and figured it out Before the employee came back to tell me what a manger said!
The secrets of Organic :
Waitrose, look on the shelf tabs that are white for an upper left corner of Green circle showing organic. Mainly only items that are organic are fruits/veggies. some Breads, yogurt, jellies, pasta and pasta sauces are the main categories I have found. NO chips,cereals or other products have been in the stores we’ve been to.
Tesco, NO shelf markings and usually never together, you have to look at every single package of veggies/fruit and its on the actual package in bold letters ORGANIC but they will be in each section of food products not all in one. they ONLY have organic fruits/veggies and some meats and once only, orange juice. No breads/yogurt/juices nothing organic only produce.
Sometimes they will have the fruit box itself that is white and says organic on it and makes it easier to find. Only at Tesco.
HINT: most Organic foods that are produce: fruits/veggies are in plastic bags (which makes me crazy–earth pollution with all the plastic and you take a gorgeous organic item and place it in plastic to get hot and off gas!) sorry I digress, but whereby most NON organic produce is loose American styled, the organics will be wrapped in plastics.
Morrisons: again search every single plastic bag and there is a tiny, dime sized (pence) green apple that says Organic on the apple. you will need your glasses for this company! also they do not group items together so its a search in each category and we are ONLY talking produce. we found NOTHING on the shelves that was organic at all so ONLY produce/fruit/veggies here.
Hope this helps saves you tons of hours that I have spent figuring this all out. It can be done and you feel so Victorious after scoring a good healthy lode but wow it takes a lot of time and your husbands won’t be happy! Now we know what we are looking for and just rebuy the same thing over and over. But even on the tiny Isle of Wight where local produce is a big thing, none are organic 🙁 I had really hoped we would get here to the mom/pop shops and find them all organic non gmo but so far not good. will update if I score!
Traveling and staying in other people’s home for free; sounds Great right?
Well it is- But there are some challenges such as trying to cook dinner in a kitchen you don’t know where everything is and everything is different. Simple things like a really good knife are not always found in other’s home. And most/all kitchens don’t look like this one!
More like this one in Europe:
Rice cookers and toaster ovens are more random but two items that are really important to me when cooking and have yet to find them in anyone else’s kitchen in Europe. simple enough just buy your own right? well yes and no. First off they are expensive and you only have so much space in the car but some things are a must.
For us, its the rice cooker and the good knives so purchasing was required. There are just some things that make life easier and if you cook, knives are the biggy. As you cannot fly on a plane with these in the luggage that is something that must be purchased once you get wherever you are going.
Ok, so the biggest thing to think about and know before you pack all those electrical items and ship them clear across the world:
England has the wackiest plug-ins and your American or even European appliances won’t plug in! so you have to pay 5-6pounds to buy adapters to plug them in; so either you plug/unplug every time you need to use one with the one adaptor or you have to buy several of the items you use the most. do the math and figure out if its worth shipping them over, because shipping cost money too and its done by weight.
And a scary lesson learned today: the outlets in the UK or 220 voltage and some small appliances cannot handle this if the amperage is not right. Trust me because I KNOW, I just blew up my heating pad that I put in the socket with the trusty adaptor and BAM black smoke, light flash and popped the main breaker and thank god, only turned off the tv not blew it out!
Scared me to death! Now I paid to ship over my trusty heating pad and now just got off the page at Argos appliance store, ordering a new one after almost burning my husband with an exploding heating pad! My advice, maybe just leave those non UK small appliances at home and know you get brand new ones here. Or maybe find a second hand store and buy used but either way is a better idea I am thinking!
Not Easily, that’s how, but it obviously can be done! First of all it depends on where you are coming from? and where you are headed to? in this case of course, From the USA to the UK. The UK has the strictest rules vs Europe, so it would be actually easier to go to France than London. We decided that the best thing to do was go for the hardest that way, we had more than enough credentials when we do go to Europe
NO there is no quarantine any longer or we would have never brought Bella along. Simply in your home before you leave, is the required quarantine period. Dogs are required to have a Rabies shot, Tape worm shot and be approved by a Vet certified to do so, as healthy. Then, with all that documentation you get to drive to your local USDA office, in our case, Los Angeles and wait in line for 2hrs to have a girl in the window look over all your documents and decide if you have done it all right, and if not they send you away! If you are good, then they stamp your papers to authorize that they have approved all and you can leave the country and fly on an airplane within 5 days. They DO NOT guarantee you will get into the country you are flying to, that’s your responsibility. Whew, its hard work and we paid extra to have the vet do ALL the paperwork so we knew it was done right.
Then you have to decide on the best/right crate for your dog because NEVER ever let your dog fly in cargo, you have to get an Airline that allows dogs in cabin in a crate. Norwegian is the new kid on the block in Airlines and the one with best- cheapest dog friendly rules and Bella could fly in the cabin. We decided to bump to first class Just in Case there were any issues, we figured we might be treated better if we were in first class and it did make it much smoother. Norwegian doesn’t have Real First Class its really like Business class but two big wide seats so the under storage was quite wide as you can see here.
Make sure you have dog bowls/water/toys (trusty best friend Pony was there to help with nerves) dog food,treats and weewee pads just in case. (these are puppy training pads that look like a human diaper bigger)
We did a trial run at LAX taking Bella all thru the airport in her cargo crate to get used to the smells/noises and to meet the airline employees to ensure we were doing everything right a week before we flew. I’m a freak for details I know; but I didn’t want anything to go wrong and wanted to ensure we had it all right. I think it really helped and I highly recommend it. We met with the Manager before we flew and when we arrived, luck has it that it was his day off but we had his name to drop and a desk agent remembered us.
Without the long details and delays, because nothing goes that easy right(we did have small hiccups but all resolved out), We made it to the first class lounge in time for a relaxing glass of champagne and time to take Bella to the doggy outdoor pee areas. Note: do NOT bring canned dog food sealed, this was the hiccup at security, they freaked out over a sealed wet dog food canned because it was bigger than the 3 ounces! stick to dried food and maybe put wet food in a baggy Not in a sealed canned, who knew? I thought the sealed canned proved it was nothing security risks but NO not the case!
The big moment arrived and onto the plane we went. Secured Bella under the seat in her crate with her crate shut for takeoffs. Mid flight we were able to let her out at our feet at first and then on our laps after everyone was settled in. We also recommend, and we took, the red eye over night flight so she would just sleep anyway and not have to go to the bathroom; but just in case, we were prepared with weewee pads for dogs and luckily didn’t need them until we got to the airport the next morning. We had an 11 hr flight and she slept/held it the whole way 🙂 LOVE this dog.
Her first steps and pee on British soil!
This is the crate we chose as it rolls just like luggage but lay it down and its a bed. I didn’t want a crate you have to carry them vs wheel them. it was a bit too narrow in width but overall worked out well and now we use it as her car crate flat in the backseat and she likes her little house. so it was money well spent.
We also rented an Air BnB house for 3 weeks to allow for plenty of detox time and getting used to everything for Bella. We brought 2 weeks of food (dog food is really heavy) to ensure no change over food right away. Had already researched similar foods offered as American dog food is not plentiful, so we knew which brand we were looking for soon as we arrived. Bella has special needs and eats only the very best organic,non corn, non chicken food so we were extra prepared. All went well and in fact, we swear, she is doing BETTER here than in California. Pretty sure this Scottish Highland dog loves being in her mother land!
We found David! I had been to Florence once before and could Not find David! Seriously, he is not just hanging out easy to find. Down a winding small street and not marked very well is the museum that David now resides. He is no longer in his original outdoor spot but in a museum that is hard to find and you need to know where you are going but we were victorious this time! and Wow Wow Wow is about all you can say. Enormous tall and details in the marble make you feel he’s going to start talking and breathing. He is beautiful and worth the search .
Wrong! Laundry in UK/Europe isn’t like America at all. Everything is different.
elf that is white and says organic on it and makes it easier to find. Only at Tesco.
you have to buy several of the items you use the most. do the math and figure out if its worth shipping them over, because shipping cost money too and its done by weight.
Not Easily, that’s how, but it obviously can be done! First of all it depends on where you are coming from? and where you are headed to? in this case of course, From the USA to the UK. The UK has the strictest rules vs Europe, so it would be actually easier to go to France than London. We decided that the best thing to do was go for the hardest that way, we had more than enough credentials when we do go to Europe
Then you have to decide on the best/right crate for your dog because NEVER ever let your dog fly in cargo, you have to get an Airline that allows dogs in cabin in a crate. Norwegian is the new kid on the block in Airlines and the one with best- cheapest dog friendly rules and Bella could fly in the cabin. We decided to bump to first class Just in Case there were any issues, we figured we might be treated better if we were in first class and it did make it much smoother. Norwegian doesn’t have Real First Class its really like Business class but two big wide seats so the under storage was quite wide as you can see here.
