The Smallest Cultural Differences

Right now, my laundry that I did yesterday morning, is hanging outside getting more wet in the rain. Because it's so cold, and there's little sun, it wasn't dry when I went to bed last night. And today it's raining. The next dry day is supposed to be Thursday, so it'll be then when I can bring it in.

I know this sounds crazy to a lot of my friends. Why am I not using a dryer, you might ask? Well, they just don't. I don't know if it's a Scottish thing, or a Stirling thing, but when I asked my landlady how to use the dryer, she looked at me like I was crazy. Almost everyone here line dries their clothes. I have a little thing that I can unfold to dry the clothes in the house, but it's not big enough and now the clothes would be dripping wet all over the wood floors if I brought them in now. I'm not sure if the dryer part of our washer/dryer even works (it's the same machine), so I get to wait for my clothes. It's definitely different. I think I've gotten too used to the instant gratification of the States.

This even applies to food. Take away is pretty common here. There are plenty of shops where you can get fantastic cheap food (usually an array of chips, fish and other fried meats, kabobs, etc.) but there isn't a place to sit. It's a real take-away. I've seen plenty of people stand out on the sidewalk with friends to eat when it's nice out, but a lot are like me and they live close to the shop and walk home to eat. But there are very, very few drive thrus. I was discussing this with a car full of people on the way home from church the other day. I made the remark that you have to get out of your car to get your food, and I'm not used to that. I kind of miss my drive thru (not to mention Wendy's and Taco Bell, neither of which are over here).

Americans are lazy and impatient. We are so used to getting what we want when we want. I knew when I came here that there would be differences to get used to, but I have to say, I wasn't thinking about how I did my laundry. I did know about the food, though. I'm going to miss chip shops when I'm state-side again. Now if we could just get drive-thru chip shops in the States! Haha.