British oddities

Some things here are a constant surprise or mystery to me. First of all, the driving on the left thing is just impossible for me to conceptualize. I do not drive here, of course, but even walking or being in the occasional taxi, cars just seem to be coming from every possible direction all the time. I try to carefully look in all the directions and still somehow there is always a car coming at me out of nowhere. Fortunately the drivers are all very considerate or I would have died ten times by now.

Does driving on the left also mean that pedestrians pass each other on the left, on sidewalks? I literally can't tell; there seems to be no clear pattern except that I am usually doing it wrong. On the rare occasions when I pass someone without doing an awkward dance from side to side, I feel a small sense of triumph. Yes! I successfully walked past another human on the sidewalk! I never have a problem with this at home.

The next oddest thing for me is the doors. So many doors! You go into a building through the outer door, then there is an inner door, then a door into the hallway, then a door into the stairs and a door on top of the stairs, then doors dividing different sections of the hallway – doors doors doors. The doors often send mixed design signals (like there is a handle on the front, but you have to push it to go in) so I'm always struggling with them. They often thunk shut behind you, so that wherever you go there are doors thudding in the background. And they all say "Fire Door Keep Closed" with the same blue sticker, so I think about fire a lot. Here are some of the doors leading to my collaborator's office.

Here are the doors in my apartment. This is actually good design, because in a small space you want to be able to separate the smaller spaces, but still.

Same spot with the doors open.

Something that I insist is NOT good design is the release button. Every exterior door everywhere is locked from the inside; to open it, you have to press a button (usually green) by the side of the door.

Why on earth to they do this? What if you needed to get out in a hurry and didn't know the system? My collaborator suggested it's because this is how you have a door be locked from one side only, but we need that in the US too; our system is to have a push handle on the inside that unlocks the door. Is that not better in every way? Also, in order to lock my apartment door with a key, you have to pull the handle upward while you lock it. This is considered normal and I would never have been able to figure this out on my own. Why is this a thing?

These windows are also odd. See how they open just a couple inches only at the top? Okay, very safe, but hardly any airflow.

All bathrooms (in homes/hotels) have this towel warmer rack thing, I guess the idea being that you would turn it on as you head into the shower and then have a warm towel when you get out? This seems like a lot to remember – do people actually do that? Do they leave it on all the time? Also, there are no other towel racks or hooks in the bathroom; how is that right?

 

This kind of shower control, though, is genius, especially living by myself: one side controls the temperature, the other side just turns it off and on. Good idea!

Also, my apartment has a washer but no dryer; people here just hang stuff to dry. This is great ecologically and works really well in my current situation (it's just me and I didn't bring much), but it would be hard to adapt to this in a household of five people who do laundry rarely.

All wall outlets look upside-down to me, and they all have on-off switches built into the outlet.

Finally: Addresses. Where I live, houses have numbers. Here, not so much: there is a street (e.g., Sweetman Place) and a micro-postal code (BS2 0HY - these change every few blocks), and often a name of the building (Crown & Anchor House), and that's it. I thought I might order something from Amazon while I was here and I just couldn't figure out how it would reach me.