End Of The U.K. Trip - Some Interesting Things

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Back to the green, green grass of home!  It's hot, 37C and that is quite a change from the last five weeks.  We experienced most cold weather from 2C to 16C, one day it was 24C, sunny and clear skies.  The next day we found ourselves in a snow flurry.  It rained off and on but never anything more than a few drops.  It appears it rained at night and we were never aware of it always waking up to wet streets, sidewalks, and cars. 

It nice to be back home but I'm ready to do something else.  We will go to SMA for a week.  We have two events early in May and then we will head to San Antonio.  The purpose of that trip is to search for a very small travel trailer we will store in Laredo in a covered storage.  There is a lot logistics involved.  I don't have any U.S.  identification other than expired Texas driver's license and expired ID card.  Texas won't issue me any of those two without proof of residency and they are on to those of us who maintain a private P.O.  Now they require a utility bill of some kind; electric, water, gas, cable, telephone.  

We are looking into the South Dakota residency system that you can obtain in just one day.  However, we would have to find the rv, register for a temporary state move permit from Texas.  Why Texas?  We want to buy it in Texas for warranty issues in the first year.  South Dakota will provide a state ID card and registration for the rv.   For now, we don't want to import the rv into Mexico.  Our goal is to travel the U.S. which we never really had a chance to do except for Texas and our trip to Quartzite.   So, it's a lot to figure out and coordinate but first to see what we want to buy and go from there.

Okay, back to parking in the U.K.  As I said, there is no free parking except at home.  Monthly rates are available and daily rates are sky high.  

Most expensive yearly parking permits by city in the U.K.  The permit is only good for the council area where you have purchased the permit.  Outside of that council area you pay for parking on an hourly or daily basis.  In London, there is a more expensive permit for multi-councils because of the size of the city. 

With a monthly permit, you will still need to pay when you go to another council.  If you want to visit friends, relatives, or take a trip, you will have to pay the daily rate.  When we registered at the hotel in Edinburgh, they had a tablet at registration where you enter your plate number and it is good from check-in to check-out time only.  They warned us that after check-out we would have to pay or risk being fined.

This is a chart of the pricing in Lincoln.  Each city can be different.  We got ripped off our last day.   I know I covered this but for those that may have not read it.  We chose the early bird rate.  Enter before 9 a.m. and exit before 23:59 (to the minute).  The parking in front of the building has 12 spaces free overnight.  I'd move the car before 8 a.m., move it to the paid car park around the corner, pay for the early bird rate and then move the car back to the free overnight parking after 6 p.m.  What a mess people have to live with.  The only other free parking is the park and ride areas for trams and buses.  The supermarkets have warning signs that parking is limited to X number of hours and that abusers (non-shoppers) will be fined.  

The last day I went to pay.  You enter your plate number, choose the number of hours or specials, and tap with a debit/credit card.  You receive a ticket for the dashboard and a receipt.  I didn't get one.  It appeared that it didn't take the card.  I did it again and check my bank online.  Charged twice.  There is no recourse that is easy.  It takes two weeks minimum.   When we were ready to leave two hours later, there were others trying to figure it all out because there was no paper in the machine.  The machine doesn't give you a message of  "out of paper", it just takes you back to start.  Rip off.

Another interesting U.K. thing we found was the Tesco Meal Deal.  Tescos are everywhere and come in all shapes and sizes from a corner store you can barely turn around in to a super mega Walmart style store.  All of them are freezing inside.  

The shelves are lined with sandwiches, fruit cups, bangers and mash, pickle and cheese sandwiches and many, many more.   To get the meal deal price of 3.85 you need to have a Tesco club discount card.  Wherever you see the yellow sign, that is the club price.  Most items have it and you earn points for what you spend along with price discounts.  

They sell a ton of these combinations which are a sandwich, chips, and a drink or a dessert.  Business people, construction workers, retirees, students, everyone gets the deal.   They are so reduce the food prices depending on expiration dates.  We took advantage of the deals as well but we would split between the two of us.  

Here is a single serving of lasagna.  We opted for the 2-3 person serving taking a chance on what it would be like.  £3.50 and it weighed at least a kilo.

 

This is how our dinner turned out.  We popped it in the microwave for five minutes and added some veggies and we had a great dinner with a glass of wine.

We've all seen the newer hand washing stations in airports.  We found this one in Tesco.  Not much to it other than you stick your hands under the sensor and the rest is done for you other than rubbing your hands.  Soap, rinse, and dry!

The subway is truly a marvel.  Millions of riders everyday throughout the U.K.  It takes a lot of abuse and requires constant maintenance.  However, it's very old and some of the routes date back to the mid 1800s.  It's very noisy and shakes and sways a lot especially on curves.  Here's a short clip.

I started to write this blog post yesterday.  Big surprise this morning when I opened my email.  I received notice of a traffic violation in the council of Cardiff!  Too funny.  Everything is on camera.  Apparently, I entered a bus lane.  It happened a couple of times as the GPS says take the left lane to exit.  

There were a lot of things that were new to us and most involved language and terms that are used.  It takes some getting used to but context always helps.  Everyone is very friendly and there is so much history that one could travel there for years.   We are considering doing some house sitting and the U.K. looks like a good second to Spain.