Closer to London - Purley, Sep. 12

​Been a little while since my last update! I've been spending a lot of time with family, so haven't had much time to sit down and give updates, but I do now!

​Everyone has pretty much gone home over the last couple days. It was definitely hard to see everyone go again since we don't visit often, but the time we did spend together was great! On the last day, we had a walk through the woods nearby with my grandma, that was a nice way to spend the last day with her.

Anyways, I've got other places to visit, so I had to get going. Definitely looking forward to the next time we visit!

As I mentioned before, I'm visiting some cousins near London before I leave the UK. I took a train ride here yesterday, which was good experience navigating the train system before I do it in another language! I had a transfer in London, which required me to change stations. The train into London dropped me off at Paddington, and my train out of London left from Victoria, so I had to take the underground to get between them.

Something that was very confusing to me was the ticket system. I was expecting to have different tickets for each train, but I only got one at the Cheltenham station that appeared to cover it all. The stations here have automated ticket checks, where it scans a bar code on the ticket and opens a gate for you. They're super quick and efficient for those who are familiar with them, but as a non-local, I found them a bit intimidating. There are times when hundreds of people are rushing through, and I didn't want to be the one person holding everyone up if I messed up somehow.

Fortunately I didn't have any major issues, my one ticket got me through all the ticket checking machines, except for 1 at Victoria. Luckily there wasn't anyone around for me to hold up, but I needed a staff member to let me through. I'm not sure why it didn't let me through, makes me wonder if I'd done something wrong somehow.

Other than that, the trip was pretty easy, I'm really liking travelling by train! It's much more pleasant than cars or planes, though it does require some familiarity to get around here, it doesn't seem to be built for non-locals. This is definitely another thing I'll be looking at in detail during the rest of my trip, a good train network is great to have!

I'm staying in my cousin's house for a couple days before flying out to Germany. There's a couple other things I've noticed about houses in the UK that are different from the US. For one, every bathroom has the light switch outside of the bathroom. I've seen this on rare occasion in the US, but I still find it very odd. The only good reason for it that I can think of is that you're less likely to get shocked if you have wet hands. But that's really stretching for a reason, I think they're a bit silly to not be in the bathroom. What if you have malicious friends who decide to turn out your lights while you're in the shower at night time? Then you're just fumbling around in the dark!

Another common thing is hot water radiators in every room. I believe there's a central hot water system that runs hot water to a radiator in every room for heating. Most of what I've seen in the US is a central hot air system that blows hot air into each room, so this is definitely new to me. I'd be curious to learn about the efficiency of each system, because I think water loses less thermal energy on the way to the destination, but they're probably slower at transferring the heat into the room due to lack of moving air.

I think the water radiators could be improved by having a fan blow air through the radiator to get more heat transferred. On top of that I think the central water heater is probably just some kind of direct heating (gas powered, resistive heating, etc.), but that could also have higher efficiency by implementing a heat pump. Those are just my thoughts on heating from the last few days, thought I'd write down somewhere.

Today is my last day in the UK before I fly to Germany tomorrow morning! My first stay will be at a hostel in Berlin for a few days, which is a totally new experience for me. There are several hostels in Berlin, so picking one was a bit tricky. There's even a space themed one which I might try staying at for one night!

One tricky thing about getting into Germany has been figuring out travel restrictions. I've read through several different websites, which appear to have conflicting information if you only skim through them. But my understanding is that to get in, proof of vaccination is sufficient, which also means I'm exempt from the quarantine requirement. Even the official German website isn't written clearly, because it leads by saying quarantine is required for everyone, but a few paragraphs lower says vaccinated people are exempt. Another part of the website says everyone must quarantine, but can end quarantine early by submitting the Digital Entry Application (DEA) with proof of vaccination. Since I've submitted that before I've even arrived, does that mean I've ended my quarantine before it began? I hope so!

So here's hoping tomorrow goes smoothly. I'm fairly confident I can get into Germany without problems, but there's a small chance I get in trouble and get kicked out. We'll see!