Cost of Living

My hosts here have been great for the nearly three weeks I have been living here but I must say they put of with so many things here that we would never abide in the states.

Now, before you accuse me of being the quintessential “Ugly American” let me explain myself. I’m not talking about the lack of the right to carry a gun. I am lukewarm on that topic at best. I think that in the US we covet that right too much and bend the constitutional intent and wording to justify it. I am really talking about the cost of things here, in time and in money.

I rented a car this past weekend to take my weekend excursions. I was given what passes for a great deal here. And yes, it was a good price compared to what I can get here. The problem is that it was a horrible price for what I am used to paying. The rental on the car was ₤60.00 for the weekend for a subcompact standard transmission car with no cruise control. That works out to about $60 per day. The same car in the US would rent for about that for a week.

And it is not just the cars, the gasoline for the cars is ungodly expensive too! At a whopping 84.9p for a litre of gasoline the equivalent cost is approximately (again at today’s exchange rate) something like $6.34 a gallon. I went to a Laundromat last night to do two loads of laundry. The wash was ₤3.00 per machine and another ₤1.2 to dry the two loads. Grand total over ₤7 (about $14.00) to do two loads of wash!

I was asked by some of my cohorts at the office if I was buying Christmas gifts over here. The truth is I cannot afford it! And there is the cost of time. It takes forever to get anywhere here because there is such a problem with traffic. Once you are there, there is the problem of parking. I spent a sum total of about four hours this weekend looking for parking at three different destinations.

Lovely place to visit, I do not think I could ever live here.

Well, I guess today’s entry is a bit of a bummer. I’ll try and be more upbeat tomorrow.

Have a great day!

Don Bergquist - Thames Ditton, United Kingdom – 09, December, 2004