Today I really felt as if I was in a foreign country. And it all came about because of a trip to the post office.
Granted, visiting the post office in England can feel a bit foreign at times. Fine if you're going to buy brown paper, or string, or any of the myriad of small but useful things they sell. A nightmare if you're trying to work out whether to send your parcel special delivery, registered post, next day express - ad infinitum.
And so it is here. I had a number of things I wanted to do, from posting some thank you letters to sending documentation informing the Inland Revenue I had moved abroad. I dithered for ages by the rack containing different sized envelopes, typed with different things. The handy chart on the wall was no help at all - it might as well have been written in Icelandic.
"Excuse me, but could you tell me which of these envelopes is cheaper to send?"
The man looked at me as if I was a freak. "There's no difference at all," he said, before hurrying away from this mad Englishwoman who clearly couldn't even read.
Finally, I managed to select the right envelope. Then there were forms to fill in, my name to write over and over again and finally, money to pay - lots of it. Counting out the quarters and dimes, squinting at the writing on the coins, I couldn't have felt more foreign if I'd tried. Truly, I am in a different place.