Something that I really like about this country is the energy-saving invention of outlet switches!
I know, it is incredibly exciting and I don't understand why there aren't more of these in the world. I first saw these in my hotel. I thought that it was a hotel thing, because hotels always do things a little bit differently than the rest of the world. Well it turns out that this is normal here and I think it's darn clever. Every electrical outlet has its own on/off switch. Since switches here are backwards from North America, you turn the switch down to turn it on and up to turn it off. This is fantastic because if you hate unplugging things (which I do) but you don't want that residual power drain that happens even what the appliance or whatever is not turned on, then you just turn off the switch! It's great too because every outlet has a switch. That way you can turn off one plug, but leave its neighbour on! Genius! Ok it might not be genius, but as I said (wrote, typed??) I am impressed by it and think that North Americans should consider it as a green possibility to reducing carbon footprints and power consumption.
Something else that is completely unrelated to power consumption is the candy that you can get here. Only wait friends...here you don't buy candy. I've been mocked actually for saying 'caaandy' because apparently I have a drawl -who knew? There are a whole range of sweets that I think are pretty nifty.
The first, and definitely my favourite is Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles. They are like a chewy candy coated in sugar. Not the powered sugar of the Jelly Babies but granulated sugar. They are made with real fruit juice and were originally made not too far from where I currently am. And by not too far I really mean in this general part of the country. I won't go into very long and boring details (you can look it up on wikipedia if you want the full history) but I think they're pretty good. There are a sweet that I think has spread as far as North America, although I will confess to having never seen them myself. They flavour has also been used to make icelollies (popsicles) by the same name here. They are apparently very popular with the kids. I think I will stick to my chewy sweets though, since they don't make me cold like an icelolly would.
These little guys are not as good as I was hoping them to be. They are like very squishy child-shaped jubejubes. They are coated in powdered sugar, or corn starch or something. I suppose I could just read the side of the bag and tell you what it really is. One moment please...I'm going to stick with sugar since I don't see anything about corn starch on the label and I licked one and it tasted like sugar. As you can see they are made with natural colours and flavourings. The sweets here are all about being natural. Might give you diabetes, but at least there are less chemicals in them! Just kidding folks. Anyway I think that it is neat that there is actual fruit in these sweets, it makes me feel a little better about eating them.
Another great thing about sweets and here is that I can still get my favourite chocolate bar. The Twix is sold in the United Kingdom! All worship the person who decided that it would be done. It makes me happy.
One sore point I have about companies that exist in both the UK and North America. They have differed their menus and ingredients to suit the country that they are in. Now of course from a marketing standpoint this makes perfect sense. Why would you try to sell a product that goes against the majority of the cultural values of your customers when you could adapt and make more money instead? So KFC I have a bone to pick with you. When I order gravy, I expect it to be thick and greasy and bad for you. Not moderately runny and boring. I should be able to taste every single calorie on every single drop of gravy as I dip my deepfried, artery-clogging chicken into before shoving it into my mouth. BUT NO! In this country you have gone and made your gravy moderately runny and therefore also I presume healthier. And you do not even have the courtesy to try and make it up to me by having poutine on your menu. Big disappointment. Big. BIG!
And random food rant is now done.
If the true English major in me was functioning I would go back over this. I should reread it and make sure that there are no errors and that I'm not uselessly rambling. However it is Friday and it has been a long week. I would rather do something else than edit. So voila! C;est fini!
