Desperate Serbwife

Lessons from traveling abroad

So my goal for the afternoon was to download a bunch of pictures of our house and other things and post them on the blog, but that is not going to happen because I have just blown the fuse on our 3rd appliance. Ugggh! I can not tell you how annoying it is that the rest of the world uses 220 volts in their plugs (as opposed to our 110 volts). Every single applicance not only needs an adapter to fit in the socket but many also need a converter to convert the electrcity. Anyone that has traveled out of the US knows what a hassle this can be because converters are not cheap!!!

So tomorrow I will go to the little electronics store and use my 5 words of Serbian to try to explain that I need to buy 3 more plugs for our appliances because I have blown them all. Luckily I have learned to disconnect the plug from the actual appliance so that I don't blow the enitre appliance along with the plug (see, I did learn something by going to grad school in London and blowing my entire stereo when I plugged it into the wall, oops). But a couple lessons for anyone planning to travel or live abroad:

1. Buy a hairdryer, alarm clock and a toaster when you get there because they are cheaper than buying a converter for the ones you brought.
2. Most computers already have a converter as part of the cord (you know, that big black boxy thing).

Did you also know that US cell phones work on a different bandwith (or signal or whatever it's called) than the rest of the world? So our cellphones won't work abroad and vice-versa - which means when you move abroad you also have to buy new cellphones, cha-ching!

And while I'm on the subject of annoying things abroad, why in the world have I never learned temperatures in Celsius? Why is the US the only country that refuses to use celsius? It makes so much sense - 0 degrees is freezing and 100 degrees is boiling, how easy is that? And along the same lines, why aren't all American children taught the metric system? It makes so much more sense than the stupid system we use. We still base our measuring system on the size of some British king's foot? I'm all for making the switch to metric - it would make my life much easier if I could actually imagine how much 300 grams was.

Anyway, can we tell I'm a total grouch today? I think it's because the dog we were babysitting was picked up today and I'm sad. I kinda liked having a friend in the house all day to keep me company, and she was so cute, even when she got busted for sleeping on our bed when we weren't home. Now I'm back to wanting a dog.....as long as Mike walks it on the cold mornings and it doesn't get giardia (abosolutely disgusting story Summer - loved it!).

posted by Brooke @ 10:57 AM