Porridge - June 2014

There are a couple staple foodstuffs here that I have never particularly enjoyed before.

First, oatmeal. When they eat it for breakfast, they call it porridge (what a funny word). At the office, it's pretty typical to see our staff having porridge at their desks first thing in the morning. I like it in oatmeal raisin cookies, and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. When I do a breakfast smoothie, it usually has raw oatmeal in it to give it a little bit of texture, since I don't really enjoy bananas (why ruin a perfectly good smoothie with that flavour?). However, a heated up bowl of something resembling the consistency of snot has not been on my high priority breakfast list.

Second, tea. While here, I've been privileged to have tea with several British people who are friends of a friend. They are REALLY excited about tea. Well, as excited as British people get about anything - the ones I've encountered are a pretty non-emotive bunch. If you brew it in a pot, rather than individual cups, this is a thrilling social event. I am not kidding. Their eyes light up and there may be enthusiastic clapping of hands, which is the American equivalent of a series of high fives and an end zone victory dance. Now before coming here I had learned to like the chai tea with milk, and the occasional chamomile with honey when I was under the weather. But really, tea, like coffee, was not my preferred beverage, partly I suppose, because usually I'd rather drink something cold or room temperature than something hot.

My first winter here, I discovered that Aussies build their houses like the British. Single pane glass, no insulation, no storm doors. The outside is visible when I look under the doorjambs at my place. So even though it doesn't get that cold, the inside of the house will be pretty close to the same temperature as outside. This is part of why it took my so long to dress appropriately for outside and biking - I actually have to wear LESS clothes outside than I do inside in the winter. My mindset was, "If it's this cold in the house, it must be SUPER cold outside." Turns out most of the time, it's not too bad outside, relative to a MN winter. But it's a whole different thing when 40 degrees outside means 50 degrees inside.

To add to the situation, lots of homes don't have heating. I have electric panel heaters downstairs, and some fancy heat/aircon units upstairs. However, since I have a great room with a mezzanine, that means all the heat goes to the upstairs, and there's no way to circulate the air. And I discovered last year, if I run the heat to make it comfortable downstairs it is EXPENSIVE. I paid almost $500 the month I had Asian airbnb guests staying with me, because they had the downstairs warm - and the upstairs was HOT.

This year, I got my electric bill for May (the beginning of the winter season) and it was around $200. So I just quit turning the heat on unless I'm going to be home and awake for more than a hour or two. There is something quite different about waking up in a house that is 50 degrees F compared to my US memories of a warm and cozy house when it was way below 0 degrees F outside.

Suddenly oatmeal in the morning sounds delicious, and a nice hot cup of relaxing tea before bed is just the thing. We'll know I've truly crossed over when I start dancing for tea in a pot.