I like to roam around Waitrose (fancy super-market, a la Whole Foods for our American Readers) an hour before they close, which is when they mark down all the food. Early this week I picked up a few wild game birds, Mallard Ducks, with buckshot holes evident, for $25 dollars down to $7 (£14 > £4).

As the ducks were purchased, close to expiration, a few days ago, there was some discussion in the house about the safety of eating them, and I do admit they smelled like, well, a dead duck that had been shot a while ago, but you are supposed to leave game a few days to bring out the flavor, right? That’s what I claimed, anyway, figuring that we’d all find out at 3 am that morning if this had been a mistake (it wasn’t, we all slept like fat bloated babies that night).

Johann, our resident chef, was in charge of the meal and he made Canard (Duck) à l’Orange. Our job was to prep the oranges, and make the grilled veggies, while Johann did a beautiful job with the duck in my latest find, a Le Creuset Enameled Cast-Iron pot (Le Creuset is like crack among gourmands, they are amazing to cook/bake/broil/boil/fry in).

He then made potato wedges fried in duck fat! I didn’t know you could even by jars of duck fat, but back he came from Tesco with a jar of duck fat, and we made giant french fries / potato wedges, cooked to a crisp in the fat, seared under the direct heat of the grill. Omigod they were good. Top that off with a few bottles of ’05 and ’02 French wine, and you get an idea why a gym membership is needed just get into my jeans.

Sadly, Igor goes back to France soon, Johann a month later, and Magalie might move somewhere less expensive, leaving me Froggy-less, and wondering where I should move to. Still, it was an amazing year in the house.

To put it mildly, he was in a state of shock and abject horror at what his new life in England would have, and not have.

The first out of his mouth was warm water. Americans (and Canadians, where this chap came from) take it for granted that if you have hot water, then you can have warm water. It seems reasonable, doesn’t it? Not in England, where this country is designed to produce hot and cold water out of separate taps (or faucets, as they call it), and never the twain shall meet.

Want to wash your face with warm water? Turn on both taps, put the stopper in over the drain, fill up your sink and then you can have warm water. Here is what some people still think is wonderful:

It’s perverse, but there’s nothing you can do about it – most houses have this pre-historic design, and even many brand new houses will have it.

What’s even more confusing is that the British clearly understand the concept of warm water – they do have showers, after all, and those showers produce warm water. That said, showers are a bit of a foreign concept to them. Baths are often preferred, and showers are hideously under-pressured. Water flow resembles eight mice peeing on you in unison. Our Canadian friend mentioned the shower pressure, too. Hell, if Seinfeld could have an episode about water pressure, we’re entitled to grump a bit, no? As Kramer said, “If I don’t have a good shower I am not myself. I feel weak and ineffectual. I’m not Kramer.”

After covering the lack of warm water and shower pressure, the UK’s love of radiators was next mentioned, to round off the trifecta of plumbing complaints Americans usually have.

This was followed by complaints about lack of customer service, awful tumble driers (if there are any), public transport, the bizarre quasi-requirement to carry a copy of a utility bill or bank statement with you everywhere, and the cleanliness of shops.

But what I took away from this exchange was not a reminder of the UK’s annoyances, but rather a compelling example of just how far I have come. He sounded like me when I first arrived, and listening to him made me suddenly realize that I am completely at home here and accept the bizarre ways English do things as completely normal. Given long enough and you’ll get used to anything – and I guess I have. England has become normal, home, even comfortable.

It’s something I’ve been grappling with for a while. Who knows where I’ll be in 10 or 20 years, but for the time being, this place is home and I’m staying indefinitely.

I simply stare in wonder and ask my friends what exactly they do with a hairless armpit they don’t do with a hairy one, which promptly shuts them up

But the bigger question is, why the armpit obsession? What is it that makes Americans ignore the European topless beaches, lack of morbid obesity, and lascivious reputations and instead go right to the armpits, as if that’s a deal breaker? And how many of my friends have actually seen a hairy european female armpit, in person? About as many who have been in outer space. Urban legend, through and through.

Or so I thought. I just moved into a house-share with two other guys and one girl, all French. I present photographic proof of said hairy armpits of my new flatmate Magalie, hair so thick it can’t even be contained by clothes.

In other news, I’m in court today, as a witness for a violent crime – a family ruckus ended up with two people punching each other on my front doorstep. How charming, as the English would say.

Being in Court involves me sitting around for hours waiting for the attacker and victim to show up (neither ever did) and trying to get out of a parking ticket related to the matter. Here’s hoping I see £200 refunded from this.

Any visit to an official building always requires me to first remove my pocket knife from my keychain. It’s technically an illegal weapon, despite having a blade less than an inch.

Britain banned all guns back in the ’80′s when a crazy man shot a bunch of children in a school. People pointed out at the time that this wouldn’t prevent knife crimes, and surely you couldn’t ban knives. Well, after a spate of teenagers stabbing each other, they banned knives as well. Yes, I could face charges for possessing my knife.

God forbid they ever search my bags after I get back from camping – I have a Kill-Bill-esque blade I carry that would get me in the nick in no time.

Exit a London Underground station in a seedier part of town and you’ll here classical music played at a decent volume. If you think its for the pleasure of music connoisseurs, I’m afraid your wrong. It’s to keep away the riff-raff and chavs. Apparently young trouble makers hate it while older tax-payers are pleased by the music and absence of loitering youth.

Well, when I was in the library in Barcelona last week, trying to eek out every last minute of opening hours and the free wifi, I was surprised and amused to hear heavy punk rock blasted fifteen minutes before the library shut. People began leaving in droves as their ears were assaulted, and the librarians presumably had no trouble shooing out the one or two remaining stragglers.

What an odd, odd world we live in.

We have had some fun thunderstorms, which is nice. A friend snapped this photo while we waited out a squall under the footbridge on the South Bank, and later added some photo-wizardry. I’m not normally a big fan of photos starring myself, and certainly not profiles, but I really like this one.

Anyway, there are also a lot of wholesale clothes stores in the areas, and they have without a doubt the most revolting looking mannequins. Most are dented or cracked, and some look like they are cast out of a Steven King novel where evil mannequins come to life. But today I saw what might be the winner – a Shrek inspired child mannequin. Really, who designs these things?

We met at 8 AM Saturday morning, which is not usually my best hour, but I did manage to look decent. Walking to the hotel lobby where we were to meet was comical, as I saw two other stylishly dressed guys, and given the hour and the neighborhood, guessed correctly we were going to the same place.

The organizational skills of the TV show were a bit lacking. We waited around in the lobby for 45 minutes before walking half a mile to the ‘studio’ which doubles as a brewery, waited outside another 45 minutes, before we finally went inside, viewed a video of the two girls and criticized their appearance, before finally leaving.

In summary, I got up painfully early so I could wait around forever and then criticize someone. I’m a wonderful person, really!

Like all British residents, I’m eligible for the National Health Service, the free single-payer government run health service. So I selected and registered with a local GP (equivalent to family medicine), and after the annoyance of trying to register at two doctors’ offices that were either closer or prettier, I had to select between just two, which were a shocking half-mile away. I’ll survive.

When I signed up, they told me to come back next week for a checkup, which I did. The attendant took my blood pressure, weight, height, and checked my urine. After getting the readout from the machine, he exclaimed excitedly that I had perfect urine! Apparently, this meant less paperwork for him, hence his happiness. My PH was balanced, i had no Nitrates, and a few other wonderful things.

The most surprising thing about this is the comparison with the American system. I can’t think of the last time a Doctor volunteered to investigate me to this level. They just aren’t interested (unless you are dating one who demands you get tested for Tuberculosis after a trip to Turkey, but that’s another story).

The whole process was, go in with proof of address, sign up using half of a single page, and voila, that’s it. No more paperwork, no multipage forms, and amazingly, no waiting around for hours in the waiting room. I didn’t wait either time I went for my checkup or when I went back a few days later to see the Doctor.

All this talk in America about how awful socialized medicine is? Let me tell you – I’ll take it any day over the shouting matches with insurance companies and doctors who diagnosed me without entering the room (he was busy in the corridor, but did stick his head in). I’d rather trust a disinterested bureaucrat than a determined insurance rep (determined not to spend a dime, that is).

But mostly, I like the British system because of all the flattery – let’s remember, I have perfect pee.

This gets really frustrating when you want to open a bank account, because you often need a bank account statement to open a bank account. That would be the Catch-22.

Today I faced the ultimate in idiocy and irony. I opened a business bank account at HSBC (our business is registered and incorporated as of two days ago). To prove my residence, HSBC requires a utility bill (I have none as I’m a tenant) or a bank statement (the bank I have my personal account with is HSBC). So the only statement I can bring to HSBC is what they mailed to me. And they still insist on it!

Rather than just looking in their computer, and seeing that I indeed live where I claim, they need a piece of paper. The lady smiled apologetically, acknoledging this was a bit ludicrus, but rules are rules, so Friday I will be bringing HSBC the very statement they’ve mailed to me so they can photocopy it and file it. That would be the Catch-23.