T and S: Londonton Abbey

Previously, on Londonton Abbey:

Some of our British observations / quirks in no particular order that may or may not have been mentioned in previous posts.

Why doesn't Great Britain have conditioner?!?!?!?! Our bed and breakfast in Edenbridge only had shampoo and the hotel we stayed at in London only had shampoo. They didn't even sell conditioner at the Tesco (a convenience store) - just shampoo! This seriously irked me. My hair was frizzy and not very cooperative the whole time due to the lack of conditioner. I really dislike my hair in almost every single picture we took because of it.
Everyone is SO pale. Seriously. We thought we were sorta pale, but we were several shades darker than most Londoners. I guess that's what comes of constant cloud cover and rain.
T's British accent got quite good from being around all the Londoners. Mine was always atrocious.
We only saw two homeless people the entire trip. We're not sure if they had been cleared out in preparation for the Olympics, or if they just don't like London, or if it's just not really a problem there to begin with.
Brits only card if you appear to be under 21– which is totally crazy!
Tesco jam dounuts are my favorite food from London. I guess it isn't hard to be a favorite food in a country full of crappy food, but truly, the jam dounuts were excellent.
London is EXPENSIVE! Just everything: food, transit, admission prices. And that's before you factor in the exchange rate to dollars. But we still did London super cheap and saw everything we wanted to. Go team!
It never became automatic which way to look when crossing the street. We seriously would just stand there and look both directions three or four times and then dart across. We were always happy when it was painted right on the pavement "Look (whichever way)."
We never figured out what it means when the crosswalk lights flash. Here's what a crosswalk without a traffic light looks like:

Sometimes the crosswalk lights (the tall pillars) flash and sometimes they are on and sometimes they are off and we never could detect a pattern. Anybody know what that's all about?
The white zig-zag lines on the road were quite common and were seen in all types of road situations but we never figured out what they meant either. No parking? No passing? Stay within the zig-zag lines so everyone looks drunk and no one ever gets a DUI?
British drivers are nuts. They drive fast and with total reckless abandon.
Basically what I'm saying is: It's a very good thing we didn't rent a car.
London souvenirs are terrible. Just ugly and cheap and not worth it. And we went into pretty much every gift shop and tourist trap around. We really wanted a UK Christmas ornament for us (in addition to the one we got the one for baby, which admittedly is totally excellent) and really we will probably end up ordering one online! Ridiculous!
Smokers are everywhere! Even pregnant ladies were smoking! I wanted to cry and smack some sense into them. The smokers also congregated right at (and I do mean right at) entrance doors to everywhere.
Fish and chips (fries) are everywhere, but fast food chains are not as common as you would think and are actually quite hard to find. (To be honest, there were quite a few sandwich type places around, but we couldn't eat there because I can't eat lunch meat while pregnant, so that did make eating out much harder.)
UK soft drinks and candy have very different flavors than the American product of the exact same name and brand. We're not sure if it's a "real sugar vs high fructose corn syrup" thing or what.
Fast food chain menus are vastly different than the menus at the same restaurant in the states.
There were quite a few food carts and restaurants selling "pasties." At first I was excited because I LOVE pastries, but "pasties" are very much NOT pastries. The pasties are like meat pies - and not the good kind. T got a chicken pot pie pastie at Hever Castle and it was incredibly nasty. Just really terrible. The crust was flaky and dry and tasteless and was impossible to eat because it was so messy. The gravy was rubbery and the chicken and veggies were just gross.
Trash cans are rare. I first noticed this in the airport I had some trash as we exited the plane and literally had to hold on to it for 20 minutes because there weren't any trash cans in the airport! Trash cans are also not found in the tube stations or along the street or most fast food restaurants (they bus your table for at most places).
Everyone is so nice and helpful. I do think the accent helps this illusion along.
E II R is all over the place (stands for Elizabeth the second Regina aka Queen Elizabeth).
Everyone wears skinny jeans or black tights (with shorts, even – which I guess makes sense because it's way too cold to wear shorts alone).
The Tube is WAY underground. And the escalators/stairs up and down are LONG.
The bathrooms, oh my gosh, the bathrooms:

Urinals auto flush every 15 minutes (aka are super smelly) and are not built into the wall.
Some toilet stalls have toilet paper dispensed in sheets like kleenex.
Public toilets have doors that close for real (no gap all the way around the stall door like they do in the states).
Some restrooms have two spouts at the stink - one runs only hot water and the other runs only cold water. There is a plug in the sink and the idea is that you fill the basin and mix the hot and cold water together and wash your hands in the basin water, not the running water.
Some toilets flush by pulling a pull cord.

Some different phrases:

"mind the gap" and "mind your head" (mind = watch) all over the tube.
"way out" = exit
"jacket potato" = baked potato
"lemonade" = Sprite
"bitter lemonade" = bitter Sprite (we never did figure out how to order an American style lemonade!)
"take away" = food to go