Doing the Laundry and Other Strange Experiences

The last pair of clean socks died on wednesday, followed shortly by the last pair of clean underwear. There isn't a coin-op laundry to be found anywhere in Cambridge, so I'm making use of the facilities at the Rob and Toby International Hotel. A few items of note:

Laundry detergent comes in little single-load dissolving cellulose packets which you simply toss into the machine with the clothes. God help you if you handle one of the packets with wet hands, as I did.

All the washing machines I've seen have an extremely small capacity by US standards, but have an astonishing number of wheels, buttons and dials. You can specifically select "socks that were heavily soiled, then forgotten under the bed" and rest assured that the machine knows what it's doing. Unfortunately, the size of the machine only allows for three pairs of socks.

Everything here is small by US standards. There are half-loaves of bread. You can buy six eggs, four-packs of beer, or one third of a television. The streets are small, the houses are small, and the cars are small, and it's all enormously expensive. And cold. And dark. And expensive.