Observations
- Spanish is spoken by nearly 50% of the Californian population. As a result anyone who looks at all Mexican or Latino can be spoken to in Spanish without asking whether they speak it.
- TV Adds. "Call Mr Rooter. He's no ordinary plumber"...
- Food
- Breakfast Cereal. If it's covered in sugar then it is inexpensive. If it's remotely healthy, then it costs heaps. We have tried lots of varietys, some just to see if it is edible. The worst were Oreo O's (as in the popular biscuit), which consisted of chocolate rings (like chocolate fruit loops) and small marshmallows. The "Nutritional Information" on the side shows that they are about 50% sugar - a great way to start the day. The worst thing is that they don't taste any good :-(
- Most processed food can be summed up in four words High Fructose Corn Syrup. This is a common sweetener and is in most foods, from chocolates to sausages, tomato sauce to yoghurt.
- There is a brand of processed bread/bakery products made by Bimbo...
Drive Throughs. Everything from Drive Through ATMs to dual drive through on the In-n-out Burger restaurant.
Units
- Most things in the supermarket are in imperial units (pounds, ounces, fluid ounces). FOr packaged things it's usually imperial with metric in brackets e.g. 6oz can of drink. But bottled soft drink is in litres i.e. 2l bottle of coke.
Shopping
- There are 234 varieties of shampoo at Albertsons, the supermarket we often shop at (well, until their staff went on strike for months and months and Jo found better alternatives for some things).
There are more cars than licenced drivers in the USA.
Words and Expressions
- Boy Howdy - ????
- Thorough is pronounced thuh-row.
- Kludge is pronounced Kloodge (as opposed to the Aussie with a short u as in bus).
- Honey Do List - a list of things your honey wrote for you to do. Commonly used as reasons Rob's colleagues don't look forward to taking time off work.
- Write Us - Write to us. Heard regularly on KPCC, our local public radio station.
- Five Hundred Seven - the and is not used in the USA. This is confusing!!
- Momentarily - in a moment. e.g. on a flight, "The movie will start momentarily".
- Husky - robust, large e.g. on child safety web site "If the child is husky, ... may press on chubby thighs..."
- Hush Puppies - Cornmeal dough shaped into small balls and fried in deep fat - a Southern food (thanks to Webster Dictionary)
Cars - Americans love their cars - a new neighbour has washed his sports car every day since moving in, until he no longer had the car. We were surprised when he washed it twice in a week, but every day was just astounding.
Coffee - Americans do not refer to coffee as white or black. When Rob ofered coffee to a guest, and asked whether they wanted it black or white they gave Rob a puzzled look which wondered if he had asked a racist question
Weather
- Rain. The song, It never rains in Southern California, is about love not weather, but it is pretty true. On 15 October 2004, we heard that the last measurable rain was on 17 April 2004, and rain was forecast for 17 October. We were so unused to planning for rain that when it happened, we weren't sure what to do. There had been little rain during the preceeding 18 months. And then the El Nino hit, and around Christmas 2004 we had a years rain, or more, in a month or so.
