AMERICA

Umm, well - it's big. I've been a bit under the weather this past week or so with a mild to moderate case of culture shock. Having visited the US twice before I must admit that I wasn't quite expecting it but this time around I have had to deal with more mundane things like social security and banking.

As an aside, it wasn't until I was at uni I think until I realised that the US is commonly referred to as such, and not as America. Why is that?

So, big - big cars, big roads, big coffees. I made the mistake of ordering my usual large hot chocolate and ended up with nigh on a litre of the stuff. We went to car dealer yesterday to buy a small, used car (hard to come by) and were confronted by a showpiece Lincoln of truly offensive proportions. Cars here are big - really big - and every second person seems to drive a 'truck'. I have no idea what they are transporting, or think that they need to transport, in these trucks. Perhaps just in case they ever need a piece of farm machinery here in the middle of the city?

So, you know how it is when you're sick - it's all too easy to just complain and complain. I will continue to document my symptoms over the next few (dozen) posts which may be very tedious for any North American readers - my apologies in advance. I promise, however, to balance any critical observations with a positive. Like the great public transport that we have here on our doorstep - some half a dozen bus routes run within a few blocks of our apartment. They don't run very often (maybe only three an hour) but so far I have found them to be very prompt. Many of them are wheelchair accessible and they have a bicycle rack on the front so that commuters can transport their bikes. I think that this is fantastic. Hooray for King County Metro Transit.

Oh, and for jumbo strawberries.