Um.
I am having the time of my life. New York City is great!
But...America is perplexing. I am grateful to be the bearer of a US passport (easy travel and all that) but I've spent most of my life outside this country, and what little time I have spent here has been spent in a bit of a bubble on the socially elite, wasp-y, picturesque campuses of educational institutions.
Things I have noticed and been perplexed by:
- Frequent ads for prescription drugs on TV, especially Flomax. Reminds me of: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/22SamOBrien.html
- The astonishingly stupid debate over Obama's speech to school children
- The number of fat people in Manhattan - how can you be so fat in a city full of walk-ups? Ok, ok, people are fat in England too... but... there aren't as many stairs :P
- The existence for an invention for every single thing you could imagine: half- cucumber storer? egg slicer (slice your own damn egg!) ? watermelon seed picker-outer? va-poo-rize? ok ok vapoorize isn't real but you get my drift...
- The fact that food doesn't go bad.... even after weeks.... what the hell is in it?!
- The massive size of portions everywhere - I've only been able to eat a starter (except at the shmancy places where the entrees are smaller than the starters)
- The unfortunate rise of national-security, pro-life, pro-death penalty obssesed neocons who think Obama is a socialist. America doesn't even have a true left. Obama isn't a socialist. If you want to see what socialism looks like, go to Europe. I'm not sure "Land of the Free" is the best way to describe a place where your personal choices are always under attack.
I'm a bit homesick. I miss snarky TV (Come Dine with Me!), British sarcasm, free healthcare, the atheist bus campaign, and the fact that no one in England would care if I got an abortion.
September 06, 2009
August 19, 2009
Suitcases and a garment bag. I mix shit up.
I've barely started packing even though I'm leaving in less than a week. Meh. I can pack with my eyes closed.
Or can I?
This past week has been hectic - the fam was visiting from Poland and we did lots of touristy things together. Sort of a nice way to end the LDN chapter. I'm mildly exhausted from speaking Polish for a week (my grammatically f-ed version of it, anyway) and have been avoiding my emotions about leaving by not being at home, shopping too much, baking, and looking up Middle East journals online.
I've always found more cultural diversity, more mixed families, and a more accepting attitude towards homosexuality in London (and Europe in general) than the US. Being a mixed couple has never been a big deal. But the other day P and I were on the bus from Vauxhall, sitting behind a group of black teenagers. They were visibly agitated when they saw us holding hands, and were staring at us the whole ride. Finally one of the guys said - extremely loudly, presumably so that we could also hear him - "Why can't people stick to their own kind? Why you gotta go mix up shit and have mixed kids and shit? That shit is fucked up!"
It made me sad.
But I don't care, and here's to mixing shit up. I mix shit up. Shit, I mix it up. Man, I could write a rap song about this!
Or can I?
This past week has been hectic - the fam was visiting from Poland and we did lots of touristy things together. Sort of a nice way to end the LDN chapter. I'm mildly exhausted from speaking Polish for a week (my grammatically f-ed version of it, anyway) and have been avoiding my emotions about leaving by not being at home, shopping too much, baking, and looking up Middle East journals online.
I've always found more cultural diversity, more mixed families, and a more accepting attitude towards homosexuality in London (and Europe in general) than the US. Being a mixed couple has never been a big deal. But the other day P and I were on the bus from Vauxhall, sitting behind a group of black teenagers. They were visibly agitated when they saw us holding hands, and were staring at us the whole ride. Finally one of the guys said - extremely loudly, presumably so that we could also hear him - "Why can't people stick to their own kind? Why you gotta go mix up shit and have mixed kids and shit? That shit is fucked up!"
It made me sad.
But I don't care, and here's to mixing shit up. I mix shit up. Shit, I mix it up. Man, I could write a rap song about this!
July 12, 2009
Praha!
Hubs and I were in Prague this weekend, and what a glorious city. It was nice to have a break from the pregnant pause that is my life, and spend some time with P before we are brutally separated thanks to the incompetency of the USCIS. Anyway, I could totally see myself living in Czeska. Prague is beautiful, I could understand enough Czech to get by, and the art scene was hopping. I LOVED the Veletrzni Palac museum of contemporary art - even though I found a lot of communist-era-grimness - and I found a couple of amazing exhibitions at little galleries around town, including a David Cerny show. The food was amazing too; Czech food is similar to Polish food, in that it is basically all meat, meat, and more meat. By the time we got back to London I was devouring an edamame, runner beans, and butter bean salad on the train home and seriously craving some veggies.
As usual, we'd forgotten to pack our toothbrushes. I figured I'd just pull the old brush with your finger trick with a small tube of blend-a-med that we'd gotten at a pharmacy earlier. I squeezed a bit of toothpaste out and rubbed it all over my teeth. Wow, I thought. Sugarless czech toothpaste. Ick. I kept rubbing, and all of a sudden my mouth was super stickalicious. By this point I was pretty freaking sure that this was not, in fact, toothpaste. I looked at the box, which was in hungarian, I might add, and figured out that it was denture cream (from the unclear pictures). Gross. Screw you, blend-a-med, and the Czech sales assistant girl who didn't think about the fact that 20-something travelers with huge backpacks might not actually need denture cream but TOOTHPASTE!
Aside from the blend-a-med disaster, I had a super awesome weekend. I've been craving and hunting for good martini spots lately, and had a delicious one at the cute/strange Bugsy Bar that had boiled eggs and string cheese as free bar snacks . And in a hilarious ending to my weekend, I spotted Xzibit and his crew at Prague Airport!
As usual, we'd forgotten to pack our toothbrushes. I figured I'd just pull the old brush with your finger trick with a small tube of blend-a-med that we'd gotten at a pharmacy earlier. I squeezed a bit of toothpaste out and rubbed it all over my teeth. Wow, I thought. Sugarless czech toothpaste. Ick. I kept rubbing, and all of a sudden my mouth was super stickalicious. By this point I was pretty freaking sure that this was not, in fact, toothpaste. I looked at the box, which was in hungarian, I might add, and figured out that it was denture cream (from the unclear pictures). Gross. Screw you, blend-a-med, and the Czech sales assistant girl who didn't think about the fact that 20-something travelers with huge backpacks might not actually need denture cream but TOOTHPASTE!
Aside from the blend-a-med disaster, I had a super awesome weekend. I've been craving and hunting for good martini spots lately, and had a delicious one at the cute/strange Bugsy Bar that had boiled eggs and string cheese as free bar snacks . And in a hilarious ending to my weekend, I spotted Xzibit and his crew at Prague Airport!
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