Mohegan Sun

It’s been a year since I came to the USA, it’s gone by fast! Kim kindly treated us to a weekend away at Mohegan Sun, a big Indian casino not too far away that has different restaurants, shops, spas etc. We didn’t do any big gambling but we watched for a while.

We stayed over night which was a feat because finding where we needed to park was like navigating a maze.

One day we went to the Pequot Museum which was on the Indian reservation.

I wasn’t sure how good it was going to be, there weren’t a ton of artifacts left.

But on the bottom floor they’d transformed the room into a forest scene Indian village, everyone got a free audio tour where you could explore the village and type in different numbers and they’d explain different things like food, tattoos, hair styles, occupations etc it was amazing.

For the rest of the weekend we had cocktails by the pool and enjoyed the restaurants.

On Sunday before we left we went to a big brunch, there was so much stuff it was hard to pick what to have but we left about 11.30, Britney Spears turned up to the same restaurant at about 12 so she just missed us (I assume she was devastated), she had a concert at the casino.

Another good thing that happened after I’d been here a year was that I finally found a package store (off licence) that sells Kopparberg pear cider – flavoured cider is not popular here yet so this is a big win!

4th July/Coventryfest

A few weeks ago it was Coventryfest which is the town’s celebration for 4th July but is on the weekend a few days early. We went down to our beachy area that morning at the lake for a swim and people were already reserving the picnic benches at the beach by leaving things out then driving off to return later! We left the beach just as it was starting to get busy and when we came back for the fireworks it was absolutely packed. Our beach is shared by about 3 streets but usually it’s pretty empty. All the boats were out on the lake with their lights shining across the water, waiting for the fireworks to start.

I wasn’t sure what to expect but it was a really good display, we sat in our fold out chairs with wine, liberally covered in bug repellent and saw what $10,000 worth of fireworks looked like.

That weekend we browsed the flea market my friend tipped us off about at the drive in movie theater.

There was a lot of random things including probably every Fisher Price toy and Barbie Kim and I had ever owned, bizarre junk, china, old Americana.

It just went on and on, we enjoyed having a good browse but settled on some plants.

On Independence Day I got the day off from work which was nice, we went to visit the in-laws and have a little swim in the pool and a cookout.

I got introduced to the world of competitive eating… a yearly hot dog eating contest they said, that sounds funny I thought… ew. Turns out watching a man eat 74 hot dogs in 10 minutes is not pleasant to watch. See in background – hot dog hats!

Then I got introduced to bull riding, I thought this might be a bit cruel but from what I could see the bulls looked well cared for and didn’t get hurt… the riders however, they got bucked and trampled on and run at which was quite entertaining. One poor man got trampled in such a way that made me wonder if he was still fertile afterwards but I suppose that’s what you get for riding a bull? Perhaps it’s natural selection. When a rider comes off they have rodeo clowns that try to distract the bull away from goring the guy that fell off. All the riders have a ranking but the bulls also have a ranking on their difficulty level. They each have a funny name like Buckeyed-Bill or Heart Break Kid. So I enjoyed that.

We got out in the canoe again which was beautiful, we’re getting the hang of it.

The weather has been making it difficult though because it’s either blistering heat or chucking it down with rain alternately so not ideal! Lucky we live in an age of air conditioning.

Memorial Day Weekend Americana

The weekend before last was a three day weekend for Memorial Day.  I discovered the joy of Wholefoods.

And we finally tried out the drive in movie theatre that’s nearby. I’d never been to a drive in and there aren’t many of them left in America but it was a fun novelty.

After we parked up we took a walk to the concessions stand in the middle of all the screens for a browse (although we’d packed enough snacks to feed a small army).

The drive in shows two movies back to back for the same price with an intermission in between. First we saw Grease. Grease always makes me think of my Auntie Pauline, whenever we went to visit the cousins in Essex my Auntie Pauline would let me watch Grease on VHS (none of our cousins were the same age us so there was no one to play with) and I’d sit cross legged in front of the spare TV as close as was humnely possible without my Mum telling me I’d get square eyes.

After Grease we watched Jaws, or more accurately I watched Jaws because Kim fell asleep… that was the only draw back with the drive in – the first move didn’t start until 8.40pm so the second movie ended very late. But I liked Jaws, I hadn’t seen it before and it was filmed in Martha’s Vineyard where we went on holiday last year so it was nice to recognise places. I learnt that if you stick your feet out of the car window at the drive in on a hot summers night you will wake up with over 40 mosquito bites covering both feet.

The next day I had a mooch round a nice garden center with my friend and then Kim and I went round to their house after she was done with work for fondue and Harry Potter Clue (that’s Cluedo for all the Brits).

On Memorial Day we headed down to Main Street in Coventry for the Memorial Day Parade, we sat outside the library. Kudos to the library worker who came up with the imaginative tag for the sign “we have books”… well no shit.

We camped out with our fold out chairs and chatted to the people either side of us and then the parade started.

They had veterans marching and soldiers on active duty and everyone applauded them which I thought was quite sweet. Miss Connecticut waved to us from atop a convertible.

All the scouts and the girl scouts went by – in America they don’t have girl guides or brownies. Girl scouts sell cookies and boy scouts sell popcorn for fundraisers, I think the girls must try harder than the boys because so far I’ve only ever seen the cookies.

We saw the Knights of Columbus a Catholic masonic-like organisation… they haven’t been knighted but they sure do like a fluffy hat and cape combo. My father in law is a member of the Knights of Columbus but he doesn’t have the hat yet, he said he has to get promoted one more time to get it, I got the impression he wasn’t that stoked to get the hat and cape but I think it could help him make dramatic exits from a room. My mother in law works for the Knights of Columbus insurance company but she isn’t allowed to be a member because she is a woman.

The parade went on and there was lots of horses and monster trucks and then as soon as it had started it was done again.

Then we took a leisurely stroll up Main Street to the car, I clocked this little beauty…

God bless ‘Murica.

After that we did a spot a shopping and caught up with the important news of day.

Annoyed the kitties.

Then we visited the in laws for a barbecue and my father in law and I scored a grand victory at Trivial Pursuits.

16 Things I Really Like About America

A lot of people here and back home have asked me what I do and don’t like about America, what I miss about home etc and I thought I would do some posts about this so here goes: what I do like about America – in no particular order.

Mail boxes – they’re just better. Most small parcels fit into them, no one seems to steal stuff from them and if you want to send post out, no need to find a post box, just stick your little flag up and the friendly mail lady collects it to post on her way. Letterboxes in our front doors should be done away with, our American chums have got it right.

Holidays and Themes – Oh you think you decorated for Halloween because you put a pumpkin out? Well the Americans have projectors broadcasting ghosts on top of their houses, tomb stones in the yard and candy bowls that grab the kids hands! Oh you put a Christmas tree up? Well just drive down the road and you’ll see massive inflatable santas, giant light up reindeer, perhaps stop for a while outside the house that has 10,000 lights on display and it’s own Christmas radio station for passers by? And what about all the extra holidays? I got a day off for Martin Luther King Day. Americans love their holidays and they out do us in every single way.

Lack Of Pantomimes – I can’t stand pantomimes… I just find them annoying and cringey and when I explained this to my wife she said “what’s a pantomime?” That was when I knew she was the one for me… but seriously, it’s so nice not to be plagued by these over Christmas, I just hate them. For the Americans reading, they’re sort of a play for children put on at the theatre with Z list celebrities and there always seems to be a man in drag for some unknown reason and the audience has to participate (ugh) by shouting things.

Greetings Cards – I love American greetings cards, they’re really funny. They have moving ones, singing ones, all different novelties. The hardest thing to find is a blank greeting card (which I need to write to my Great Aunt who can’t use “the face book”) because they have them for every thing you could possibly think of. I got Kim a dancing hamster card that sings MC Hammers ‘Can’t Touch This’ for her birthday because I physically could not leave the shop with out it, that’s how much I loved it. Greetings cards are so expensive in England anyway, why not make them worth buying?

TV Shopping – now I loved TV shopping in England, but in America not only do they sell regular things, they also sell weird stuff! Like this, the lunchbox sized personal oven, cook your meals from under your desk! Also they have callers from all over the country so I get to hear “iiits Miiisteh cawlling frum Teyxus an aiii jus bowt tin uvens fur awwwl ma relateeeves!” Bliss.

Weather – Now I’m indecisive about the weather, I miss the grey of England where you never needed to really check the weather forecast, lest your pipes freeze over night if you don’t leave the heating on. But it is nice to have proper seasons and know summer will be nice and hot, get snow at Christmas etc. I’m bored of the snow now though, that can stop coming. Every time I think it’s thawed and gone more comes. We bought a power snow shovel thing so I think now that we’ve bought it, it won’t snow anymore – you’re welcome Connecticut.

Accents – it can be fun to hear all the different accents here. Back home my accent just sounded slightly posh but mostly boring and regular. In America I’m almost exotic, today someone called me sophisticated… the last time that happened in England was when my friends were making fun of me for eating pizza with a knife and fork. Sometimes the Americans mistake it and think I’m Australian, and I just run with it if I’m feeling bored and talk about dingoes… no one’s ever twigged yet.

Good Service – The customer service here is just better. Servers in restaurants are much better, retail workers are genuinely helpful and friendly. I had to return something for the first time last month and I arrived at the store prepared with my receipt and a whole big reason for why I needed a return ready. In any UK store they would scrutinise the returned item, gain the entire story checking for any plot holes and then make you write down your name and address and signature fixing you with a suspicious look like you may be a criminal. In the USA the store lady didn’t even care, she said oh that’s ok you don’t need a reason, hardly looked at the receipt and wanted to know if I would rather have the cash or put it back on my card. I was disarmed.

Radio – The radio in the USA is excellent. In the UK I was subjugated by my radio’s inability to pick up anything that wasn’t Heart or Kiss and the occasional Norfolk yokel station. Here they have everything, my favourite is 104.1 alternative rock, or if I fancy I can switch to classic rock, Christmas music, pop, oldies, some strange Latino music all in Spanish… the list goes on. And there are fewer ads that last for less time, less DJ prattle. Is there anything worse than having to listen to DJs personal lives whilst in traffic? Sometimes on Kiss in the mornings I’d be driving back from night shift and all you could hear was the idiot DJs laughing at their own unfunny jokes for a solid minute – just laughter, and I would stare down the line of cars gridlocked ahead of me wondering what I had done in life to be here. That is no more!

Food – Now I like UK food for the most part and there are many things I miss from the UK but the food here is very nice too. American crispy bacon is better than UK floppy bacon (which they call Canadian bacon), although Kim prefers UK bacon to USA bacon. I always used to think the USA portion sizes were way too big however the reason they are so big is because most people then take half of their meal home to reheat the next day as left overs. Left overs are a big thing here and if you leave any of your meal your server will offer to box it up for you which is great because you’ve paid for it already so why waste it? And no one has to pack a lunch for the next day. Another good thing about the food is that because of all the immigrants from all over the world there are a ton of new foods I’ve gotten to try that are popular here but I hadn’t seen in England. I’m still not brave enough to try meatloaf – I would do anything for love; but I won’t do that.

No NHS – Now no free healthcare is a bummer, yes. However we are lucky enough to have medical insurance and the care we get really is a million times better than the NHS. I worked in the NHS for almost 5 years and as much as the staff made the best of a bad lot, due to money and the strain on the services I think that a lot of the time the staff was unable to provide the care they would have chosen to. All the healthcare professionals here seem to have a lot more time, fewer patients and provide great customer service because they are in competition for your custom. In the NHS there wasn’t really an alternative place to go unless you want to pay (and who wants to pay?) but in the USA they want to keep you as their patient to earn your money. Which is why Kim’s doctor asks Kim about me and the cats and holidays coming up etc because they keep notes on your personal lives to make pleasantries with you the next time you visit – smart. Yes the cost is annoying, but maybe it’s worth it when you know the care is so good?

Living Abroad – this is still a novelty to me. It’s nice to sometimes get confused about what things are in shops and visit new places. In the USA I don’t recognise half the stores or brands. A coworker told me she had a new Coach handbag the other day and I wasn’t sure whether this was a good thing or not. The same is true for Kim in reverse, she was confused about who Ted Baker might be and loved living in the UK. I’m still quite rubbish with the coins because I don’t use change much to pay for things, when I do need to use coins I get the people in the store to help me pick out the right coins (they all look the same!) and they never mind because they just permanently smile in a dream like state of perfect customer service.

Power In The Bathroom – The UK needs to make this happen. Yes, I get that you could electrocute yourself if you plug something in and then drop it in the bath but if you’re silly enough to do that then isn’t that just a helpful pruning to the human race? Survival of the fittest and all that? I’m an adult and I want power in the bathroom! Thank you America.

Shopping – The mall here opens until 9pm, apart from Sundays when it’s still open until 6pm. Most shops in England aren’t open at 6pm, let alone on a Sunday. It’s lovely to be able to realise you have bought the wrong Christmas lights then traipse back to Lowes (the USA’s answer to B&Q) at 8.30pm. What joy. There are lots of independent stores in the USA as well as chain stores including independent grocery stores which I can’t ever remember seeing in the UK, the term here is ‘Mom & Pop stores’. Also there are all the coupons you can clip from the newspapers to get money off everything, I think I enjoy things more when I know I’ve got them for a bargain. And then there is the sheer range of products available, and all of them new to me because most brands in the UK don’t seem as popular here. For example, do you want a bagel? Perhaps there are 3 or 4 types of bagel available in the UK where they are sold. Here I could have cinnamon raisin, onion, poppy seed (although these show up on drugs test as opiates!), plain, wholegrain, multigrain, whole wheat, sesame, cranberry walnut, cheese, chocolate chip, french toast, blueberry…. or perhaps I would like an everything bagel? Yes, there’s an everything bagel. England cannot compete.

Nature – A lot of the nature and the wildlife in the USA is new to me, it’s a special kind of novelty to see a brand new animal in the wild for the first time. I came to a full stop in the middle of the road this week to watch a possum scuttle about. As a teenager I had a Saturday job in a exotic plant nursery by my house – we used to sell some of the plants there that grow wild in the area… as being exotic…. they’re not exotic anymore!

Driving – Now although I had to retake my driving test which was mildly annoying and drive on the right hand side of the road (which is clearly incorrect), there are a lot of things I prefer about driving in the USA. Firstly, almost all of the roads are very wide (how else would the masses fit their SUVs down the road?) so you hardly ever get some tosser hogging your side of a country lane. As well as the roads being wide the parking spaces are wider and often diagonal to give the least amount of effort to parking. Lady parking jokes aside, I think we’ve all been to some shitty car park in the UK where the spaces are minuscule and there’s a concrete pillar inches away from scratching up the side of your car door because the owners of the car park are desperate to get an extra couple of pounds out of us by cramming as many spaces in as humanely possible – there is none of that here. Also most places you park are free, sometimes we are planning to go somewhere and I ask Kim if she has change for the car park, she fixes me with a funny look and says “Babe, this is America” witheringly. However when the rare occasion arises that we do have to pay for parking Kim would obliviously hand over a small fortune whilst I would say “are you fucking joking?” and insist on walking from a mile away just to get a dollar off. Petrol (or gas, as I must call it if I don’t want anyone to look confusedly at me) is so much cheaper, I can fill my entire tank for less than it cost me to fill half a tank in the UK – when I first discovered the price difference I was sick with rage. Insurance is also cheaper… go figure?

So that is a small sample of the things that the USA just does better than England at.

16 Things I Don’t Like About America

Although I’ve been enjoying living in the USA, a lot of people here and back home have asked me what I do and don’t like about America, what I miss about home etc and I thought I would have a think about it and share on here. I’ll start with what I don’t like about America in no particular order and apologise in advance for offending people!

Tipping – This is one of my pet hates, now we do tip in the UK but it’ll be like a couple of quid, in the USA people are very focused on tips and the exact percentage you tip to the point where they actually don’t pay most waiting staff a minimum wage because they are expected to make tips. I sort of resent having to pay their wages and each time having to judge servers on their performance. However, the customer service is miles better which obviously I do like so it’s a tough one. Also there is the question of who to tip? Servers of course, bar tenders you tip every drink, hairdressers, taxi drivers etc… where does it end? Also – I don’t get tipped when I do my job, does this mean I don’t have to try so hard?

Obsession with the flag – Don’t get me wrong, I like the Union Jack but I would never dream of putting one on a flag pole outside my house (although I did keep the USA flag the previous owners left tacked to our shed up as a joke). And if someone bought their own Union Jack (or Union flag as is the correct term when not at sea) and then burnt it I certainly wouldn’t be bothered to arrest them, because it’s their own property they can burn it if they like and I wouldn’t really care. But here it’s a different story, there are even laws about flying the American flag – you’re meant to take it down at night but you’re allowed to keep it up 24 hours a day IF it is correctly lit… I mean come on… who cares? The English just don’t have flag mania. I sometimes see red necks wearing t-shirts that say things like ‘god, guns and the flag!’… usually they’re the kind of people that look like their mother and their sister are the same person but even so, crazy!

Taxes – Not only do Americans have to do their own taxes each year instead of it automatically coming out of your pay (ugh!) but any time you buy something the price that is displayed on the label is before taxes. So you get to the cash register with your money ready and then they give you a completely different price because you’ve forgotten to add the tax (this is when I make Kim or the cashier help me pick out the right coins I need for change because I still haven’t learnt the coins very well!). Also the sales tax changes in each state you go to… I miss England just adding it on the advertised price because ignorance is bliss.

Insincerity – Now the Americans are much more polite than the UK I think but sometimes they’re just SO nice that it can seem insincere to me being a miserable islander. I’ve had emails signed off with “fondly yours”, been told to have a “sparkling day” but I am now sort of getting used to it. Where as in England every phone call that starts with a “hi, how are you?” immediately tips you off to it being a sales call, here everyone starts every conversation with it. Enter any shop or business and it’s all “hey how are you?” and then you respond “good, how are you?” and the original person replies “good”…. every. bloody. time. Sometimes I break this happy little routine just to mess with them like the other day in a shop when I told the cashier “my day’s a bit shit actually, how about yours?” and she had a shocked giggle. I think the comforting thing is that it does just seem to be a routine politeness, it’d be odd to have all these people working in say the post office or fast food something being that happy… it’s suspicious and unnatural – you’re cleaning floors in McDonalds, of course you’re not enjoying your day!

Spelling – All the lazy spelling here drives me a bit mad. When signs say “drive-thru”.. that irks me, just get a slightly bigger sign and spell it like we’re adults. Also, ignoring the endless Zs in words and theater instead of theatre, there are annoying phrases to contend with such as “I could care less” – what they actually mean is that they couldn’t care less but somehow over here that just got lost in translation and when they don’t care about something Americans happily go round telling everyone that in fact they do care and could care less about it but presumably don’t because they care more. Ugh. “Baggy” also annoys me, they don’t say I’ll put this in a bag, they put things in baggies… which is strange because they’ve made the word longer and less convenient to say yet it means the same as bag?

Lack of Geography – Now in fairness on this one, my knowledge of South America for instance is a bit sketchy but geography is just not considered general knowledge here. My lovely wife Kim who has a first class degree with honours, for instance, thought that Ireland was where Wales was on a map, that we were going to Denmark on holiday (we went to Amsterdam) and that Austria is no longer a country. And she is an American that has been to Europe several times! Kim’s Mum thinks that Kim Jong Un is from China and other countries barely make it into the news here. America is just so vast that they really don’t seem all that interested in what’s outside. Most people here are descended from immigrants and will call themselves Polish or German or whatever but know absolutely nothing about that country and will have never even visited it.

Racism/discrimination – This one is a bit sad I think but being openly racist or prejudice towards minorities or women etc is far more tolerated in the USA. More than a couple of times I’ve felt really uncomfortable being around people in social situations that have been hideously racist. I feel like in the UK you could spot racists easily but here you’ll just be talking to what you think is a normal regular person and suddenly they’ll drop a racist bomb and you have to confront them or back away. I don’t think it helps that Mr ‘build the wall’ is in office though.

Politics – Now I was never heavily into politics but I’ve actually had to stop reading any news here to do with politics because it makes me so annoyed. The amount of people here that voted for Trump is scary (and it isn’t just unknown strangers, some of Kim’s relatives or my co-workers I know have voted for him), where as the UK think of him as insane, lots of Americans still think he’s the right man for the job and completely overlook all the awful things he says and does. Thankfully almost all the people I work with are Democrats and we don’t often discuss politics but the scandals and the dodgy dealings here are crazy. Even on a local level its frustrating, Connecticut as a state went months without even having a budget because no one could agree what it should be.

Religion – People are very open and sometimes pushy about their religion here. Where as in England most people I knew were not at all religious, in the USA atheists seem to be the minority. People openly talk about god, just a few months ago I got stuck when a very pleasant electrician I was chatting to started talking about ‘JC, the big man’ and I couldn’t escape because he was doing work in my house! I had to be a bit rude to the Jehovahs Witnesses to get them to stop coming over and the amount of ads and flyers etc from different faiths all convinced they have the one true religion is madness. What a coincidence that they were all born into the correct religion and everyone else is wrong… Now I do find learning about the other religions interesting, don’t get me wrong, but if I’m not asking a question I really don’t want to know. The only religions that don’t seem to recruit are the Jews and the Amish so those two are my favourite.

The Job Market – The job market in the USA is slightly different. Hardly anyone lists rates of pay in their adverts which can be awkward because you’re not supposed to ask during the interview so it’s difficult to know if you actually want the job in the first place. Also you’re meant to send thank you notes after you go to an interview… thanking them even though you’re answering their advert and taking time out to come to their place of work at an inconvenience to yourself. I couldn’t quite bring myself to do that so my lovely boss had to settle with a thank you email.

Driving – Now there are a lot of things I actually prefer about driving in the USA (that’s for another post). I prefer driving on the left but now I’m used to being on the right hand side of the road I don’t mind so much. The indicator lights on the back of cars are red, not orange like in the UK, but the brake lights are still red too so it isn’t always immediately clear when someone is turning. If you are turning right at traffic lights you are allowed to drive through a red light so long as it’s clear – this terrified me the first few times Kim did it and I didn’t like it but now I’m getting used to it and it’s nice if you’re in a rush because you can use your common sense (which is in short supply here). All the road rules change in each state which can be a bit ridiculous for example in New Hampshire you don’t even have to wear a seat belt (their motto is ‘live free or die’ which I assume they do in copious amounts if they don’t wear their seat belts?), if you’re pulled over and fined by a cop you are charged more if you are outside of your own state. Also instead of having junctions on one side of the road when you’re on a highway, junctions come up both sides of the roads and lanes split all the time which can be confusing if you don’t know your way around. When driving home from Hartford (our nearest big city) the road is 6 lanes wide at some points! Thank god for GPSs.

Health Insurance – This one is another double edged sword but the one thing I don’t like about health insurance is the cost! Also having to figure out what you are and are not entitled to is confusing.

Guns – This one is self explanatory… just get rid of them.

Weather – England was very grey and dreary, but I loved the grey. Now all the weather is freezing cold or blistering heat.. there’s a distinct lack of grey days.

Banking – Banking in the USA is still in the middle ages. They’ve only just started using chip and pin, my card doesn’t even have contactless payment possible on it! Most places you go you still have to sign a paper receipt. Also they charge you for just about everything including to order a cheque book, to take money from an ATM that doesn’t belong to your bank and even to have an account open they charge you a monthly fee! It’s crazy. I really miss the UK banks.

Gaps in Toilet Doors – Last but not least there is ‘the gap’ and I don’t mean the shop. Why Americans like watching each other going to the toilet is beyond me, I took this photo from inside a cubicle and just look at that gap! You walk into a public toilets and you can see people in the cubicles… why is this a thing?? Surely doors can’t be that expensive? Savages.

So that’s my list, next time things I do like about America and it’ll be more cheerful!

Shopping In America

Today is Labor Day in the good old US of A and Kimmy is at work so I thought I’d tell you about a subject I’ve been thinking about writing about since I got here and saw this on my first trip to the grocery store: a cup holder. A cup holder on the shopping trolley cart… is this necessary in life? I’ve since perused many a grocery store here and know that no, it is not necessary but why let that stop us? Now the important thing to remember is that you must never say ‘supermarket’ because there is nothing super about it, the grocery stores here are TINY compared to the ones I’m used to in the UK (I thought everything here was supposed to be bigger!). And the off licences (or package stores as they say in Connecticut) are thriving because the alcohol section in the grocery stores is extremely limited. Basically all the grocery stores are akin to shopping in a Tesco Metro.

There are Aldi stores still and they’re pretty similar to the ones in the UK but that’s the only brand I’ve found that’s the same. Our local shop (which we don’t usually do a big shop at) is called Highland Park Market and it’s a family owned small grocery chain (another thing you don’t see often in the UK). It’s a little more expensive but it’s quite sweet because after they pack your bags the staff insist on carrying your shopping out to your car. When I say ‘insist’, I mean insist – I tried to tell the guy last time that I could manage myself and he said “Oh no ma’am, we have to” and he even put my shopping trolley cart away afterwards, all whilst wearing a twee little old fashioned apron. So it isn’t all bad, just different. Also I now get to enjoy bizarre branding such as the seafood company ‘chicken of the sea’ (they sell no chicken). No one else finds this hilarious but me.

Fruit and vegetables are a lot cheaper however none of it ever has expiration dates on it so you have to eat it almost immediately because who knows if it’ll go off or not? I really miss expiration dates from the UK. Other things are more expensive, usually completely strange things like washing up sponges. I had to pay almost $3 for a pack of 3 washing up sponges to do the dishes with the other day, they’re about 17 pence in Asda! Why are sponges so expensive of all things? Some things like cereal there is way too much to choose from, whole aisles full of cereal yet only one type of sellotape and it isn’t sellotape it’s some shitty scotch tape that’s minute yet still inexplicably costs more than 6 rolls of sellotape does in the UK. Another thing is that Americans are curiously misinformed about things that are ‘English’, take this cheese for instance. My mother in law asked if I would pick her up some ‘old English cheddar’ from the store… since when is English cheddar cheese spreadable and in a jar??? There is something unnatural about this… I had to call Kim to make sure that this was definitely what her mom wanted because it does not look appetising.

In fact the cheese selection is completely different, I still have yet to find any Stilton sadly however I suppose this does allow to try new brands (so continues my obsession with Amish people). There is no Marmite or squash (the drink) either.

I have discovered some secrets whilst shopping though – you know these cups that people have for parties? In almost all American movies and tv shows where there is a party Americans always have red cups, always red. Why is this? Because I found out that they sell them in other colours! As I took this photo a frat boy came up and selected some red cups… it’s a conspiracy.

There’s other differences too like with the packaging, it’s more likely to contain helpful recipe suggestions than in England which is nice. The packaging often has advice on it too… I assume for idiots. This is from a packet of raw chicken breasts.

This warning came in the nick of time as I almost cooked my garlic bread in the plastic bag… phew. I like how they highlighted it in red… twice, just to be sure. Bless them. I enjoy pointing these things out to Kim but she doesn’t really think it’s funny, she just thinks I’m weird.

Other things that I’m not used to is tobacco adverts on signs like outside gas stations and they still have all the packs on display. It hasn’t been legal to advertise tobacco in the UK for my entire lifetime so that’s a little bit strange.

Also seeing guns on display to buy in a sports shop… a bit strange. They seem so lax with them, none of them were locked away, no one was even at this desk I could have just gone and picked one up off the shelf! Scary stuff.

Shopping in clothes stores etc is mostly the same except the sizes are slightly different and all the shop assistants look happy. I find this a little unnerving. They like to harrass you as soon as you step foot in the shop (Hey how are you, what are we looking for today?) but in fairness they do that a lot in the UK now too. Also getting money ready at the cash desk is impossible because all the prices displayed are displayed without tax added on so instead of being politely prepared to pay I have to faff about because all the money is bloody identical. A couple of times when change is required I just shove a fistful at the cashier for them to pick out and explain that I’m not used to their coins yet but no one seems to mind so far… or if they do they’re too busy pretending to be cheery to say. This sign confused me the other day when I went shopping for new work clothes and was trying to locate the ladies section. I saw the sign saying ‘chaps’ and just assumed they were trying to be trendy and that was the mens section, off I popped only to find another sign saying ‘chaps’ with women on it… what is this madness?!?

Anyways, that’s been my shopping adventures so far, sorry for boring you all!

 

 

I Passed!

A lot of you know that in England I worked as a registered nurse and that Kim is a registered nurse in America, however neither qualifications translate to the other country annoyingly. When we looked at moving to the USA at first I started the long long very long process of getting my qualifications compared to USA qualifications. In the USA nursing is a four year degree that covers adults, children, mental health, learning disabilities and midwifery and once you graduate you have to take a test called NCLEX. In the UK it’s 3 years and you pick a specialty (I chose adult). So as you can imagine I’d probably be short a few hours of tuition and placements in comparison, I don’t fancy going back to university so I played it safe and decided to request to be a licensed practical nurse instead of a registered nurse and the state said that I could. The NCLEX test is reallly hard, it’s an adaptive multiple choice test so some answers are right, but some answers are more right. The computer also decides which question you take next based on the answer to the last question – so I had a lot of studying to do. I’m a pretty lazy student so I’ve been procrastinating.

I got a few cake mixes to make, I’ve been running errands including a disastrous trip to the Bank of America to open a new account for me. We got assigned to a poor fresh faced young ginger guy who was just out of college and a little nervous and was still in training. It was so complicated because none of the bank staff seemed to have much experience of UK documents and they were really confused so I felt really sorry for the guy training because we were the worst people to start with as we had 3 new accounts, Kim’s name change, change of address, ordering new cards and cheques… it was endless.

We went for a movie date to see Dunkirk which was such a good movie I’d really recommend it.

Did you know they don’t sell sweet popcorn in most US cinemas? I usually like half sweet half salted mixed. They just have salted and a pump of butter you can put on top of it – yeuch.

It’s been hot again mostly this week so we bought new floaties to swim in the lake with (Kim’s is the unicorn).

Eventually though 2 days ago it was time to take my NCLEX, it was a very strict exam taken on a computer in complete silence, I had to show photo ID, get my photo taken, scan the veins of both palms 4 times, I was video recorded at all times, I couldn’t take anything into the exam – you’re not even allowed to take scrap paper or a tissue! I had to pat myself down and roll up my sleeves before I could go in and show my ears under my long hair to prove I didn’t have any ear pieces!

I had 5 hours to take the exam and there would be between 75-205 questions (depending on how you answered), I only took an hour and got about 80 questions or so – so I was thinking this probably wasn’t a great sign. Then there is a 2 day wait to get your results. Kim bought a fondue set so I could console myself with cheese.

Yesterday we had a storm with torrential rain and even some hail and I was perfectly happy inside until I got the life frightened out of me with a weather warning. Apparently they just get sent out automatically to everyone’s phones but I didn’t know that so a little siren started going off from my phone and I was quite confused.

After the storm there was a lovely mist over the lake.

The house across the street is getting renovated, in the neighbour’s front garden is an apple tree and we’d been finding little apple cores and assuming it was squirrels or rabbits or something.

Until we spotted this little fellow this morning, our very own groundhog and his wife (I like to assume they’re married). I love all the wildlife near our house.

Finally after the long wait I got my results this morning that I passed, I am SO glad I don’t have to retake the NCLEX although I have up to 6 weeks to wait for my licence I can at least start looking for jobs and no more studying yayyyy. I have a lucky streak with exams of winging it so I guess it saw me through again.

Settling In To Coventry

My first week in the USA has come and gone and I’ve been settling in nicely. It’s alternated between boiling hot and rainy so that’s made it pretty humid. Kim bought us a house at Coventry by the lake and we’re lucky because there are no main roads near by so the cats are safe roaming about. Also there are no pavements – now you might think this is a bad thing but in the winter by law you have to shovel your driveway and pavements (or sidewalks) within a certain time so we get out of doing that.

The houses are all different looking compared to the UK where usually the houses are built in clusters so they tend to match their neighbours and there isn’t a lot of brick like in the UK, it’s mostly vinyl siding. We’re 3 minutes walk from Coventry Lake and you can see it from the end of our garden (or yard).

The area is really green and there’s small bits of forest either side of our little neighbourhood. As a teenager I used to have a job at a tropical garden center in Norfolk which I absolutely loved (actually I think if the pay was better I’d still be working there!), a lot of the plants that are popular here I recognise from the garden center. There are lots of hostas and we have some of these already in our garden.

There are also orange day lilies absolutely everywhere (also in our garden)

Kim’s working as usual and I’m waiting to take an awful exam which I do not feel confident about at all and am pretty sure I’ll need to retake but until then I’m without a job and not searching until I know if I’ve passed or failed so I’ve been watching a LOT of TV which I don’t usually do. In fact my friends in England liked to make fun of me because for the last few years in England I didn’t actually bother having a TV. Kim is addicted to terrible TV shows so we had to have one here but luckily she owns a smart TV and we got the Amazon Fire TV with Alexa and it works great. People in the USA pay a lot for their cable TV (think $200+ a month) which I wasn’t happy about so instead we’ve set up Hulu and Netflix and it costs a fraction of the price. There’s also some live TV apps which work great and I can connect the TV to my laptop so we’re saving a lot of money that way, also I get to annoy Alexa.

So I haven’t been too bored whilst Kim works, also when it’s nice out I’ve enjoyed walking around the neighbourhood and seeing all the wildlife. The other day I almost walked into this lovely deer in sight of our driveway then to my horror realised my iPhone had decided to turn itself off when I went to take a photo of her. Luckily she was very polite and waited for my iPhone to restart itself so I could take my photo then tripped prettily off into the woods.

I also saw a groundhog on the neighbours lawn the first morning I was here. We have a bird feeder that’s attracted a lot of blue jays, sparrows and cardinals – I think it would attract more if it wasn’t for our resident squirrels who are very sweet but figured out how to open the bird feeder faster than I did then they proceed to dump all the bird seed and meal worms out onto the floor so they can sort through to get their favourite bits. So we need to invest in a squirrel proof bird feeder which we haven’t got round to yet.

In the mean time we have a lot of our own wildlife though, the house has a lot of little cubbyholes and viewing points that the cats love.

I got my social security number through in the mail which is the equivalent to the national insurance number in the UK. I got treated to a trip to the DMV (like the DVLA) where there was a very long wait but I got told I can use my international drivers permit for a year which is great as I’ll have to retake my driving test and I don’t really want to just yet!

I did buy a little car with the money I’d saved up from my job in England, most people seem to buy their cars on finance here but as I don’t exist on credit reports here and I’m not working yet that wouldn’t be an option so I needed to look for something outright. This was made all the more difficult as the Americans favour very large cars, very very large! And I just wanted a small European car, so I found a few I liked online and settled on a little red Fiat 500 2012 which I bought from a dodgy car dealer guy from Kosovo who did not stop talking. Still, I like it and it drives great. I had to buy it in Kim’s name because I have no Connecticut state ID or drivers licence or insurance. Although, strangely Kim added the car to her insurance and her insurance went down. That would never happen in England, you might expect a discount for a multi car policy but she’s actually paying less insurance now with my car added to her policy than she was for her own which I think is mad. To continue the theme of Goldie my previous car we’ve called this one Ruby.  I had to get a satnav (GPS) though or else I won’t know where anything is! Funnily enough my sister Bronte leases a Fiat 500 in blue so we are car sisters, much like in life her model is younger and better looking than mine haha. Fuel is ridiculously cheap compared to England, to fill up my car with petrol from almost empty cost $23, which is about £17.60 which wouldn’t even give me half a tank in England!

Our neighbours have been very friendly so far, there are a few differences though, everyone here is completely obsessed with the American flag and have it plastered all over their gardens, houses, cars etc. It’s actually illegal to burn a flag here, which is fair enough I suppose but if you’ve gone to the trouble of buying a flag to burn surely you’re just burning your own flag that you’ve bought which is your own problem isn’t it? The previous owners of our house left an American flag on our shed (see the middle photo) which so far I’ve kept up there because it makes me laugh.

Another difference is that no one has a letterbox fixed into their front doors, they have mailboxes. Ours is across the street (outside our neighbour Darlene’s house, Darlene is very friendly and enjoys walking about in her nightdress and going on the trampoline with kittens… yes really) and you collect your mail from it, if you want to post a letter you don’t need to find a mailbox, you just stick your letter in the mailbox and put the little flag up and the mail carrier picks it up for you – which I think is very convenient. The United States Postal Service has proved to be every bit as incompetent as Royal Mail though when it managed to deliver 2 of the new address postcards we sent out back to ourselves… great. But I do like the mailboxes and lots of people decorate them. We got a decal sticker with our last name on it which I put on the box a bit wonky but I think the effort is still there. This is also a frequent occurrence in people’s front gardens… I just find it weird though.

So all in all it’s gone fine. Everything is still a bit of a novelty like going to the grocery store. Kim’s been helpful as always to me adjusting by pointing out little tips (“That’s margarine, it’s like butter”… err yeah… thanks for that).

We usually try and do something on Kim’s days off, we went blueberry picking the other day which was fun. Blueberries are widely grown in New England so that was tasty.

But when it’s hot we try not to over do it.

Kim’s Auntie Debbie came to visit us out in the boonies (Auntie Debbie taught me that word, it’s what UK people would say is ‘out in the sticks’, it’s USA war slang for boondocks from when they fought the Philippines) and bought us a nice ice cream cake. I haven’t tried ice cream cake before so that was exciting (as all cake is). All in all a good start.

Getting Ready For The Big Move

I have been busy busy busy preparing to emigrate. Although the visa is now all in order there’s a lot of tying up loose ends. I sent 5 boxes off to Connecticut and all the rest of my things have to be given away or sold (which is endlessly time consuming!). I ordered and received my international driving permit which is all a bit bizarre. I just had to pay £8.50, no learning, no test or instructions of how to drive abroad of any kind and I got this old fashioned pre-war looking thing in khaki cardboard.

We finally got our house sorted so Kimberly and her parents have been setting everything up, assembling new furniture and unpacking the old from her old apartment. She’s had the joy of setting up the internet and Sears customer service and meanwhile I’ve been trying to catch up with all of my friends and family. Including a dinner where my friend Emily and I were sat next to this odd wall hanging in an Italian restaurant.

I sent my little fur babies off on a plane and they’re getting collected by Kimmy today from Boston, they were extremely disgruntled at being stuffed into crates and I can’t imagine they’re enjoying the flight very much but we just couldn’t possibly leave them behind. Bunny (the cat) was wise to me and immediately scrambled to escape as I packed her up but poor Barclay was so shocked he allowed himself to be put in with just an upset meow.

In the mean time I live my life in countdowns – only 6 days until my family vacation to Centerparcs and 25 days until I move.

 

No New News

So Kim and I haven’t been up to much, just working working working… and getting taxed taxed taxed. I picked up my visa from the courier finally and I booked my flight so I leave the UK on the 9th July.

It’s pretty flimsy looking, it’s just a sticker on one page of my passport, there isn’t much to it. I’ve been selling some of my stuff in preparation for the big move, the kitties have assisted. They’re booked on a flight mid June however the new house that Kim has been buying keeps getting the closing date pushed back because of the crappy sellers. We are now meant to be closing tomorrow which is the fourth date we have been given but there are still outstanding things which the seller hasn’t done AND in the mean time the house may have gone into foreclosure because they haven’t been paying their mortgage (ugh!) so who knows when we will actually get the keys – what a disaster.

Other than that I have mainly been living as a vampire on night shift (being nocturnal not sucking blood), last night I met up with my lovely Russian buddy Anastasia for a catch up and we were on the watch for the army in Norwich (after the latest terrorist attack) but we didn’t see any soldiers. A couple of weeks ago I saw my friends from uni too which is a feat in itself as we all work shift jobs. We went for a nice meal and afterwards got coffees at Franks Bar where we discovered a drawer in one of the tables that people had filled with notes. We read through them all until Sarah discovered a Polaroid of someone’s butt… then we decided to stop because she felt “unclean”.

So nothing exciting really, less than a month until my little family getaway with my mum and brother and sister, my dear chum Crissy is back visiting from Australia soon and has kindly offered to take me to the airport (fool that she is). I still haven’t organised to ship my boxes to the states yet and I also need to book a road trip in to see my great aunt before I leave. I offered to see my dad before I went but as always he seems supremely uninterested and said he was working abroad a lot. They should put that on his tombstone instead of “loving father” he could just have “worked a lot”. Anyway time for a nap as later tonight I’ll be working a lot.