Sunday, March 17, 2002

We're On Our Way Home!

“Time is that quality of nature which keeps events from happening at once.
Lately it doesn't seem to be working.”
Anonymous

We're finally on our way home and all of a sudden it seems like there's a million things to do in very little time. We are hoping to leave Burlingame on the 12th April and make our way home via Yosemite National Park, San Diego, Palm Springs, Joshua Tree National Park and Hawaii.

As this is probably my last chance to write from American soil I am making no apologies for this wordy blog.

On The Pet Front

As usual, nothing can be booked until the pets are settled.

We are planning to send them home on the 24th of April but we are still waiting for the import permits. Before they can leave, Mitzi has to pass 2 or 3 more blood tests and both pets need to be wormed and bathed. Luckily we won't be around for this - worming Astra is a nightmare we leave to our vets and we wouldn't dream of giving her a bath!

There is a strict schedule that must be followed. Most of the tests have to be done 2 weeks before they are imported into Australia. We are going to board them at the animal hospital where the vet works so hopefully we can arrange some of the tests in advance or the Pet Express company can handle any outstanding issues.

Although Astra seems unaware of what's going on, Mitzi seems a bit down. Mitzi has seen the packing boxes and I'm sure she knows that we're going to leave her again. When we lived at Toongabbie the last thing we would hear and see when we left for a holiday was Mitzi crying as she tried to climb over the dog-proofing on the side gate. And when Jet Pets picked the pets up to fly them to Melbourne, she gave Mum and me this really sad, "trying-to-be-brave" look - "you're leaving me again!". I miss her already.

Exams Are Over

The last two weeks of our Virtual University courses were hectic. The JavaScript course introduced a whole lot of new concepts in the second-last week and by the time we finished nutting those out it was the final week with exams and extra-credit projects.

The extra-credit projects were worth 20 marks. So, if you got 76% on the exam (a pass) and 20 marks for the extra-credit project, your grade would be 96% (exemplary). We were wondering what would happen if you got over 80% in the exam and 20 marks for your extra-credit project.

Tony and I were also surprised at the number of people who announced their exam results on the classroom bulletin board. It seems such a strange thing to do.

Currently, we are busy practising our new skills. We are slowly implementing changes to this web site, Tony is setting up his résumé online and I just completed changes to a new web site, Deb's Kitchen. The Yan Dip and Mum's barbecue marinades are the first of (hopefully) many recipes to be included on the site.

Life In The U.S. - Part 1

Following are an alien's view of life in the U.S.

Meals

An appetiser is an entree and an entree is a main. Between the appetiser and entree there is salad - not a dish served as an appetiser or a side dish served with the appetiser or entree, but a course on its own. Confused? At least dessert is dessert.

What Size Is Small?

There doesn't seem to be a small size unless you are talking about dress sizes. This is especially true when it comes to food. In a fast food restaurant the smallest sized fries or drink you can order is medium. The sizes then increase to large, super and jumbo or something similar. Mind you, medium is equivalent to the Australian large. Tony once made the mistake of ordering a jumbo Coke. The take-away cup holds a litre!

Appetisers (the Australian entree) need to be shared. At a Mexican restaurant Tony ordered "Grando Nachos" for an appetiser. Out came this platter piled high with corn chips that were topped with lashings of cheese, salsa, sour cream, guacomole, beans, chicken and minced meat. The platter was huge - the kind of platter you expect to use for the Thanksgiving Turkey or Christmas Ham. We had only dropped in for a snack - between the two of us we hardly managed to finish a third of it. And on top of that there were free corn chips and salsa to nibble on while we were waiting.

The Land of Choices

Can there ever be too many choices?

I went to process a film at a one-hour photo shop.

Salesman: Do you want that processed within the hour or overnight?
Me: Within the hour.
Salesman: Single prints or double prints?
Me: Single prints.
Salesman: Would you like the prints on CD?
Me: No, thank you.
Salesman: Glossy paper or matte?
Me: Glossy, please.
Salesman: With or without borders?
Me: No borders.

I felt like I was ordering coffee!

The most defining example of choice is the cereal aisle in a big supermarket. Imagine two aisles in a Coles Supermarket with shelves, on both sides of the aisle, packed with cereal boxes. That's a lot of cereal.

Grocery Shopping

You don't realise how many foods you take for granted until you live in another country.

One of the staples in my pantry is stock cubes. After three weeks searching the spice and soup aisles I finally found canned broth - basically "stock in a can". However, there is a large Chinese population in the area and I couldn't imagine every single Chinese family boiling chicken carcasses to make stock. So I decided to try the International Foods aisle. Sure enough, I found them in the Asian section selling as "bouillon cubes".

I buy mixed fruit for the Christmas pudding instead of buying individual dried fruits such as currants and sultanas. Mixed fruit is not available in the U.S. so I had to buy the individual fruits. I couldn't find sultanas so I bought raisins only to discover that American raisins are sultanas. I still don't know what the American name is for raisins.

Aussie Food

We ran out of Vegemite about a month ago. There are gourmet supermarkets that sell tiny jars of Vegemite and Violet Crumbles in their international food aisle, albeit in the British section. If we have a hankering for some Aussie goodies we put in an order with Aussie Products. The trouble is I got carried away with the Barbecue Shapes, Cherry Ripes and Twisties and forgot to order Vegemite - the sole reason I was placing the order. To help us survive the next couple of months I had to buy a couple of those tiny jars.

More To Come

This blog was much longer than I expected. So stay tuned for "Living In The U.S - Part 2" covering mundane topics such as annoying machines and public transport.

1 comment:

  1. The "Deb's Kitchen" website is now the blog "From Deb's Kitchen" (fromdebskitchen.blogspot.com).

    ReplyDelete

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