Over the past fortnight, there have been some things that I have thought a lot, and I thought I’d share those thoughts with you…because this is my blog and that’s the sort of thing I used to do here.
What time is it? One of the most difficult things, especially when I was on my own last week, was figuring out the time differences. I never had much of a problem in the past when Alex was working away, and when I worked for an US company 5 years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for me to have three clocks on my desktop – UK time, Alex time and the time zone my boss was in. However, working out that the UK is 8 hours ahead is an ongoing one – as I’m going to bed, some of you are just getting up, and by 4pm my time, Twitter pretty much goes silent. I’m not going to lie, it’s pretty lonely then.
YAY SHOPPING. Boo shopping. I was so excited when I saw there was a Target a mile from the house. Finally I could get the Nate Berkus office things I wanted (still considering the gold stapler tbh) without an insane postage and customs cost! The joy was short lived however when I read a blog post showing off a pretty dress from Primark, and I realised that my nearest Primark is 3784km away in Pennsylvania. (C’mon Primark, get to the West Coast already)
Food shopping is a mission. Some of you may have seen my Instagram Stories series when I went to the supermarket for the first time (I’m not counting the sleep deprived trip we made when we landed because I couldn’t even figure out what shampoo to buy and nearly cried in the middle of Safeway) Going to the supermarket is a total delight and a total mission at the moment, because there are so many new things to us (why are there so many flavours of Goldfish crackers? Why is cheese so bloody expensive? Why is there a thunderstorm over the veg with misting sprays?) and also we’re trying to figure out what we know. Did you know there doesn’t appear to be such a thing as double cream here? For some reason, that really annoys Alex.
Pedestrians are unwelcome. OK, maybe not unwelcome – I mean, there are at least pavements between here and the shops. But there are only pavements on one side of the road, and the pedestrian crossings basically change colour as soon as you step out into the road and LOOK ITS JUST VERY SCARY WHEN PEOPLE ARE APPARENTLY NOT THAT GREAT AT DRIVING OK.
Everyone is just too friendly. I know, that’s a thing. People here are more willing to talk to you in the shops, giving compliments, asking information, checking if you’re OK. It’s very nice, but I’m British and I can’t help wondering if they’re all taking the piss. That one might take a while to get used to.
It’s too warm, but that’s OK. Since we landed, every day has been at least 20C, and most days have been averaging 27C+. In the UK, I would be more whiny than usual about this, but over here, it’s actually not too bad, because everyone loves air conditioning. We have even bought a window unit for the bedroom, and it is beautiful.
I know I sound like I’m whining, but it’s actually really fun learning new things but also totally exhausting. I’m also missing the #blogclub girls a lot, not just because they had their first event without me last week, but because I’m feeling a bit uninspired lately, and miss having other bloggers around to inspire me!