the possibly accurate nowThu, 14 Sep 2006
[15:47] Welcome To America!
We made it! The advantage of living in Australia is that you get used to REALLY long flights so the 12-hour hop from the UK to the USA was easy!
We black-cabbed it out from Balham to SFO on time at 1300 local time (GMT-7).
Getting out of the airport was amazingly easy. We waltzed through both Immigration and Customs with barely a stop and getting out of San Francisco was just as easy! We caught the BART to Millbrae and then hopped onto the (enourmous) Caltrain to San Jose where we taxi'd the last mile to "home".
The fabulous Andrew and Sarah came over after they finished work and drove us around to the local mall, Great Mall for dinner at Johnny Rockets and then shipped us over to the local supermarket to stock up on grub because there's NOTHING within walking distance!
Initial thoughts on America:
- The US is a LOT like Australia - startlingly so. It could just be because I'm used to the UK now but the physical town structure and the social interactions seem to be a lot like what I remember home being like (obviously my US sample set is pretty small right now though).
- The American stereo-type is definitely not representative of the normal, everyday American. This is a conclusion that I've been coming to over the last few months of dealing with interviewers and post-interview organisers. They all seem to be really friendly and even the checkout chick kinda folks over here are stupendously helpful and friendly compared to their UK counterparts. Last night Andrwe got me signed up for a SafeWays card and the bloke realised that he'd forgotten to key in the details before he started doing the checkout so after he finished he manually re-keyed it all to get me my discount and then gave me a refund, all whilst smiling and apologising!
- It's BIG. Everything is big. The appartment, then bed (you need a ladder to get in), the milk, the paper (actually, the paper sizes are just weird), the towns which are spread out and sprawling around here, the roads - even the small suburban roads look like 4 lane highways, especially after the twisty little UK streets that we've gotten used to.
- Cereal is only cereal if it contains a minimum of 10% sugar - even the museli.
- It really helps to have great friends who can help you out with stuff like SIM cards when you don't have a credit reference. I'm looking forward to going through all of that again!
OK, we've been on the go for over 24 hours now - generally the best way of killing jet lag (which I don't believe in anyway) so time to abseil into bed and get ready for more adventures tomorrow!
[Posted at: 14/09/2006 23:47]
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