Happy New Year!
Welcome to 2005! Today is a lazy Saturday complete with laundry, Mexican food, Bryce writing his sermon for tomorrow and I am trying to do some writing on my chapter. We’ve been rushing around mostly this first week in California with a Christmas celebration with family (Monday), shopping the mall sales and dinner at the Hales’ (Tuesday), trips to Costco etc (Wednesday), a quick trip to hang with the Hales and their friends in Palm Desert (Thursday - Friday), a trip to the Cabazon outlets and a drive up to Pasadena (Friday) and a New Year’s Eve party at our pastor’s (our CA PCA pastor) home in Temple City on Friday night. Good times were had by all and now Ashley has some clothes that actually fit and we’re still looking for a few more items for Bryce.
Initial impressions about being in California again:
1. All the cars are HUGE, new and very shiny-looking.
2. The toilets here fill up with more water and I always freak out and think it’s going to overflow.
3. The traffic lanes are much wider here.
4. They serve ginormous portions of food here - BUT it is ALL very tasty.
5. Every salesperson is really friendly and now that irks me.
6. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m too cerebral and can’t handle conversations about mundane stuff for very long any more.
7. People freak out about rain here. That’s funny.
8. It is unheard of to walk anywhere.
9. We feel *very* much inbetween.
10. Our bed is heavenly and the carpet is soft and thick - absolutely wonderful!
11. It’s funny to overhear conversations about things that tick people off here; it all seems completely inconsequential. Maybe people take themselves too seriously here.
12. I don’t know which way to look when crossing the street.
13. There’s lots of palm trees here. I mean lots.
That is all for now folks. More later when we’re a bit more settled in. It is an odd experience looking at what has been familiar to you your entire life with defamiliarised eyes.
January 2nd, 2005 at 2:07 am
I have arrived at the conclusion that the only thing in Brittain that is bigger that in the U.S. is beer. Weird.
January 3rd, 2005 at 9:54 pm
Quite funny ‘first re-impressions’ and completely true.
January 4th, 2005 at 9:59 pm
Yeah, I’ve always heard our food portions are massive compared to Europe’s. That might have a bit to do with the obesity problems we have here (that and the stuff we eat).