Monday, November 10, 2008

A World of Convenience!

Hello everyone, it's been a long time since I've blogged - I know - sorry about that but things have been pretty busy in the US. We arrived here late on Wednesday afternoon and the weather was surprisingly pleasant! I was a bit relieved because it was really not that bad and quite pretty outside - it's late Autmn here now - or as they say... Fall (more like Faaaaaall). I've never seen trees in such a splendid array of oranges and yellows! It's really breath-taking and no I didn't get a chance to take any pictures - sorry about that - because now it's pretty much almost over - it started snowing this morning...

So we went straight to work on Thursday and met our supervisor - Sunder - who's a wonderful guy - from India! He's been extremely helpful with both work and personal stuff. Our immediate plan of action is finding an apartment to move into by 1 Dec and then finding a car. The apartment search is going ok so far, most places are quite old compared to my lovely Waterford flat - but the units are much more spacious and the complexes have better facilities like gyms and pools. Will keep you posted but we might just have something soon. The car is not as easy - the used car prices have really gone up with the great recession here in america, so we're not getting much luck on that front yet. We're also spending most of our time with a collegue - Massimiliano - Massi for short. He's from Italy and in the same boast as us - so we're helping each other out. 

Ok, so now that the boring questions have been answered...on to the more interesting stuff. 
The US is sooo incredibly different from SA and filled with convenience - for lack of a better word! Can you believe that most supermarkets don't have fresh fruit and vegetables? You have to search for one - it's a rare find. Most of the food is pre-packed; pre-cooked; crumbed; covered in cheese; smothered in sauce and loaded with butter. All in a box and all ready in minutes. So food is all about convenience it seems - there are loads of drive-throughs. There's even a drive through Krispy Kreme's thats open 24hrs! Now, who in their right minds would be eating Krispy Kreme's at 2am in the morning? Although - I have to admit -they do taste delicious - we're trying to stay away!
Speaking of drive throughs... have you ever seen a drive-through pharmacy?? There are drive-through everthings here! So more convenience - we were totally amazed. 
Then there's the internet - I dont think we in SA have really used the internet as much as its used here - that's probably because of the amazing infrastructure here, but we've been using the net to find just about anything - supermarkets with fresh food, apartments, cars, getting walking/driving directions with google maps. Everything is just geared towards making things easier - it's really a fantastic and we're still hooked on the novelty of the net - I think we'll get over it at some point - not anytime soon tho!

So, back to the weather - yes it's freezing - it only snowed a little today but it was enough to give us a scare - we need to buy warmer clothes! I promise to take pics when I get a chance.
Ciao for now!

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