Adapting to US life

Adapting to US life has been a little bit difficult. Despite Australia and USA being very similar in many respects, the little things sometimes get to you. Still searching for a decent Mocha, and some real bacon (ie not cardboard). I never thought I would miss vegemite so much. I found a store that sells it, but at $9 for a jar that should cost less than $2, I will continue to miss it until I can convince anyone visiting from Australia to bring it with them. I also need to get back to the gym and back to some better eater habits. After 10 days over here, I have put on 4kg (10 lb). I thought I would avoid that.

However, despite my annoyance at a few little things, some other things are actually nice. Almost every restaurant over here has bottomless softdrink. No need to nurse that $3 glass of coke that only has 5 mouthfuls and ice. And due to the situation with tips vs wages over here, most waiters/waitresses are a lot better than those you find in Australia. Some exceptions as usual, but can’t have everything.

Monday was the 4th of July. Am sure anyone who reads this would know that date is the American Independence Day. Which according to Wikipedia, it seems that a close enough is good enough approach for celebrating this event which actually happened two days earlier. Either way, its an iconic date and a national public holiday.

As I am currently living just outside of DC, it was natural to experience my first 4th of July fireworks display in the National Mall (the strip of public area that stretches from the capital building to the Lincoln Memorial, with the Washington Monument in the centre. Chrissy and I took our position on the Capital Building side of the monument. A small mistake as all the fireworks are set on the Lincoln memorial side of the monument, so we had the Washington monument blocking part of the view.

The fireworks go for 15-20 minutes and are a nice display. But being a Sydneysider, my standards have been set quite high by the annual New Years Eve display over Sydney Harbour with multiple firepoints all synchronised and played in time to music. I kept looking for a pattern or beat or something from the display in DC but seemed to be just a random firing of (a lot of) various fireworks. Still a nice night. Some poor sucker sitting in front of us used the night to propose to his girlfriend. I’m guessing he used the date as its an easy to remember date. The girl, after some tears and hugging, then seemed to want to make sure she was the centre of attention by repeatedly making it loud and clear that she just got engaged. I think only one person actually only paid her attention. As I said, poor sucker.

After fireworks, a couple hundred thousand people (pure guesswork) then headed to the metro to leave town. We stopped at a pub for a couple hours to wait it out. Then a smooth trip home. Not a bad night in all but not a lot of buildup. Maybe I missed it all though and I will get into it a bit more in future years. No idea.

I got excited yesterday when I found out that the State of Origin was actually being broadcast in the USA, as is the NRL Grand Final. I had to subscribe to a Fox Soccer Channel, but that's a sacrifice I was willing to make...up until I watched Game 3. Its a big disappointment that no other games are over here. There are numerous sports channels available on cable that are empty 90% of the time. Surely the NRL would be able to expand their market coverage if they come to an agreement with a US channel. Even if not live for the weekly games, simply showing the games over here would be nice.

As an alternative there is live streaming available for subscription. Yet its not the cost that stops me. Its the fact I would need a high speed internet link, as well as a computer with high graphics capability and high processing speed. Even if i have the latter two (which I don’t), the telephone and modem connections are not in a suitable place to sit and watch tv / laptop. Using a wireless router to basic email and internet is fine, but its a bit too slow for anything requiring high bandwidth.

In contrast, Super Rugby is on over here. EVERY game is shown live, or close to live. Am looking forward to watching the final. But just shows the failure of the NRL management in expanding their market. Hell, Fox Sports already has the Australian broadcast rights. Surely you can work with them to have their American parent show games over here (yes i know fox sports in Australia is part owned by Telstra), but still, surely some arrangement could be made.

Another benefit of being in USA is the Tour De France does not require insomniac type living arrangements. Starts around 7 am and depending on the stage, over around 11am-12.30pm. C’mon Cadel. As I write this, watching Stage 5 with 25 miles to go. And don’t have to wake up for work in just a few hours. On the flipside, after i start work, I wont be able to watch it. Except on the numerous and repeated replays.

Another thing about US TV. Due to the number of channels, and their dedicated nature, its almost impossible to miss a show as it is repeated once, twice, or 3 times per day for the next couple of days. With 200+ channels available, they have to show something. 100 of those seem to be shopping or evangelical channels. 70 are sports channels (of which 55 are dormant and waiting for something to be on) and the remaining 30 channels are either comedy, drama or sci-fi.

Found a firefly marathon on Sunday. That was nice. Another channel seems to have a James Bond marathon on repeat. And then there is channel USA which appears to have about 7 shows in total. Newer shows such as White Collar, Necessary Roughness, Royal Pains and Suits (good show) and older ones being Law and Order (x3 variants) and NCIS. Given this channel goes 24 hours, 7 days a week, you can imagine the number of repeats being shown.

Oh, and when I was in the bank yesterday, I noticed the standard home loan rate over here for people with good credit. 30 year fixed rate loans at less than 5% per annum. Fixed! For 30 years! Yikes. I guess when the economy is in recession and you have 10% unemployment, government bond rates close to 0%, then mortgages are cheap. But as I said, that's for people with good credit history. Which it seems is not the common position in the US. Once I get settled, I think a serious look at the property market over here is in order while prices are down and money is cheap.

I am still looking for a place to rent at the moment. I was expecting to have a place already, as I had never really had problems finding a place in Sydney. Yet my previous assertions that everyone loves an Aussie may not be correct. I can only assume its because they are worried I will only be here short term before going home. Not surprising, it seems like they all want to be in Sydney :-)

That's it for today. Next update when I have something to share.