America loves to shop! And shopping in America can be good fun - we furnished the house in a day - it's amazing, you go to a shop, choose your furniture and it's delivered that same evening. I did my best to make our house as light and airy as possible - keeping the patio doors wide open was also an option but it did get surprisingly cold in winter! I also did my best to fill up my closet! Shopping for homewares and clothes is easy - there are a multitude of TK Maxx style shops selling household items at remarkably low prices. Clothes are also generally cheaper - sometimes the quality seems a bit lacking and there is a surprisingly high amount of polyester and spandex but shopping for named brands and designer labels is a positive money saver!
So, shopping for household items is good. Shopping for clothes is good. Shopping for food is bad. Very bad. No - I must remember our mantra - not bad, it's just different.
On my first trip to an American supermarket I took over an hour and a half to fill the trolley with less than a week's worth of groceries. We could have been in and out of pizza hut for five nights in a row in less time than that! It was very depressing Food that looks the same, isn't the same. Everyone knows that a biscuit is a cookie, and that sweets are candy, but a kitkat is a kitkat - it looks like a kitkat, it's in the same wrapper as a kitkat but it doesn't taste anything like a kitkat. Talk about disappointing.
Americans have an incredibly sweet tooth (I am still convinced that food production is generally financed and sponsored by the American Dental Association - rot their teeth, send them to the dentist, collect the check! It's a win win situation!). Shop bought cakes, desserts and cookies are unbearably sweet, and as for sliced bread - try finding a loaf on a supermarket shelf that doesn't have tons of added sugar. Jars, cans, and packets of all manner of processed food and ready meals line the shelves - literally you just have to add hot water! It's amazing I need never cook a proper meal again. Who said anything about being tasty?!
Organic and free range produce is not widely available - you have to seek out specialist farmer's markets or visit Whole Foods stores - lovely shops but expensive compared to the regular supermarkets. Fresh fruit and vegetables are also surprisingly pricey - I could pick a grapefruit out of my neighbour's front garden but it would have been cheaper to buy it after it had flown half way round the world back to Tesco than it is to buy it here in the local supermarket. How does that work? And of course, everything comes in very large packages. America doesn't do small. Great if you are a family of Mormons but when there is only the 3 of you.....wastage seems prevalent.
So, the house was furnished, the cupboards were finally stocked. So what next on our learning curve? School. Daughter No 2 braved the inoculations and had her health check. Once declared germ free she was eligible to be thrust into the American education system. Again several mornings spent chanting "it's not bad - it's just different" as we experienced the wonders of public (state) school. And then? Well I was home all day, by myself; I'd gone from being a working mum of two, to a "stay at home mom" of one. I was lonely, I was bored. It was time to get out there and start exploring. It was time to buy that second car and learn to drive American style.
And this where the mantra definitely changes. Trust me - IT IS BAD AND IT IS VERY DIFFERENT.
No comments:
Post a Comment