West Meets East Part II - Escape to New England

After three days in New York, it was time to head north for a week exploring the Massachusetts coast.  Mile per mile New England is half way home – and it felt like it too.  For a start there’s greenery; fields; forests; even a grass verge along the edge of freeway and joy of joy, instead of traffic lights - roundabouts!

Our first stop was a lunch break in the town of New London on Long Island Sound.  New London is a seaport with shipyards; we tucked into a sandwich in an old fashioned café on a tired semi-industrial waterfront uncannily similar to the suburbs of my home town of Southampton in the UK. (If anyone from Southampton is actually reading this imagine Woolston but just a tad more up-market).

We then headed off in the rain to Newport Rhode Island, home of ocean sailing yachts and expensive boutiques.  Too smart and wet for us so we jumped back in the car and set forth for Plymouth, our base for the week, and yes, home to those original Pilgrim Fathers.

Plymouth actually felt very much like any small British coastal village – a harbor, a village green, shops along the front selling everything from Cape Cod sweatshirts (a New England necessity), Plymouth rain coats (another necessity) cranberry teabags and the usual array of useless seaside knick-knacks.  There were even youths hanging outside the local mini-market.  We felt right at home.

Pride of place in Plymouth harbor sits a replica of the original Mayflower that carried 102 Pilgrims across the Atlantic in 1620.  The actual rock where those Pilgrims apparently took their first steps on shore is now preserved for prosperity beneath a very grand marble mausoleum-like structure on the quayside.  Since the original landing this piece of rock has been moved many times to various resting places around the town and apparently every time it’s moved; it’s dropped.  It is now rather unceremoniously glued together with a seam of 21st century cement and is half the rock it used to be.  Still it’s a major tourist attraction.

Plymouth is a living history book - every other house is a museum or a relic of a bygone age - A Pilgrim woz 'ere so to speak. Amongst all this memorabilia stands a relatively recent solitary statue of a native American whose people populated the area long before those first Europeans and whose ancestors must long rue the day they held out a helping hand of friendship to those early settlers.

We had rented a typical New England clapperboard cottage for the week – built in 1870 when LA was just a mere glint in someone’s eye (and in my opinion that’s exactly where it should have stayed). The neighbours were friendly, made eye-contact, held a conversation and cut their own grass.

A quick trip to the local shops to acquire jeans for me; something with long sleeves for the teenager and the regulation Massachusetts anorak for him and we were all set for exploring New England.

West Meets East Part I - Big Apple Adventures

Living in LA its pretty easy to lose a grip on reality.  We are cocooned in a celebrity obsessed media driven society, bubble wrapped in a purpose built concrete metropolis surrounded by barren dessert.  This is a land where the sun shines continually on the unrighteous.  So how would we flaky Californians find the East Coast?

It’s a 5 hour flight from Los Angeles to Newark – I'm used to travelling long haul with free food and free entertainment so flying domestic with Continental Airlines left a lot to be desired.  $8 to watch TV (we didn’t); $8 for a miserable snack box (we didn’t) and at 6.00 am even I thought it was too early to splash out on an alcoholic beverage – so we didn’t. Makes for a pretty long boring flight though.

However, out of the gloom came a welcoming sight; as we descended over the the suburbs of New Jersey one thing became immediately apparent – the East Coast is green.

A half hour train ride from the airport and we emerged from Penn Street station to the hustle and bustle of New York City.  Sky scrapers; yellow cabs; lots of people; lots of noise.  This was more like it! So different from the deserted streets of downtown LA regularly devoid of human life.

New York is busy.  It’s vibrant; it’s hectic; it’s noisy, it’s smelly but I loved it.  Every hot sticky tacky touristy minute of it.  We did Times Square, the Empire State; Central Park; took the Statten Island Ferry for the view of the Statue of Liberty; walked up Wall Street.  You’ve seen at the movies; you’ve seen it on TV and yes NYC is exactly how you expect it to be – only more so. 

 

We did a Broadway Show – boosted our Parents of the Year status by taking the teenager to see Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) in How to Succeed in Business, which even without the added attraction of the Chosen One would have been an extremely entertaining show.

We rode the subway; admired the Rockefeller Center, marveled at the Chrysler Building, had lunch in a New York Deli; breakfast on the edge of Central Park.

NYC really does have it all - history, character, culture, from those elegant brownstones to the art deco interior of  the Empire State; the grand splendour of Grand Central Station and the Metropolitan Museum; to those modern highrises.  There is are amazing choices of food and places to eat; every whim and every nationality is catered for - street vendors, street cafes, upmarket restaurants. Shop til you drop then retreat to Central Park.  There really is something here for everyone. 

If only I could capture that atmosphere in a bottle and ship it out west.

Two years of living in LA. Two days of NYC.

No contest. The Big Apple wins hands down.

Helpful Hints

I’m a Virgo which basically means I like to be helpful, busy and active – probably why I’ve struggled so much to adjust to my enforced desperate housewife lifestyle. Virgos are also supposed to be charming, witty and loyal so whilst I take some time out to assemble some charming witty ramblings about our recent trip to the East Coast, here’s some more of my personal tips and advice on coping with life in America. It’s an in-built need, I just can’t help myself….

Shoe sizes – two sizes bigger than than UK sizes and several times smaller than European.  For example I was a size 5 in the UK and am now a size 7 in the US.  That’s a 38 in European.

Dress sizes – two sizes smaller than in the UK so I’m now a 4 or a 6, depending how much dinner I’ve eaten.  That’s 34 or 36 in European – which does rather tie in with the 38 shoes. 

I rather like the idea of wearing size 4 clothes because that makes me feel somewhat petite, on the other hand I don’t like the idea of size 7 shoes – that’s enormous! The American sizing system classifies me as some kind of Hobbit.

Bodyweight is always assessed in pounds (lbs) – a stone is something you find lying around on a beach.  Nobody will have a clue what you are talking about if you give your weight in stones – or kilo’s for that matter.  My daughter’s classmates have no idea what the metric system is, even though apparently it is the official system of measuring in the US.  At school she learns everything in feet and inches and all the road signs are in miles – not kilometers.  Also Americans do not understand the 24 hour clock – that's  "military time" over here.

A US gallon is smaller than a UK gallon; a US gallon of petrol is also way cheaper.

Voltage – whilst most of Europe runs on 220 V, the US runs on 110.  Apparently this is because it is thought to be safer.  Whilst this may be reassuring if you are an  electro-phobe, to the rest of us it just means everything is decidedly slow.  Back in the UK I have an electric kettle that has boiled before I can get the cups out of the cupboard and the tea bags in place, here I take a shower and get fully dressed whilst the water boils.  Similarly you wont get blown away by a fast and furious hairdryer.

And talking of hair – in the UK I have a fringe.  Here I have “bangs”. No I don’t get that one either.

For those who like cooking cornflour is cornstarch; plain flour is all purpose and icing sugar either powdered or confectioner’s.  Butter comes in packs of 4 oz sticks – very useful – but quantities in recipes are always given in cups – full cups, half a cup, third of a cup.  If you plan on doing any cooking you will need to invest in a set of “cups”.  Whilst this does eliminate the need for scales and is very handy when you’re cooking with a five year old,  I personally don’t see anything wrong with broadening the mind and using weights and measures. After all when you’ve just given birth nobody assesses the baby’s weight by guessing how many cups it’ll fit into.

And talking of birth, there is little or no maternity leave and definitely no paternity leave although adoption is extremely common – especially if you are wealthy or Angelina Jolie.

For those of us who like to smell nice when it comes to deodorant you are stuck with a roll-on, body spray and spray deodorant for women are inexplicably unavailable. Whilst at first I thought this was an admirable attempt to save the ozone layer, it's obviously not because you can buy aerosols for men.

And finally, for those of you still under the delusion that LA is the height of sophistication and all things modern “Express Parking” (ie you pay at an automatic machine before you go back to your car rather than paying the man on the exit gate) has only just arrived in Pasadena and so has tomato puree in a tube – recently launched  at my local Fresh and Easy and previously only available in a tin.  Wonders will never cease. What will they come up with next? Spray deodorant for women hopefully.

I'm Working On It

I’m always rambling on about things that I miss about England and things that I don’t like about America so I thought it might be a nice change if I did the opposite – after all there has to be some aspects of American life I love, something that makes me think that’s such a good idea….

Well one thing that struck me during our recent trip to the Hollywood Bowl was how lovely it was that a performer wouldn’t be able to see the rows of empty seats because they were hidden behind rows of trees.  I thought that was very inventive. Americans just hate having to be the bearers of bad news:  Don’t tell the artist the seats haven’t sold, just keep them out of view.

 

They really don't want to let you down - one of my favourite American phrases is “I’m working on it”.  This is the standard answer Americans will give you if you ever need to chase them up about anything.  It basically means  - thank you for reminding me what it was you asked me to do because I had actually completely forgotten.  I’ll get started on it straight away, well tomorrow anyway…. But at least it sounds like they’ve been busy doing something on your behalf.

Another similar phrase I like is “we’ll see what we can do” – we had a lot of that when we first arrived and were trying to buy furniture and large items including the teenager’s dentistry without any credit history.  At the end of the day the answer was still a no you can’t have any finance but at least they made you feel as if they had tried – even if they just slipped out of the room for a few minutes, pretended to make a couple of phone calls  and came back in sadly shaking their heads. (You’ll also get this one a lot when it comes to negotiating the price of your new car.)

Most Americans appear to have been born with a natural politeness gene - they really do want to be helpful.  I’m sure it stems back to this child-like myth of the “American Dream”, only good can happen here. To say I don’t like it would make me sound like a right killjoy – but it does get a bit ingratiating after a while.  Sometimes people just need to be honest and tell it like it is. After all I do!!

What else do I like?

Well I can’t say shopping because that makes me sound incredibly shallow and my husband says I do far much of it anyway. Obviously the weather but that doesn’t count because good weather isn’t exclusive to California.  I could go and live in Sydney and have the same climate just at the opposite time of the year.

So what exclusively American thing do I like so much I can’t imagine returning to the UK without it? Is there a product that has jumped off the supermarket shelf into my basket that I find so innovative, so original that I will want to take packets of it home stashed in my suitcase? Well I do like my dried cranberry and toasted almond salad toppers from Ralphs but as I can buy both dried cranberries and toasted almonds back home I could easily make that myself, it just wouldn’t be so convenient. I have also become particularly partial to raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing but again I’m pretty sure I could find that in Waitrose…

(I’ve just asked my daughter this question and her reply was “Lucky Charms” which is a fluorescent  children’s breakfast cereal probably containing every additive and food colouring known to man.  I think we might actually struggle to get this one through customs and accepted into the EEC).

The trouble with America is that it is everywhere; there isn’t anything here that I couldn’t get anywhere else in the world – apart from Lucky Charms of course.  America has globalised the globe. When I want to take presents home I desperately search for something that is “traditionally” American; something unique and exclusive because rather surprisingly, an "I love Hollywood" T-shirt is not the perfect gift for everyone.  I search in vain.

I think this is one I might be working on for some time.

Meanwhile it’s going to be a couple of quiet weeks in the Bubble because I am off doing what I really do like best about living in America – exploring. 

Back in a few weeks!