Monday, October 24, 2011

Oh say can you see....




Three weeks in the USA has given me a wealth of material to write about.  While I was there I was busting to write, it was so fascinating people watching, I was in social observation heaven!  But now I'm back, and after spending time with our dear friends in Charlotte, North Carolina, and meeting their gorgeous friends, it feels a bit wrong.  Almost like I'm making generalisations and fun of a culture.  So I won't.  Today.  But I will share a few experiences and observations of my own;

If a young guy called Omar needs to sneak you into a condo complex, and makes you tell anyone who asks that you're personal friends (and if he arrives in a beat up car with plastic taped over a broken window) then there is nothing good, nor legal about this arrangement.  Nothing.
There is always the same clothes in Gap and Abercrombies, regardless of what mall or city you're in.  You don't need to go into all of them.
If a hotel in Vegas has a slow river pool, don't go there thinking it will be full of kids.  It won't.  There will however be many young beautiful things nursing cocktails or buckets of beer, which will provide another whole level of entertainment for your kids
If your kids meet up with their bestest friends who they haven't seen in a year , and then they all sleep in the same room, they will not wake up at 7am, nor 6am, nor even 5am.  4am is a better bet.
Don't go to Key West during hurricane season with high expectations of getting a hurricane experience.  Murphy's Law will provide only a brief shower then many hours of sunshine instead.
Don't think that a 5 year old will have the same enjoyment out of a theme park full of roller coasters (with height restrictions) he may or may not want to "go home" after the first hour of watching his brothers.
Don't wear thongs to a shopping mall at nighttime for some precious solo shopping time unless you want to walk barefoot around the mall, looking like trailer trash (again) while you try and find a new pair.
Don't buy leather thongs, even if you're walking around a mall at night barefoot.  They will only give you blisters the first time you wear them.  Stick to what you know.
If you think that the crowds at Disney and the short wait times first thing in the morning are indicative of what the whole day will be like, you're wrong.  Oh so very, very wrong.
If you feel sorry for all the people driving motorised wheelchairs at Disney, think again.  For $25 a day, you too could hire one, saving your feet and your time as you head straight to the front of the (massive) queues.
If you're at a bar and the band calls for the "booty dance" don't feel tempted even a little to join the girls on stage.  You don't know how to do it and many hours of private practice in front of the mirror will be needed to perfect it.
If that chicken salad you ordered for dinner tastes so damn fine, look closer, it's the crispy potato chips and the fatty mayo that's providing that taste fiesta, not the chicken, nor the salad leaves, no matter how much you want them too.

I'm back peeps.  Hallelujah, it feels good to be home!

2 comments: