Well, it has been an interesting couple of days. I’ll start with the good stuff.
I stayed up late on Saturday watching Lord of the Rings, and marvelling at how beautiful New Zealand is. I think the others could have done with less of the “And that’s Wellington’s Quarry!” but they were nice about the whole thing, and the movie is great.

On Sunday I went to Church, which is a little different from Church in New Zealand. I’ve never seen a crucifix and a large icon of Mary and Jesus in an Anglican church before. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose? Good sermon though, and the people there seemed pleased to see a young person show up so early (8am).

I also did my sweet soccer skills again, but I was much less like Renaldo this week. Possibly the fact I was running off no sleep was a factor, and possibly it was just reality asserting itself. We shall have to see, as the first game is quite soon.

On Monday evening I had a pillow-fight, which I lost. I also did heaps of homework, which made me feel good. I have discovered that to get any work done I need to be at the library, because otherwise I am distracted by my friends.

On Tuesday however, I did an Army Swim Test. I tell a lie (sorry – I’m writing this early in the morning and my brain is a bit scattered), on Tuesday firstly I did a job interview for a one-off EAP fair job, worth about $40 for the day. I was thinking about what to do with the unexpected money (buy new jandels, because mine have holes in them, or use it to top up my meal points plan?) but now I know exactly what it is I’m doing with it. The army swim test was great, and I crushed – but my DPM’s (army camo) got very wet (obviously), my plastic bag had a hole in it, and the upshot was leaked water all through my backpack. It destroyed nothing except my cellphone, and that is destroyed completely. So the money I will be earning will be going towards that.

The Army swim test was fun though – a 30m DPM swim (easy as pie), a 15 rifle swim (in New Zealand to pass one has to keep the rifle out of the water, and so I did, but apparently this isn’t true in the states and everyone was surprised by my sweet skills/amused at my ignorance.) A entry into the water whilst taking off gear, and an entry into the water whilst blindfolded. Then we made improvised floatation devices. The best line? “Take off your pants! I’ve always wanted to give that order.” (We filled the legs with air and floated on them.) A close second has to be “This is the way I always wanted to die. Floating on my pants.”

So that's life. Classes and stuff. I wonder if I really need to replace that cellphone - the whole thing is really expensive.

Anyway, cheers

Margie

written by  Crosswood on September 19, 2007 from Berkeley, United States
from the travel blog: New Zealand Student, American University.
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This week has been lots of work, but also lots of fun at the same time.
Sunday was another Soccer day, and I was like Renaldo in my fabulous skills. Ahem.
I know that everyone who reads this will be trying to remember the last time that I was good at sport, but I am not kidding this time! I scored heaps of goals against my Italian and German teammates – pity it was just a practice. I need to do now is the exact same thing in the game. I can even do this, because I am officially relived of goalkeeping duty and am on the actual team which runs around and does stuff!
I know! I'm not a goalkeeper for once!! How weird is that???

Anyway, all this was before I realised I had a huge assignment due the next day (Monday), so I pulled an all-nighter to finish it off. (I misread the syllabus so I thought I had already finished the entire thing, when I had only finished half! It gave me quite a fright.) Luckily It turned out it was due in on Tuesday, and not Monday, but by then I had already finished it, (I really should have read that syllabus) so I had a sweet day of fixing it up so that it made more sense before I gave it to my lecturer. Truthfully the essay was pretty bad... but it could have been worse.

On Monday I hung out with a friend for lunch (this same friend who organised the communist tea party) and was determined to sleep well that evening. I was pretty tired after the random sleeplessness caused by the whole 'assignments due the next day' thing. Un/fortunately for me I got sidetracked by one of my wonderful housemates, who started teaching me basic Hebrew phrases and thus I spent my sleep-time talking about very little long into the night. Shana Tova everyone! (Happy Jewish New Year!)

I also went to a military lab offered at Berkeley. They’re not very organised, but they’ve got big heart. They told me we were going to do a swim-test, but it turned out we were actually going to do a commemoration service for 9/11 and also a swearing in ceremony.

I felt a little out of place wearing my togs underneath my uniform. Luckily no one noticed.

All the parents kept taking photos of me though, because I was wearing bright green in the midst of all this urban grey, and had a green beret on. They must have thought I was awesome, or possibly just confused.

The drill commands are also very different, and I made a lot more noise with my boot stomping than the Americans, whose marching-style reminds me forcibly of power-walking. The weather was also very hot!

Today I did the weirdest test of my entire life. I did a reading of about a million pages, decisibing the ‘Life of Saint Bernard’ – this holy monk in France. He was a pretty intense mystic! Anyway, the assignment was a page about if you were a hollywood director, who would you cast to play Bernard in a movie about his life? This writing assignment was worth marks overall, so I fought down the urge to crack up, and just did it.

I love my lecturer for this class. She’s gold. This is the same lecturer that, on my second day at Berkeley, randomly started to laugh in the first lecture. She then told us what she found funny. No one else laughed, (it was pretty lame) so she has since stopped telling us why she laughs. Now she just stops in the middle of a sentence, cracks up, and then keeps going on like nothing happened. She rocks.

Anyway, I chose Sean Connary, because Bernard was both great at PR/had stage presence, and was apparently really emaciated. I can imagine SC being good at being a random mystic!

My sweet burglar skills have finally come in useful. I know that Mum, you especially, always worried about how good I was at breaking into peoples’ houses, but I finally have used these awesome skills for good and not simply to pop up behind people to give them a random fright. A friend of mine locked herself out, and I, with the sneakiness worthy of a sneaky thing, snuck around the edge of the outside of the house using a second story balcony and window ledges (the gaps between these things gave me a bit of a turn - nothing below but air and the hard ground). Finally I reached the outside window of this girls room. From there it was child’s play to get inside – not because I can pick locks or anything, but because this window was open and it's also the size of an average door. I was pleased that the young lady got inside, but I was slightly concerned by how easy it all was!

My friends at Westminster House are lovely. I hung out with two in particular today, and since I don’t have anything else to talk about, I’ll talk about them. (Creepy, aren’t I?)
Serena is dark-haired (kinda Portuguese looking, but she isn’t) who hails from northern California, and can speak Spanish. She occasionally does speak Spanish to me when she forgets that I can’t, so I have started a phrasebook which I hope will help me later. Several people in the house can speak Spanish, and they all laugh at my Kiwi accent because it severely interferes with the pronunciation of words, and which they say makes me sound like I am Italian. Apprently this isn't good.

The other girl I hung out with today, Bronwen, looks like a typical American LA actress, with long blonde hair and a habit of randomly singing on rooftops. She sings really well however, so life could be worse. Bronwen can’t speak Spanish, but compensates by saying inappropriate things in English entirely by accident. I won’t tell you some of the things she says, but think of Mum’s ‘Can you screw and talk at the same time?’ for an example of the type. It’s so funny!

Today I also had food from the ‘South’ which I have to say was much better than food from California, which apparently is ‘North.’ Mr. Whippy style ice-cream they call ‘Frozen Yoghurt’ over here, and so I also had some of that. It was delicious. The food is so rich over here though, and my poor body isn't used to it. I'm sure I am ruining my palate for things that aren't covered in litres of sauce!

I’m sorry for the randomness of the last part of the detail. I have had one of the best weeks of my life, and I will be sorry to leave Berkeley when my time is up.

Cheers everyone, again

Yours truly

Margie

written by  Crosswood on September 14, 2007 from Berkeley, United States
from the travel blog: New Zealand Student, American University.
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Yes, yes, I know it’s been a week since I’ve last posted – but to be honest nothing much has happened! I know – saying that is like some sort of blasphemy against the sheer awesomeness that is America, but mostly I’ve been really busy with homework and other things like that.

I bought more textbooks, which cost me another arm and another leg (I’m lucky that I have several more arms and legs to loose) and this has been the major expense this week. I can still eat however – American people from throughout my house have been feeding me randomly. I had these fantastic Russian Potatoe dumpling things yesterday (after a girl named Arielle showed me possilby the funnest video in the entire world - Romanian pop singers dancing.) Previously we went out to a jewish eating place (can't spell resteruant very well - sorry) and again, it was very nice. I liked the chocolate pudding - it's like chocolate custard, or runny cake mix that hasn't been cooked yet. I have also had something like Chocolate Yogo but it's called 'Jell-o' and it comes in lots of flavours (yes - including jelly types.)
Burretio's are also very nice - apparently they could be better, but I wouldn't know, because the Burretio's here are very different from anything I've eaten before.
I feel really bad about the random generousity that all my house-mates have shown – I would import some good Kiwi recipes so that I could pay them back in the same way, but Kiwi’s don’t HAVE any good recipes and feeding them what we normally eat would be unkind.

I am still struggling with the amount of homework you get here. I have a huge assignment due in on Monday and could only source the textbooks today! ARGG! I have lots of work to do tomorrow. Today was a bit of a write-off day because firstly my friend was ill, so I strolled idly down to the store with her to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid like die or something. Then we had this MASSIVE party for a girl named Jenny (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!) where everyone had a great time, people started singing on the roof, lit a BBQ with logs to prove they could, and it all eventually ended up with me trying to explain the basics of rugby to a hyper and increasingly energetic crowd of teenagers. It ended well which was a huge relief for me.

I can’t remember posting the story about the rapper to you, so I will tell you it now in lieu of real news. I was at the pedestrian crossing, when this random guy came up to me and started to rap at me. He was pretty good, but I was a little uncomfortable. Luckily the little ‘walk’ man went white (! Who makes their little ‘walk’ man white??) and I started to cross the road. He screamed ‘THAT’S HOW WE ROLL!’ and ran off. I thought this was such a great expression that I have started to use it and people always laugh, because it’s something only black gangsters say.

I have also exhausted my supply of tee-shirts. Admittedly I only took over two (one good and one gym) so this wasn’t exactly unexpected. I was gifted a nice one from the EAP office, however it is annoying that the weather hasn’t turned cold enough to wear anything nice. It is boiling over here. It gets to about 18c and they all wear jumpers.

The Army classes continue to be different from what I expected. In New Zealand, of course, my degree means that I major in Tactics and Command by default. I am up to 300 level tactics, which is ’Grand Strategy.’ Here I am learning how to read a map. It will be really useful, but it is still ridiculously easy and a bit of a letdown.

I managed to lock myself out of my basement the other day, as my key bent in a very funny shape. It was bent when I got it, but it got REALLY bent when someone gave me a jolt. I slept on the couch. I didn’t think I slept but I must have, because I woke up under the coffee table wrapped like a mummy in this blanket and wedged tightly under this leg. Honestly, I was completely stuck.
How did I get under there while asleep?

I still have not talked to Mysterious Graham after the infamous 30 second conversation. He lied to me when he said that we would.

Tomorrow I play ultimate Frisbee! BRING IT ON!

Cheers everyone

Margie

written by  Crosswood on September 8, 2007 from Berkeley, United States
from the travel blog: New Zealand Student, American University.
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I managed to get hold of tickets to a California vs. Tennessee football game, which was slightly spoiled by the people in front of me. I had a lovely old lady behind me who couldn’t stand up very much, so I sat down the entire time so she could have a clear view. This could have only worked if the people to my front had sat down as well, but they didn’t, and so a lot of the more interesting bits of the game were obscured by frantically waving hands. Since the game lasted four (yes FOUR) hours, this really wasn’t that much of a problem, because even these dedicated fans were getting exhausted by the length of the show. I still had a great time – the atmosphere was electric and the crowd was amazing.

After the game we (some other Kiwi’s and myself: funny to note that every Kiwi here bar two were born and educated in Singapore. God bless immigration) went to a Chinese restaurant, where calamity and comedy resulted in me eating someone else’s rice, the wrong food, and then two hours later the right food. It’s a long and deeply boring story, so I’ll quickly change the topic.

On Sunday morning I again played soccer with my excellent German-Italian football team. These ultimate Frisbee people kicked us off the only good field on campus, so we shifted to the Memorial glade, which is kind-of shaped like a downhill ski run. Luckily I was on the team who were going down the hill, but the people who were going up this field had a bit of a rough time.

I also went sailing for free in the San Francisco Bay, which was very fun. When they asked if anyone had sailed, I put up my hand and was slightly embarrassed because they thought since I sailed dinghies then I must know a lot about sailing. They were so enthusiastic I didn’t have the heart to tell them I was a very average sailor, so I racked my brains and managed to hold a fairly decent conversation about how unsafe booms are – yes dad, I know that the story about me, the Hobbiecat and Club Med is funny, but we promised never to speak of it again. It’s funny how much random stuff I’ve done, and how most of it I’ve done really badly!

Homework here is pretty intense – I did two hours yesterday, just did another hour and have achieved practically nothing. I’ll get it done, but it’s still pretty demoralising!

Anyway, I have slept for 10 hours and it is now lunch-time, so I will sign off and when something interesting happens, will post again.

Thanks to anyone reading this blog – it means a lot to me that I know friends and family are thinking of me over here. You should all come and visit!

written by  Crosswood on September 3, 2007 from Berkeley, United States
from the travel blog: New Zealand Student, American University.
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On Sunday I had an exciting game of soccer (which lasted for two hours!) with some amazingly good European students. The pitch was terrible because the Americans don’t play soccer in a big way, but we pressed on and it was a lot of fun. Next week I have to jump through several flaming hoops to join a team (they don’t make it easy at all!) and start playing the rest of the campus. It’s going to be sweet – how can my team lose when it has been stacked with crazily good German and Italian footballers?

Monday was the first day of class and it is... interesting. For one it’s a vast amount of work – homework every day and miniature essays every week. I own about fifty textbooks for about five classes and I have literally thousands of pages of readings every week. It’s like being back at school with a vengeance. It’s also very hard to listen to the American lecturers – not because they’re not fantastically good at what they do, but because their accent is so soothing. I literally have time to think ‘wow – this guy is gre... zzz’ before I fall into a kind of trance-like state of relaxation. It’s a real problem which I am working on.

I have gone to the US Military classes and it is shaping up to be very funny. They have done even less field-time than me, but that us fine. What is even more funny is that in America the only ones with Green Berets are speical forces, so when they first saw me they started to freak out, and now every time I come near they all ask to be allowed a photo with my hat on. Their drill is also cissy (even more cissy than ours.)

Another problem I had was that one of the classes I picked I couldn’t take because they had timetable clashes with more important classes on my schedual. I had to change courses on the fly! Cheers to Massey University - you guys are great! The first class I picked to replace this no-go class I also couldn’t take, because the exam was on the same time as another of my exams. In America (as in New Zealand) they don’t allow you to enroll in classes with that kind of clash. The second course I tried to take sounded like great fun – Early Modern Germany. I was all set to go to the lecturers, but I decided to get my textbooks first - and it was a good thing I did! They’d have cost me $200 USD! So I couldn’t take that course – rent and food has left me flat broke and I simply can't afford $200USD . (I AM STILL ALIVE AND HAVE PLENTY OF MONEY ENOUGH TO LIVE! DO NOT SEND CARE PARCLES (UNLESS THEY CONTAIN CHOCOLATE). THANK YOU.) I swapped to a course on Early Britain instead, meaning I could get my books second hand and save myself a heck of a lot of money.

I was also invited to a dinner party, and went. Unfortunately there was this weird anarchist there who high-jacked the entire evening thing and made it a vehicle for his weird ideas. I was bored silly by this guy who went on for THREE HOURS, constantly contradicting himself and roundly patronising everyone. Luckily everyone else was drunk. He also claimed he didn’t want to be president, but you know he’s lying. I was pretty exhausted by not saying anything scathing – I wanted to poke fun at him but he was frankly scary. He kept talking about his ‘humanitarian work’ in Palestine, which seemed to involve a little less peace and joy and more violence than normal.
So that wasn’t a success. But I am in Berkeley, the home of radicalism, and now I have been to a subversive group meeting, which I suppose you have to experience at least once.

Seriously, this place is wicked, but sometimes I wish I could come home and listen to a crisp and inflected voice on the news telling me about some sheep problems in the high country or something. I am getting more and more exhausted from the constant mental translations. But hey – I’m going to be great at University when I get home! Think of the work ethic!

Cheers everybody – this weekend is a public holiday (yes!) so I’ll try and do something exciting, so I can take photos and show you. (Yes that’s right – I do these things all for you!)

Wish you were here

Margie

written by  Crosswood on August 31, 2007 from Berkeley, United States
from the travel blog: New Zealand Student, American University.
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http://maps.google.com/maps/mm?ie=UTF8&hl=en&ll=37.873227,-122.263198&spn=0.016667,0.039911&z=15&iwloc=addr&om=1&msa=0&msid=109473066583760034713.000438a2a735756f64667

written by  Crosswood on August 26, 2007 from Berkeley, United States
from the travel blog: New Zealand Student, American University.
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I bought enough of them today to fill a library and that was only for two of my five papers! I am feeling very overwhelmed at the moment, because Massey told me to take a minimum of 16 units (which is four more than recommended) and then the American army dumped more on top of that. I think I will be spending more of my precious American time running around desperately trying not to be late rather than soaking up the atmosphere of this magnificent campus.

Today (and yesterday) was Caltopia. This is like a trade fair on steroids – when I went there I made a mistake and went during lunch-time. The gym was full of 15 000 students and one marching band, so things were a little too intense for me. I got lots of free stuff – from the most unlikely of places. I was walking along when a lady from the sperm-bank gave me a key ring with “only the strong survive” on it. I got roasted peanuts from the airline that was advertising there, and I had to move REALLY fast to avoid being recruited into an Army contest to see who could do the most push-ups. That ain’t me team.

Anyway, back to my huge pile of textbooks. Now I am broke. Due to some strange American thing you have to be in New Zealand to transfer money to an overseas account from a New Zealand account. To get around this I get to do a bit of a musical money game where I transfer it to my parents who transfer it to me in America. Parents are great.

Tomorrow I have soccer practice which should be very fun, except I have to get up early and then get hit in the head by a soccer ball fired by someone called Francisco (who is this Italian guy). In fact my entire team seems to be made up of Germans and Italians, the two countries who made the finals of last year’s world soccer cup. I hope I don’t get hurt – medical insurance here costs the earth and they haven’t sent me my blue card that says I’m covered yet. Our mail seems to be disappearing into the mists of time at the moment, and we really need to fix it so I can feel safe!

I am being invited to heaps of things at the moment - like Frat parties and volleyball games ad stuff. The Volleyball games are intense - Americans get really into the whole thing. There were about two thousand people there (at a University womens volleyball game!) and whenever we scored the commentator would yell "POINT!" and we'd throw our fists into the air and yell back "BEARS!" A huge chorus of groans would come when the othe team scored. At half time we had a player profile and then my side of the gym yelled "GO!" and the other side yelled "BEARS!" It was pretty cool actually - it's great to be part of that type of support. They never once booed - even when the refs made some downright wacky calls. Apparently that's an antipodean thing.

Anyway - STILL having a great time

STILL wish you were here (and you should wish that as well!)

Cheers

Margie

written by  Crosswood on August 25, 2007 from Berkeley, United States
from the travel blog: New Zealand Student, American University.
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The Cal Berkeley library is magnificent. It's all gleaming marble and inlayed gold, with the most enormous paintings of famous Americans – like ‘Washington Rallying the Troops at Monmouth’. A nice a nice American showed me that in a burst of patriotism, and I couldn't decide if she was showing me this because she hated me or because she liked me (it shows a whole bunch of British people being ground underfoot, and this was when she thought I was British). Out the fount of the building there is a field where Cal (what students of the University, or 'Golden Bears' shorten the University name to) students gather and have parties, and stuff like that. Today was a fair of all the 600 clubs in Cal, and it was a free-stuff bonanza. Some of the clubs were very funny – each ethnicity had its own association, then each religion, then all the various conscience groups had a stall. Some of the conscience groups I thought must be a joke (‘Veterans for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Eastern European and Asian Countries’) but they were all very serious and had professionally done flyers to try and convince you that their group was the one to support. The Air Force had a stall there as well, but even though the entire area was packed with students, there was a ring of space around that poor cadet. He looked pretty uncomfortable. The military hadn’t chosen the best spot to set-up though – right opposite the ‘end Iraqi war' guys. That was street entertainment at its best.

I also went to the Cafe that students like the most. It was nice, and the food was excellent. It’s very interesting, because you can eat as much as you like, but it’s like four or five restaurants in one place, and you pay to get in. There are apparently five or six of these all over campus, each with different stuff each night.

I have also been going to some ‘On The Same Page’ seminars which the Collage of Letters and Sciences organised to help students met each other. Everyone at Berkeley is a geek in their own way – no one I’ve met hasn’t been anything less than brilliant – so these seminars were really interesting.

The first one I went to degenerated into the official history of America for the disbelieving foreigner, and so was a bit of a fiasco. (There were only five or six people there though, so the lecturer wasn’t getting flustered or anything). The second one I decided to lie low, and so only make comments that couldn’t be contradicted.
We were talking about the declaration of independence, and about the three rights in it that the founders claimed were unalienable – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The lecturer asked why these things were picked and not others. Unalienable means not transferable, so I figured I could make a safe comment here which wouldn't sound too stupid. I said that you can’t really transfer these rights full stop – for example the person next to me couldn’t reincarnate a dead body by giving that dead body his 'life'. It sounds a bit strange when I rock out with that on this webpage, but it made sense to say it at the time. Anyway, I digress. A lovely young lady on the opposite side of the table decided I was wrong. She stood up and said “But Black people were discriminated against so much that its hard for people who haven’t been discriminated against to understand that their life was so bad that it really wasn’t like they were human.”
'..............OK?' I thought. What is this lady on about? I therefore prolonged my suffering by pointing out that in a biological sense the slaves couldn’t transfer their lives to the slave owners' body so that they could live forever or something, so they probably still had the right to not transfer their life. Murmurs of agreement rippled thoughout the room. I possibly should have said nothing however, because then she got defensive and said that I was an undiscriminated against white person, and how would I know? By this stage I was frantic – I really wanted out of this conversation. Unfortunately I inherited my fathers trait of making the situation a joke in the hope it will go away, and so I pointed out she didn’t know if I had been discriminated against because I was a New Zealander.
Mistake. Everyone else laughed though.
Once she stormed out of the room in a huff I stopped talking – it seemed safer.

Today was the EAP meet and greet lunch, which was a bit boring, but I did win a thermal cup for my lame tree-man story. Apparently no one could understand my accent, not even the Aussies this time, so the laugher was sporadic, but I did get a great mug. I also met lots of new people. I have met so many nice people in five days that I can't believe New Zealand lives up to the whole 'we're really friendly' thing. Americans take the cake. And they’re all ruddy smart – you’ve got to be on your toes when you talk to them because they’re pretty switched on and they know when you’re out of your depth.

I'll post some pictures of people I've met - they won't mean anything to you I suppose, but they're nice for me to look at and if they come on here wondering what I'm typing about then they've got soemthing to look at as well.

Cheers and wishing you were here

Margie

written by  Crosswood on August 23, 2007 from Berkeley, United States
from the travel blog: New Zealand Student, American University.
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Luckily my dorm-mates invited me to a High School Musical 2 Singalong, and the whole thing didn’t seem so bad. An authors note: Americans are a bit cheesy. Their advertising sells them the idea that a certain product has honour, or courage, or something like that, instead of that it’s a good product. They love the whole idealism thing. It’s a bit strange, but after a while it’s strangely uplifting, because they actually believe it, and try and live like that.

Every American I have met (that wasn’t a crazy homeless man in the street telling me that the apocalypse was coming) has been polite and pleasant (if a little caught up in what ethnicity you are). They have invited me along to stuff, enthused over New Zealand and really made an effort to understand my accent, which is apparently like listening to someone with a mouth full of mushy peas, who chops words off quickly in order to stop them from falling out. I think Americans sound like they’re talking through golden syrup – all slow drawling and few inflections on words.

Today I went to a compulsory check-in meeting, and at the end they gave me a work permit! Happy, happy times! At another place they said (through a friendly Aussie translator) they’d work on one of my more pressing problems, food. The uni wants me to pay for a year’s supply, when I only need six months. As I was walking to get enough money for health insurance (it’s depressing how money runs out so fast) I was halted by a huge brass-band playing a free concert. They were fantastic! They tossed their instruments into the air, waved them in perfect unison and even did tricks with each others’ instruments. It was awesome, and then they gave me a free dinner at the end!

Food is still an issue, but its all good really. I bought a pizza which I have been chomping on for the last three days, and I still have half left. I don’t think you realise how huge the portions served here are – I need to do a lot of exercise or I will gain weight!

Finally, we walked to the top of a small hill to see the whole Bay Area spread out below us, including the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island. Some of the others thought it was a hike, and were thrilled with themselves when they reached the top. Think walking up Molesworth Street to the very top. They also believed they were going to die when they were asked to walk sideways along a 30 degree slope. Admittedly, some of them come from places where they have never seen a hill in their lives, so I suppose I shouldn’t be too hard on them.

I am having a lovely time and wish you were here

Cheers

Margie

written by  Crosswood on August 20, 2007 from Berkeley, United States
from the travel blog: New Zealand Student, American University.
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The supermarket had nothing I recognised. I was completely at the mercy of Americans.
Take washing powder for instance. They don't have it. They have a funny washing liquid, and each liquid is for a different thing. You'd think they'd put on the label what each was for but apparently it's so comman that they don't.
Milk - more varities than I have ever seen. I just wanted normal milk, but nothing is 'normal', you must have a zillion different choices.
The folders all have three holes in them instead of two, so none of my document can be safely stored away. I bought an 'accordian folder' instead.

I have eaten scollaps and Crab today, and they wre both very, VERY good. I am sunburned and tired, but have been onboard an American submarine and strolled Fisherman's Warf (sp?), with the Golden gate bridge in the background.

Why is American money all the same size and colour?

So tired. Sleep now.

Margie

written by  Crosswood on August 18, 2007 from San Francisco, United States
from the travel blog: New Zealand Student, American University.
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