Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Early impressions

Now that I've been here a whole two weeks I am well over jet lag and starting to look around.

It's Halloween, something I had quite forgotten about after all these years. Stores are decked out as well as people's yards. The local discount store has about half an acre of space devoted to costumes, decorations, candy, plastic Halloween treat buckets, etc. There's been a definite shift to the realistic or should I say surrealistic and macabre.

It is cold and blustery (50 F or 10 degrees C.) At least I think it's cold. But locals are running around with just a vest. I've even seen several women still wearing capris.

Interestingly enough, I can buy mutton and buffalo meat at the local grocery store, both guaranteed to be antibiotic free. But fish is pretty hard to find. Maybe I need to look in the freezer section! People seem to eat very little vegetables, unless french fries and chips are considered to be vegetables???? Most of the fruit I miss is no longer in stores. It's mostly apples, oranges, bananas, with a few pears. No berries, peaches, melons, sigh!

TV is full of SEX and, well, blasphemy. Every other commercial seems to be about viagra. Many other drugs are also advertised in commercials. I guess the purpose is so that people will run off to their doctors and ask for those things???

Next project: count the kinds of cold cereal....

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