I now realize that two months have passed since I've posted on my blog. The month of May in Bratislava was a whirlwind of activity. We traveled, wrapped up our work, said goodbye to our friends and were on a plane on June 3.
My first impressions of the US are always interesting (to me at least). I love the big freeways, wide open spaces and being able to read and understand signs and billboards. The familiar is so comforting. My first moments in a US grocery store are exhilarating as I look at the variety of grocery items. Then I inevitably feel like telling the cashier how nice she/he is to talk to. If we converse I thank them for bagging my grocery items and tell them about the stores in most of Europe and Slovakia. Some are even appreciative of my stories!
I've had the most fun laughing about variety in toothpaste and tortilla chips. If I could find a bag of chips in Slovakia, they were quite average in taste and high in cost. Just the corn tortilla chips - round and usually broken from the extra long trip that it took to get them there from Belgium. Chips and some mexican food was imported from Belguim. The other day at Meijer I noticed the following varieties of tortilla chips:
blue corn, yellow corn, white corn, baked, restaurant style, no salt, nacho cheese flavored, triangle shapes, mini rounds, scoops, w/lime. WOW - how can we ever make a decision with those choices, to say nothing of choosing a brand. I dare not even start on varieties of toothpaste.
So, America is by far the country with the most variety of any in the world that I've been to so far!
Another funny thing I've noticed. We are generally a sedentary culture, needing to take our vehicle(s) most everywhere to get our business done. But we still look for the closest parking place to the building. I do the same now that I've returned.
Large cars far outnumber small cars. Pretty much the opposite in Slovakia. They have been paying high fuel prices for much longer than we have.
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