yummies.com. mail order candy
A good chunk of games are broadcast live on satellite, anyway.
Freedom, and big tits.
Ireland, Germany, and Russia.
Also Mexico and Canada (not ‘abroad’, but foreign countries).
Now, I was traveling with a step-child and a mother-in-law in most cases, so I wasn’t very adventurous; all accommodations booked in advance, and the best know sites visited, so I know I didn’t see the ‘real’ countries.
Still, my impression of the Rest of the World is that it is full of fair-skin and usually fair-haired ‘natives’, Asian tourists, and absolutely no-one of African descent. (And that the Italian restaurants are always reliable, except in Mexico, where I’ve never seen one).
There are less than fifty people at the building I work in; they are Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish; of every ‘race’ except Australian/New Zealand aborigine; of most European national descent I can think of, and probably several I’ve missed (we probably even have Basque).
Just shopping and walking around, I expect to hear a language I don’t recognize, and I recognize German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Greek, and Irish Gaelic (can’t understand or speak them much, and I can’t distinguish tonal languages at all).
I just love the variety of the US.
Mexican food, Cheerios, A&W Rootbeer (hell, any root beer), my mom.
College football, montery jack cheese (and pepper cheese in general), any other brand of taco than Old El Paso, and…my mom.
Chex (they have honey chex here, wtf?), Mike n Ikes, Dr Pepper (you can get it, but it’s been on a boat for months, ugh), and…yeah, mom again.
Fresh tomatoes from the farmer’s market in Terry, MS, Good n Plenty, movies with no commercials first (did that change while I was gone? Biggest culture shock ever!), pine trees, ice hockey, and, well, I really, really want my mom.
Other things, Crisco (I can’t bake properly, gah!), pumpkin pie mix in a can, canned cheese - not really, but it’s weird what you miss when you’re denied it - Velveeta Cheese, yellow cheese in general, sourdough bread that’s actually sour, oak trees, squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, deer, fourth of July fireworks, cold, snowy Christmases, Thanksgiving (Thanksgiving is hard, cause…yanno, see above, plus my Grandaddy and my stepdad and my beautiful cousin Amanda.)
The national anthem before a baseball game, salsa not made by Old El Paso, Fritos, my best friend, and…yeah, mom.
Cheers,
A Very Homesick G
In Aberystwyth? In 1987?
Although I must confess I wasn’t looking very hard. And I’m sure there are autumn leaves around, just like there are here in Seattle…but I’m talking about the volume and hue you get in Pennsylvania. Difficult to match.
What year was this?
Ireland now has a bigger immigrant population per capita than the US. Dublin is possibly about as multiethnic now as a small city can get. About the only language you won’t hear walking down the main thoroughfares is Irish. There are people from Ghana, China, India, Pakistan, Japan, Indonesia, France, US, Hungary, Basque country, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, and probably one or two other countries working in my office of 30-something people. Nigerians are one of the biggest immigrant groups. There are schools now in Ireland where children with two Irish-ethnic parents are in the minority. We have significant populations from every continent on Earth bar Antarctica. Germany, in my experience is fairly multiethnic too.
Here are some links:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/immigrant-population---doubles-to-420000-1200879.html
{Looks around} EVERYTHING
Did they confiscate them at customs? You’ll have to leave them here mam.
You mean like Bounce? They have that and various other brands in… well any supermarket. Maybe you are talking about something else.
I’m sure the rugby was an acceptable substitute for the American Football. As for the leaves, in 1987 we had a bit of a blow in the autumn which rather ruined things.
A bigass mexican burrito absolutely smothered in grease and cheese. Oh sure, in German you can get grease, but you’re hard pressed anywhere but America to get a dish loaded to the gills with hot gooey cheese.
Owning cool guns.
American, living in Australia for the past four years, and will be for the rest of my life.
H’m…there’s some specific things that are not sold here - root beer for one. It’s not my favorite soft drink, but I like some every now and again - so I order it online, a bit of a pain, and moderately expensive (something like 2.50 a can). Vernor’s ginger ale - around here, ginger ale is strictly a mixer, it seems.
Hershey’s chocolate bars - Cadbury makes a fine one, but Hershey’s is just a little darker and less sugary.
Big box stores exist, and are familiar - KMart, Target, Big W (aka WalMart). If I need something, I can just drive into town (30km) and get it…if the store is open. Y’see, very few stores are open in the evening, and 24-hour stores are about nonexistent. The closer town (7km) rolls up its sidewalks at 5pm, and the further about 7, for the most part. (And the further one is one of the biggest ‘regional’ towns in Victoria, with over 100,000 people). So, I miss stores that are open at night and on weekends.
Doughnuts - there’s a Krispy Kreme in Melbourne, 100km away, otherwise it’s all ‘cake’ doughnuts, which aren’t as good.
Another for multiculturalism - Australia (at least this part) is WHITE. There’s a sprinkling of Asian, East Asian, and a few Africans, but they’re rare; Australia country towns and cities are pretty much a sea of white.
It is, in many ways, a remarkably homogenous society - every house will have a dustpan and brush of the same design, either in blue or white. Almost all of the shower heads are the same design as well. It’s the little things that point at a less varied, and smaller, manufacturing base.
H’m. TV is dominated by US imports, at least as far as prime time goes, so I’m not missing anything there - except that there’s a delay between showing in the US and showing up on our sets. Same thing with many movies, save for a few ‘blockbuster’ types (that start at the same time as the US) - for most, there’s a delay of a month or so.
Aussies I’ve met have spoke of their multiculturality. I’ve never been there so I should probably wait for one of them to set the record straight either way.
When it comes to multiculturism, I think we’re confusing things. Sure, if you’re a European American, going to Japan means you’re going to find a different culture. Duh. Japanese.
But, in Tokyo, are you going to find a Chinatown, or a little Mexico, little Italy, little Germany, little Russia, little Poland, little Vietnam, little Samoa, little Cuba, little black/Africa… ect. No. You won’t find that in most other countries but the US.
I’m certain it’s different in the capital cities - Melbourne, Sydney, and so on - but outside of there? Walking on the streets of Bendigo (the aforementioned large town of 100,000) it’s exactly as I described it.
Mind you, I don’t see much racism; a few cabbies talking about ‘those lazy abos’ is about the sum of it. Still, it’s easy to be tolerant when you don’t actually have much dealing with people of other races/etc.
Or maybe I’m holding onto my American sensitivity to such matters…
I’ve been in quite a few American small towns where the same could be said.
I lived in southern Spain for a year. Things I missed (as many people have already pointed out):
Food:
Mexican food - Went to a couple of “Mexican” restaurants in Spain. Blurgh! Completely bland and tasteless. Probably altered to suite the Spanish palate.
Sour cream - to put on my baked potatoes.
Pumpkin pie and pie in general! Spain has quite good deserts I think, but nothing much in the American style like pies, cakes, and cookies.
Root beer - I did bring some root beer-flavored candy along, though. My Spanish roommates thought it tasted like medicine.
Technology:
Clothes dryers. Seriously, Spanish people, what is up with this? I went to a newly constructed house on the outskirts of the city. It had brand new appliances, satellite TV, a swimming pool, one of those high-tech flat stove ranges, and…a clothes line! Why no dryers in this country?
Air conditioning and heating. In Granada, there is no air-conditioning. Maybe in some of the nicer hotels, but not in any building I ever entered. And in the summer, temperatures can easily reach 110 degrees. The central heating was, get this, controlled by the government! THEY decided when you were cold! THEY turned the heat on and off! This led to some interesting situations such as coming back from winter break to classrooms that were literally freezing, because some government official had forgotten to turn the heat on for all the university buildings.
Lifestyle:
One-stop shopping. In Spain, I was constantly frustrated by all the different places I had to visit to get my shopping done. Contact lens solution from the optometrist. Groceries from the grocery store, but if I wanted good produce, also a trip to the fruteria. Ibuprofen from the pharmacist. Toiletries from the beauty supply. Phonecard from the cell-phone store. Etc. In American, your average supermarket has all these things.
Being able to shop at (almost) any time. In Granada, stores close for siesta from 2-5. Yes, even pharmacies and grocery stores. All stores are closed on Sunday. It literally took me months to imprint upon myself that I needed to buy necessary things Monday-Saturday, mornings or late afternoons only. Now back in America, I still forget sometimes that, yes, I can go shopping on Sunday.
Reliability of service. Spanish stores open, you know, whenever they feel like it. No consistent hours for any but the really big chain stores. Many a time I bussed across town to find that the shop I had planned on visiting was closed randomly with no sign posted. Bizarrely, this was also how university professors operated. One of my professors disappeared for MONTHS. No email or anything, but word of mouth got around she was sick. Months later, word got around that she was back, and class resumed as normal.
English-language books. Strangely, I didn’t miss the verbal English too much, and American TV shows and movies (dubbed) were more prevalent than Spanish media. But there was a real ache and longing for the written English language.
Look on the bright side: some brilliant wines are made there.