Thursday, September 25, 2008

Little Things with a Big Difference

So this is basically just a list of little details here and there that I have gathered in the past few months. These things don't really have a funny story that go along with them, but everytime i see them, they just keep reminding me that I'm in America.

  1. Yellow lines in the middle of the road
  2. Straws with a larger diameter
  3. Thinner paper (I can't write on the back of the paper because even pencil bleeds through)
  4. 3-ring binders (I'm used to 2 and 4 ring binders)
  5. Plenty of lined paper, but graph paper is practically an endangered species (In Poland it was just the opposite)
  6. Different McDonald's Menus (No joke! They actually serve different stuff here)
  7. Squirrels. I've never seen so many squirrels in my whole life.
  8. Larger parking spaces (I can actually open my car door all the way and not touch the car parked beside me)
  9. 6 lane High-ways (In Poland, three lanes was big)
  10. Lots of trees, not very many fields at all, like in Poland
  11. The place is much more urbanized (But that might just be because I'm living in the suburbs. but in America the suburbs extend much farther away from the city.
  12. American accents on the TV, instead of British. Although I speak like an American, I notice American accents more than I do British. British just seems more natural to me...

That seems to be about it. I keep noticing new stuff everyday. When I post this, I swear I'll want to add 2 more things...

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Americans Give the Best Instructions...

Long time no write. I'm such a bad blogger. Bad Anna. I doubt any of my former readers even bother anymore. But its the fault of this this evil little invention the government likes to call school. Yep. I just finished my third week of public school, and it has been even more horrible than I imagined. No wonder so many people drop out, I starting to not blame them. I'm again wondering every waking hour why, oh why did have to sign up for Honors?????????

I'll spare you all the gory details and focus on the positive, I'm still getting plenty of funny/insightful America stories, the latest of which involving some rather silly intructions on a popcorn bag and on TV.

I've noticed that on TV America has a lot of feminine commercials (I asked my parents about that, cuz i thought that was kinda wierd, and they said 10 years ago Americans would never dream of running so many ads for tampons...I guess times have changed) and I've also noticed that whenever they run ads for medicine or whatever they spend a good 20 seconds on all the risks and side affects of them after delivering thier selling line. On the British TV that was illegally broadcast to us in Poland (Shhh...don't tell the Brits), they'd always put that stuff in very fine print at the botton of the screen or just say to see your doctor...No doubt the Americans thoroughness is because of all those lawsuits.....

Anyway, theres this new commercial going around advertising some kind of new and improved birth control thing. So they talk about how great it is for a few seconds then go into thier list of warnings: "May cause bloodclots...blahblahblah...should not used by women who are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant..."

...... well that last line is pretty typical for the various warning these commercials have but...seriously? Isn't that kind of what birth control is supposed to prevent? Though I guess if a woman gets pregnant while using their new and improved birth control, they wouldn't be wanting to use it for very much longer longer anyway...

The other funny incident involves instructions on a popcorn bag. Ok, so the bag was folded up and sealed with a plastic cover. So naturally I removed it and unfolded the bag to read the instructions. The first thing on the list: 1) Remove plastic cover...Yeah, thanks for telling me. Remember, you couldn't even see the instructions until you removed the plastic.

*Shakes head* Sometimes Americans baffle me.