What they think about us

Here is the British section in Meijers, one of the large supermarket chains. You may be able to make out a number of essential items, including teabags, cornflakes, marmite, oatcakes, baked beans and Yorkie bars. I was so happy to see that jar of marmite!

As well as our culinary habits, Brits (or Europeans in general) are known for their habit of walking where Americans would drive. And for complaining about the heat when for Americans the temperature is just nice. 

I'm not really sure what else they thought about us specifically - perhaps time will tell. They were understanding of our tea habit, though what they'll do with all those tea bags now we've gone is not certain.

Highlights and lowlights

We have returned from US with a wealth of memories and impressions, as well as 500 photos and 2 short films!

Here's a selection of things that stand out:

Most dramatic place:
Has to be Niagara Falls. It's very touristy, but no less impressive for all that. The sheer force of the water as it cascades down is an experience we won't forget. The 'Maid of the mist' boat tour takes you up close so you can  feel the excitement (and get wet) in a safe way.

Best view:
From the top of the Empire State Building - you can see for miles around and look down on what would normally be other very tall buildings

Most beautiful place:
The Sleeping Bear sand dunes In Leelenau county, north Michigan. Lovely coastal scenery and the bluest sea I have ever seen. Not at all touristy.

Favourite bill board:
For a company called 'Critter-control' - the ad starts with the words 'Bat problem?'

Favourite word:
Critter - used to describe a range of small beasts, from crustaceans to crickets

Wackiest shop name:
Tioga Pirate Market - the name of the grocery shop in the sleepy town of Tioga, Pennsylvania, where we stopped to buy sandwiches on a Sunday lunch time. We're not sure where the Pirate bit came in, unless the shop was a front for something else. There were a lot of bare shelves and not all that many groceries.

Best lunch-time sandwich:
The giant subs from Tioga Pirate Market - made up as we waited, with fillings according to our individual requests. Kept us going for 2 meals.

Favourite food:
This is hard, as it was mostly all very good. Carrabba's Italian Grill in Philadelphia, and take-away pizza by the lake in Sutton's Bay, Michigan were memorably delicious. We had some great meals in the homes of our friends too, with American typical foods such as hamburgers, corn on the cob, muffins and chocolate brownies. Reese's cups probably come out on top though.

Worst moment:
We thankfully were in Michigan for the earthquake and the worst of the hurricane, so it's probably hearing the news that one of our cats had got shut into our bedroom at home in England and was only discovered by our friend after a few days. The story ended well and the cat is fine, but our bedding had to be washed thoroughly.

Worst car moment:
Having an error message come up on the controls of our hire car saying 'Low tire pressure' and thinking a tyre had blown, only to discover that the loud beating noise we could hear was just the sound of J tapping his feet to the music on his ipod. The hard shoulder of a busy US free-way with juggernauts thundering past is not a fun place to spend time.

Overall best thing:
The warmth and generous hospitality shown to us by all the people we stayed with, and their family and friends. This is closely followed by the consistently high level of customer service, which is reliably good rather than just a nice optional add-on. We truly felt at home for the duration of our stay.

Sleeping Bear Dunes, seen from Stocking Pierce Scenic Drive, Leelenau county, Michigan

Niagara Falls

Tioga Pirate Market, Pennsylvania

Politics

I've waited till our return home to write this one, because I wanted to have a bit of distance before trying to articulate it.  I have tried to note what I observed rather than make any particular judgements.

During our three weeks in USA we stayed in 3 very different households, distinguished not least by their very different approaches to US politics:

1. Immigrants to US within the last 15 years, no religion
2. Episcopalian (liberal Christian) and Democrat
3. Conservative Christian and Republican

In the cases of those with Christian faith, their political views were also strongly-held, and completely opposite to each other! Democrat and Republican do not automatically equate to UK Labour and Conservative, and it is important to be aware of the very different contexts in UK and US. Health care is one such issue. For Britons of various political hues, we are used to the NHS, and access to medical care free at the point of use is generally regarded as a good thing if not a basic human right. In the Democrat household, it was felt that paying 6% of ones income would be an acceptable sacrifice if it meant that the many millions of US citizens currently without medical insurance would have access to care when they need it. Our Russian friend was of similar mind - she pointed out that sometimes it is not even possible for doctors to do the initial investigations necessary to make a diagnosis in order to determine what / how much treatment is necessary or what it would cost. In the case of our other friends, there was a feeling that they already give too much of their income to the government. However, their household includes both sets of grandparents as well as 4 children, and we were very impressed by their commitment to care for their family in this way, especially as the older members become increasingly elderly and infirm. It's one matter to say it's a good thing, and another to live it out on a day-to-day basis.

Whilst in Philadelphia and New York we became aware of a certain amount of industrial unrest. There seemed to be several strikes in progress, including one by employees of the Boathouse restaurant in Central Park. One of their tactics was to hand out maps of Central Park showing all the other places other than that restaurant where you could eat! Our Republican friends felt the unions have too much power, and that wage increases are damaging the US economy by costing too much money. A closed shop was outlawed in UK some time ago now, but is still possible in US. We did have some discussion around the situation in China and India, and how much longer it will in fact be cheaper to outsource manufacturing to these countries now that their economies are stronger. Interestingly, our Democrat friend mentioned that when she was a teacher she earned less than someone else she knew who did a blue-collar job.

Republicans are very unhappy about Obama. Not only is he spending too much money and interfering too much in people's personal freedom, he also committed a number of social faux pas whilst visiting the Queen in England. These included giving her DVDs not compatible with a UK DVD player, and trying to propose a toast whilst the national anthem was playing. Our recollections of the visit centred more on the reactions of children in inner-city London to having a world leader visit their schools - pretty inspiring! The anti-Obama feeling is reflected in some of the memorabilia on sale in tourist shops, for example, postcards and fridge magnets etc. saying 'Nobama' or with a picture of George W. Bush and the words 'Missing me yet?' (there were also some pro-Obama souvenirs, but the negativity of the others was quite striking).

Overall, people in both Democrat and Republican households were proud of their country and felt passionately about doing all they could to improve things. In both cases, as with many households, they had the US flag outside their house. As a British person, I would have very mixed feelings about displaying a union jack in this way. Not that I am not proud of my country, but flying the flag is associated in my mind either with  extreme right-wing views or with the more jokey exuberance of the last night of the Proms. The St George flag just says 'football' to me! As far as I could tell, there seem to be no such muddy waters in the case of the stars and stripes.

The same but different

In two and a half weeks here we've had opportunity to reflect on some of the differences between US and British life. Some of them are large, e.g. Americans live on a continent rather than a small island and think nothing of driving for several hours to get from A to B. Since we've been here we have spent a lot of time either driving or being driven, to the extent that we might be losing the use of our legs. It certainly makes me realise how much I walk normally....
Others are just quirky, like public toilets which flush as soon as you stand up and before you're quite ready, or large bill-boards by the road-side with pictures of grinning lawyers advertising their services. One of the strangest things we've seen has been several British red phone boxes (minus window-glass, doors or any actual telephones) in Suttons Bay, north Michigan.

I've got used to saying tomaytoes, chips (instead of crisps), asking where the restroom is and telling the time American-style (no-one could understand me when I said '5 past 5' because you have to say '5 after 5'). We provided great joy to a waitress in a restaurant last night just by opening our mouths and saying things with an English accent. She kept saying 'I love your accent, it's just like the movies!!' I said 'we feel the same - your whole country is just like the movies!' She seemed to take it well.

Most cars have automatic gears which is fine, and I've now managed to stop getting in the driver's side when I'm supposed to be a passenger, or reaching into the glove compartment to put the hand-brake on. There are many more toll roads than in UK and cars have a special compartment in the middle to put your change in for when you come to a turnpike (sounds a bit Dick Turpin but that's what they call them).

Coffee-drinkers are well-served here and we've also enjoyed iced tea and coffee. Getting a decent cuppa is a different matter, but has been helped by our strategy of bringing a big box of tea-bags as a present for each of our hosts in the places we've stayed. We've also learned to improvise, e.g. heating water in a microwave and adding coffee creamer in place of milk.

Insects are that much bigger, and one of the characteristic sounds of places we have stayed has been the sound of crickets chirruping in the background. They make enough noise to drown out the sound of J's ipod which is an achievement. We spotted one on a lamp post and it was big and black, not like the little green fellas you get in Britain.

Customer service is a highly-developed art, apart from the odd occasion where they dispense with it entirely, for example checking into our Michigan motel when the whole transaction was carried out in silence. Our abiding memory of the US will be of a warm, generous and hospitable people.

Weather

It's been an eventful few days, with some of the excitement provided by meteorological upheavals. The east coast of America does not usually get the more dramatic kinds of weather, but in the last week or so (coincidentally, since we were here) has experienced both an earthquake and a hurricane. It just so happened that for both of these events the damage was mainly to property and trees, and thankfully the number of human casualties was low. We were in Michigan for most of the time, where the weather was sunny and warm. A highlight for us was a boat trip on Lake Michigan in an old-fashioned schooner. Conditions were perfect and there was enough of a breeze to see the ship put through its paces - wonderful.

The coverage of Hurricane Irene on the US news and weather channels was extensive (I thought the British could talk about the weather but this was something else). A lot of it focused on New York, one of the worst-affected places, and highlighted all the preparations which had been made. This does seem to have paid off, and although there will be a fair bit of clearing up to do, it could have been much worse. The tone of it was not unlike election night in the UK, waiting for the results to come in, and with the weather equivalent of Peter Snow's / Jeremy Vine's swingometer.

Our journey today involved driving in some wet conditions, but we made it to our hotel in Philadelphia safely. The hotel is rather quiet, as the airport has been shut. But everything is working normally in the hotel, and they didn't suffer any loss of power. So we are now enjoying the calm after the storm and reflecting on these natural phenomena which remind us that our control over events is less than we sometimes think.

I love New York

A highlight of our trip so far has been the day we spent in New York. I can truly say there is nowhere else like it. Our day started at 8.30am when we got a lift to Trenton station from a kind friend of our hosts. Trenton is at the end of the line for the Philly SEPTA (transport) system and at the start of the New Jersey Transit train line. The travelling time to NY is about an hour and a quarter, so at 10:30 we stepped out of Penn Station NY and hit the streets of the Big Apple.

We were instantly swept up into a different world full of people, excitement and energy. Our first stop was the Empire State Building. Having fought off the ticket touts outside offering us fast track tickets for $49, we went inside and paid $22 to go to the 86th storey - 80 floors by lift and the last 6 on foot up stairs (queue for lift was long). The view is incredible; I have never been in a building where skyscrapers look small by comparison. We spent some time up there marvelling at the sights all around.

Our next stop was 5th Avenue - lots of interesting shops but I was not allowed to linger. We strolled up Broadway to Times Square and then onto Central Park where we stopped for icecreams and smoothies. Central Park is like a rural oasis in the heart of the city, with bicycles, horse-drawn carriages and even a game of croquet in progress. After a little while we found the heat too intense to walk any further so left the Park and took the metro to South Ferry. From there we boarded the free Staten Island ferry from where you not only get good views of the Statue of Liberty and the New York skyline, but also a refreshing sea breeze into the bargain.

We only scratched the surface of New York, but I know we will want to return to sample more of its attractions.

Images of Philadelphia

Murals like these are found on the sides of lots of buildings:

The Liberty Bell:

In the old part of town: