For our friends not currently visiting their home countries, a few reflections:
1. fidget spinners are a thing. I used a pencil when I was a kid.
2. chromebooks are very popular now
3. there's a million shows to watch but for some reason within 10 minutes of turning them on I fall asleep.
4. people seem to be chasing after the 'best' of something. The Best Ice cream, the best burger, etc. We seem totally fine with the 'worst'. I mean, we've been without real ice-cream for so long that even bad ice cream seems good to us. People want to direct us to the 'best' of stuff, often. Like 'oh you're hungry for pickles? the best pickle joint is D.J. Jazzy Pickle! You can get three toppings for your pickle there for free!' And I'm like 'yeah, just a kosher dill in a jar will do, I've been away from Vlassic for years, let's start me out slow.'
I so appreciate all the people loving on us right now, and trying to help us re-acclimate. The incredible amount of variety here is almost paralyzing. I know as Americans we value variety, it's the spice of life. But my reaction to it is, I won't go buy a jar of pickles until I've googled it, or I'll go on full impulse and buy the first one I see. It's a coping mechanism. We're simply not used to incredible variety. I mean, even our neighbors have the same furniture, dishes, housing materials and food as we do, so we're not really surrounded by variety in many ways, except culturally, but even that happens here in California.
So when you ask me "So what pickles do you want on your sandwhich? Dill, sweet, bread and butter? spears, slices, whole, quarter?' All I hear is "...dill?...blah blah blah blah
' so I respond 'Dill would be great! Thanks.'
That doesn't mean I don't love it here, I do. I love all the choices, just having a hard time choosing.
