Redartz: Hello again gang. Again this week I must humbly ask your input, as the Redartz household remains without electric service and my net access is limited. I'll relate the tale at another time. For now, thanks for your indulgence.
Tuesday, August 11, 2020
Follow the Leader Episode 160: "The Grass is Always Greener", or "No Place Like Home"...
Redartz: Hello again gang. Again this week I must humbly ask your input, as the Redartz household remains without electric service and my net access is limited. I'll relate the tale at another time. For now, thanks for your indulgence.
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17 comments:
If you moved to a new country what would you miss most about your old country? And what wouldn't you miss?
I lived abroad for about 2 years and while this may sound shallow, what I missed was the sports, baseball and football. Soccer is a great game, and I love watching it, but not seeing the teams I grew up with made me a bit nostalgic.
What I didn't miss was the 24-hour news cycle of American crazy. At work I check the news all the time as a break, but overseas it had less of an impact, and the written style of the reporting seemed hyperbolic .
> . . .Car Rental. . . ? WTH?
The U.S. is so large, and has such a wide range in its geography and climates. . . and soooo many different cultures, nationalities, and ethnicities in its population. . . and such a vast array of interests and careers and cuisines and traditions and lifestyles (many based on where you live, exactly)--- that I think the never-ending potential *variety* o' folks living in this country is what I'd miss most. Mind you, I fully acknowledge the absolute cultural & political train-wreck we're going through as a nation at this moment in time-- and that there is still a very real existential threat working its way down the mountain like a melting glacier--- but for the most part, I've been lucky enough to live places where Folks is Folks, as it were. And maybe that's an anomaly (I have relatives in the south who I am pretty sure have never had a Black friend. . . and who would insist they've NEVER met an LGBTQ person in their life)-- but my cul-de-sac has a wonderful conglomeration of folks that DON'T look the same. . . but we're all living the same little cul-de-sac, go-to-work, wave-when-we-get-home life. I love that-- and I would miss that. These days, I'm terribly concerned that it may be more the exception than the rule, though.
On a less serious note-- I would definitely miss the very American surrender to over-the-top Christmas decorating kitsch. I'm not sure how much of that has invasive-species'ed itself into other countries, but I rather live for it, myself-! (We have 9 re-claimed artificial trees that we put up at the scene shop at this point-- and that's just a fraction of the entire display. . . )
HB
Hi gang; finally, FINALLY have electricity again! I should show up a bit more frequently now...
As for Colin's question: HB summed up my thoughts pretty well. I think the US, at its' best, has a rather egalitarian, democratic (not in the political party sense) aspect to its popular culture: hence the popularity of 'everyman' features from Peter Parker to Homer Simpson. And as HB mentioned, each area boasts its own unique attractions, traditions, and ideosyncracies.
And for a less general answer: the great American Road Trip. Yes, you can take a road trip anywhere (at least, anywhere that there are roads), but the quintessential American Road Trip, with it's diners, wide open spaces, small towns, and kookie billboards: irreplaceable.
What I'd not miss: the certain element of 'Know-Nothingness' found in some elements of the country (and, sadly, it's government). Perhaps the admiration of just-plain-stupidity represents the dark side of our 'everyman-ism'...
This question isn't a hypothetical for me; I'm an American who's been living outside of the US since the early 1990s. The things I miss the most about living in the US are little things, like used bookstores - yes, there are used bookstores here, but obviously most of the books they sell are locally published, i.e., nothing or not much in English. I mean one of those used bookstores that has shelves packed with old genre-fiction paperbacks from the '50s through the '80s. Tied to that, I miss taking road trips down backroads and stumbling onto little mom & pop bookshops in smaller towns.
Also, I miss restaurants offering a variety of international cuisines. There's a few good Chinese places in Zagreb now, as well as some newer places offering Japanese and Korean (that I haven't tried yet). I'm originally from the west coast, and spent part of that time in California, so I *really* miss getting good Mexican food, but also Thai, Indian, Ethiopian...
Sometimes I also just miss the variety of people to be honest. Croatia is pleasant in many ways, but the population, even in its biggest city, is quite homogeneous. When living in California in particular (the SF Bay area), I really got used to the diversity of the people, i.e., lots of Mexicans/Latinos, Asians, African Americans, 'ethnic' Whites (i.e., 1st or 2nd generation Greeks, Ukrainians, etc.) and so forth.
Some of the things I don't miss (outside of current events): as HB and Red suggested it in their comments, the casual ignorance coupled with arrogance that so many Americans tend to have, esp. those living in smaller towns or suburbs - which they tend to carry with them if they happen to travel abroad. Since living here, I've come to fully understand why people often despise American tourists.
Another thing I don't miss is just the stressful pace of life in the US. Although it can be frustrating at times, I've really come to appreciate the more casual attitude toward everything that people have over here.
Red, congratulations on getting your electricity supply back - now you can tell us how you lost it :)
Last month my router wouldn't connect to the internet so a BT (British Telecom) engineer visited me (after I assured BT that I wasn't self-isolating due to Covid) and installed a shiny new phone socket with two jacks, one each for phone and internet, to replace my old socket which had only one jack and required an adapter to accommodate both phone and internet.
HB, the British Christmas has been mostly Americanized - I myself own a Coca-Cola Christmas mug. But there's one exception - those striped candy canes have never taken off here. We do have something similar but the canes are called "sticks of rock" and they are straight, pink on the outside (white in the middle) and traditionally sold in seaside towns with the name of the town running through the length of the stick.
The only two things I'd probably miss about Britain are:
The NHS (National Health Service), our free healthcare system which was founded in 1948 and is so popular that the Conservative Party has to pretend they love it.
The BBC but not TV which I rarely watch anymore. I mean BBC radio, specifically BBC Radio 4 which is a speech station featuring news, drama, comedy, documentaries, panel-shows, political discussion etc.
Things I wouldn't miss - the Conservative Party (now completely obsessed with their idiotic anti-Europe Brexit agenda).
The Royal Family - embarrassing, anachronistic nonsense.
The weather - I'm pretty sure it's getting even wetter than usual due to climate change. I'm dreading another winter as wet as last year.
ColinJ-- Quick addendum to your weather comment: My wife and I watched all of Monty Don's "Big Dreams, Small Spaces" series not too long ago, and I SWEAR that about half of the big outdoor End-of-Project/Unveiling celebration parties had to carry on under umbrellas ('cause I assume the film schedule was clad in iron, rain or shine). Granted, it was always getting into Autumn at that point, but still, it's like "Does it ever NOT rain in England??". Heh.
HB
PS-- Red, SO glad you're back on the Grid O' Civilized Living---!
HB, the spring and summer months this year have been mostly dry - in fact, there's been a heatwave during the last ten days. But last summer was dry too and then the rain began around the autumnal equinox and didn't stop until the spring equinox six months later. But that's what the climate scientists predicted: warmer, drier summers and wetter winters.
You and your wife are possibly the only people in America who know who Monty Don is :D
ColinJ-- I bought the pruning say he uses on Amazon. . . it is a WONDER-! (Uh-- also just a smidge hazardous, as several band-aids have attested to. . . )
[Also-- the show could support a very sprightly drinking game: Down a shot every time someone says "Water Feature" or "Insect Hotel". . . good lord!]
HB
What would I miss about leaving the UK?
The same things as Colin. And, also, British electrical plugs. No one will ever convince me it can possibly be safe for a plug to only have two prongs on it.
What would I not miss?
The same things as Colin. And, also, accidentally standing on British electrical plugs with bare feet, in the dark. No human being knows the definition of pain until they've done that.
Steve-- I've had to track down British electrical plugs a couple of times for sets located in . . . Britain (naturally). And good lord-- what ARE these behemoths?? Why are they so big and have such prominent forks/blades/prongs?? And I seem to recall being told that at one point Brit appliances were sold WITHOUT THE PLUGS ATTACHED? Can that possibly be true? So everyone had to do their own electrical attach't???
*shudder*
Barbaric. . . !
HB
HB, British appliances did, indeed, used to be sold without plugs. Attaching your first plug without dying was the main rite of passage in a young man's life.
It's actually worse than you think, because, at some point in the 1970s/80s, the government changed the colours of the wires, meaning you had to remember six different wire colours to avoid electrocuting yourself.
As for the size, they have to be so big because British electricity is so powerful that only a huge plug can contain it.
I may have made that last fact up. I suspect they were originally made so big to prevent them being too fiddly for the public to easily wire.
I think the last time I attached a plug was about ten years ago when I had to fit a new one to my lawnmower cable. It was a suitably nerve-wracking experience.
Wow, Steve--!
This is high-key mind-boggling to me-!
Honest-to-pete, the fundamentals of wiring are SO flipping simple here! There are rules you always follow, of course, but it is basically a two-wire system with a third ground wire involved about half the time. . . maybe. The fact that it's referred to as a "circuit" is the fundamental truth you always come back to. Six wires??? Is this why The Globe burned down in 1613-??? (Oh. . . wait a minute. . . )
HB
HB, I should point out that any individual plug only has 3 wires but there are two different colour schemes. Old devices have a green wire, a black wire and a red wire. Newer devices have a blue wire, a brown wire and a green and yellow wire.
Ahhhh, MUCH more understandable, Steve-- gotcha.
. . . Why change the color scheme, for heaven's sake. . . ?
Hmmm--- follow the money, says I. . .
Geeze, I hope the green wire and the green/yellow wire were still the same thing, though. (Presumably the ground wire---)
HB
As far as I can remember, the colours were changed to match those used in the rest of Europe. Also, the original colours were hard for colour-blind people to tell apart.
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