A year in California! A year of occasionally singing "Do you know the way to San Jose?" and as we've gotten used to the place, usually being able to find our way back home.
One of the things I've learned better whilst living in America is it is all about expectations. I've learned not to expect the same things as at home. Most of the time. This is a different place, one I am learning to call home. It is not Home - I think that will always be Melbourne - but it is a decent substitute.
You need to manage expectations. You might get promised this:
but in reality it turns out to look like this:
In fact, it might look like dog vomit but jeez it is blasted good dog vomit! Very tasty indeed. :-)
Things aren't always as they appear.
Good things about where we live?
The availability of good fresh (organic) fruits and vegies. California is the vegie foodbowl for America. Here we can buy vegies grown 50 miles away and chat to the growers. All. Year. Round. It is fantastic.
The availability of public transport - we deliberately chose this place for that reason, and the closeness of Wholefoods. Plus we can walk to the library with our red trolley and unload books and dvds and cds and load up with new ones :-)
I definitely appreciate the weather. I just do not cope well with cold. I muffle up well but my skin goes horrid - fingers and face dry out and start peeling and cracking no matter how much moisturiser I use. I much prefer temps above 10C. Visiting cold and snowy areas is fun but I think I'd curl up into a little cracky ball of chapped skin if I had to live in a place that stays cold. But one never knows!
I don't appreciate the cars. Too many cars. Over Christmas they have been everywhere and aggressive too. Just like home - people start getting really aggro cos they feel stressed I guess. But cars are necessary to get us to the spectacular sights around the place.
The food - well Nathan is sick of American food but he doesn't remember he was rather sick of the food back 'ome as well. Even with 50 different cafes and restaurants within walking distance of our modest manor.
(Why they are called chipmunks?)
The people have been lovely, in general, except when some of them get in their cars and turn into morons on wheels. California is a place of immigrants, just like me. Finding a native is difficult quite frankly but I am getting better at picking local accents.
I feel I understand how the land here works better than I did in Colorado. Weather patterns are more explicable to me. I am used to a land that dries out under the fierce summer sun and then grows madly in the damp winter. The plants are different - eg we don't have native oaks at home, unlike the lovely tree in this pasture.
America is seen as a land of opportunity. We are seeing a lot of dreams go bust here at the moment. The people who work two and three jobs just to keep their home ownership dream alive are watching it all go down the gurgler. One of DH's friends moved to the US, thinking it would all be fabulous, a dream come true, but he and his family are now poorer in both time and money than they have ever been. We see infrastructure problems - roads so rough that they jiggle you off the seat in the bus, make you feel like you are driving on square tyres, unrepaired sidewalks.... (I said sidewalk! Not footpath! Argh, turning into a local!) Too much emphasis has been put on things that have torn the heart out of America. Too much money has gone into the pockets of a few, all in the name of the many. Too much money has been sent away from this place rather than fixing things that need to be fixed. Too much emphasis on oil. Not enough focus on America's greatest strength. (That'd be her people.)
This coming year is going to be full of challenges. Thank heavens DH has a job. Thank heavens we have met some really lovely people that we can happily call friends. Thank heavens a new president is stepping up to the plate. (And remember, I'm agnostic! ;-) It will be interesting to see if Yes We Can becomes a national slogan, if people work together to pull themselves and their country out of the mire.
Wishing you and yours a happy, safe and fulfilling New Year.
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