One Year

A lot has happened in the last year.

But not really that much if I just say "We moved to the USA."

Doesn't seem like much at all, really.

But it is a big deal and we've had a lot to deal with in this last year.

Moving countries. Setting up a new home - not as easy as you might think! Trying to find/make new friends. Going carless (a biggie for me - I *love* driving!). Finding ways to fill days of not-much-to-do with cheap hobbies. Losing one job. Being homeless for a month (whilst still paying a mortgage) and travelling across Canada in winter. Getting another job. Moving from one state to another.

It is a year since we landed in the US. Do we ever stop missing

friends

family

house

garden


?

We've seen so much















And experienced the highs



and lows (or at least sea levels)



of life.

It has been an interesting year....

On cars in the USA

Where I come from in Australia, about one in four cars is a Ricer.

What's a ricer?

A little Japanese four cylinder car (eg Honda Civic, Mitsubishi Lancer) or occasionally a 4 cylinder Korean car that has been hotted up - y'know noisy exhaust, lowered, spoiler, body skirts and wing on the boot (trunk), sometimes even engine mods. It doesn't make them fast necessarily - I dragged quite a lot of ricers off at the lights in my little bog stock standard 1.3L Starlet, even with 110kg deadweight (DH) in it - but they *look* fast, and that is their aim - style over substance. I don't include Subaru WRXs in this as they come out of the factory looking OTT - to me a ricer is an aftermarket job and individual labour of love (Aussies can now howl me down).

In the USA, after my nephew pointed it out, I realised that I have seen very few ricers. I've been counting how many I've seen in the last what two or three weeks?

Three.

That is if you include small cars with noisy exhausts. Two if you require the full on body work.

Americans like to show off in honking great big trucks. They don't show off in little cars - no, you show your status in a Ford 150 or a Chev Tahoe/whatever with double wheels on the back ("dualies") and a roaring engine that would wake the dead. Big is beautiful in the US. Small means you are po.

Wonder how long it will take for that to change? Last I looked, petrol was costing $4.17 a gallon. Diesel costs more. Small might start meaning you can still drive whilst those big expensive-to-feed things get to sit in the driveways of America (not in the garage - the enormous triple garage is full of crud).

On another matter, what is with all these American cars with flip-flop fuel filler flaps? They have a little finger flip open thing. It is not locked. Anyone could come along and help themselves to that precious petrol. The number of times I've looked for the little lifter button in a hire car and then found I have to GET OUT OF THE CAR! to open the fuel filler door on whatever side of the car it is (yes yes, of course I have to get out to fill the car up but I want service!).... plus it means I inevitably pull up on the wrong side of the bowser...