Three Weeks in the Homeland

Hello

FlyingHelminskis here

And we would like to share with you this blog about our life

This post

Has thoughts of being home

Its a blog about America

Over the past few weeks

We hope

It has some awesome parts

You simply won't believe
How much we've got to catch up on

But first

We'll cover these three weeks

Before we get back to our fun
Over in London town

You're all

Probably getting bored
So I'll get to the blog

before I butcher this song more

If you haven't figured it out by now, we love Book of Mormon. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and go. It's hysterically funny and completely worth it. Now, on to the blog!

A lot has happened over the past couple months. Seriously. A whole lot. We'll get to it all in the next few posts, but first we're going to cover our move back to the USA. Or more specifically, our impressions of being back in good ol' America. 

In your face, dictators!

Three weeks ago, Gloria and I moved back to the USA. For the last few weeks before the move, we'd been thinking a lot about what it would be like we got back. In particular we were wondering if it would seem weird to be back home. We had heard from many friends who had lived overseas and they all pretty much said there would be things we'd find strange or things we just didn't get (pop culture references, etc). So, how has it been for us? In all honesty, it's been pretty normal. Maybe it's because we lived in Philly before and we kind of fell right back into life here (though we haven't been to Tony Luke's or had a proper cheesesteak yet, so we're not REALLY back into Philly life just yet).

I have noticed that I don't get some pop culture references, but that isn't odd, because I'm old and out of touch with pop culture...

See, even my jokes about not getting pop culture are 17 years old. Sheesh...

All joking aside, there actually have been a few things we've noticed. For example, portion sizes. Mother of God do we have huge portions here!

Seriously. We went out to a sushi joint one night and it was a good example of the difference between portions here vs the rest of the world. In London, when you order a piece of sushi, you get a piece. One piece. It would look something like this:

Here in America? We go big. One order of sushi=two pieces (which is awesome!), and our sushi looks something like this:

It's epic. And we love it.

Another thing (we really love this) is the American standard of service. In particular I'm talking about the speed of service. It's so amazing. In most places here, when you finish a drink the server comes over and asks if you'd like another. Also when you order something, there's actually some sense of urgency to get it to you quickly. We got used to the European and Southeast Asian style of "you'll get your food when we're ready to bring it to you" service, so it's been a really nice surprise to see just how much quicker things really are here. It's definitely one of those things we didn't recognize before we left, but we really appreciate much more now.

Speaking of service, next on our list is tipping. In most of the rest of the world, tipping isn't really required, and often times a service charge is included in your bill. It's been a bit of an adjustment getting back into calculating percentages on our bill.

Ah yes, the old "Math" tip. You can't put a price on that.

Oh, also sales tax. Or in the case of the US, the lack of tax included in the price of things. Why do we do this? Why!!??? I must say that the European and Asian style of pricing things what they actually cost is really nice. For those not familiar with it, in those places the prices as shown (in stores, at restaurants...everywhere) include tax. So if it says it costs $20, it's $20. Not $20 plus tax. It makes things so much simpler and I wish the US did this. I know there are various economic implications involved, but it's so much nicer seeing the price and knowing that's what it costs. Damn these first world struggles!

Lastly, we come to my favorite: slightly "off" pronunciations. Or more specifically, hearing Gloria try to say "respiratory" like an American. You see, while we were in London, one of the areas in which Gloria worked was respiratory. But, those silly Brits emphasize different syllables and pronounce it like res-SPEAR-atry. Whereas, us American say it the right way, RESP-ir-a-tory. A few times since we've been back I've heard Gloria on work calls and seen her really thinking about how to pronounce the words depending on her audience. It cracks me up. Yes, it's silly and a bit childish, but then again so am I. Anyway, that's probably the mildest of all the UK vs US mixups, and it doesn't hold a candle to everyone's favorite: Football

Much like the question of the chicken & the egg, this is a debate that will never be resolved. 

That's about it for our coming home oddities. Pretty weak really. In the coming weeks we'll be catching up on all our adventures from our last few weeks in the UK. There's a ton to cover, so the posts will keep coming. Until then, I'd just like to say that I am proudly a fan of both handegg and soccer. Boom!