Black Friday, Black Squirrels

Coming to the end of this Thanksgiving weekend, I wanted to write a quick note on something that I find more than a little disturbing. I'm not talking about the Black Friday sales, where half of the US population hit the shops this weekend looking for bargains, occasionally shooting each other fighting over discounted tat trying to help rebuild the economy through rampant consumerism. Although the Black Friday shopping spree was bemusing, Friday was not the black thing that disturbs me. Well, to what black thing do I refer, I hear you ask? I'm talking about black squirrels.

Most people in the UK think that squirrels are cute, fluffy little creatures of happiness, bringing joy to parkland. Personally, I have always considered squirrels to be rats with good PR, although we did make a yummy squirrel casserole last summer. If people in the UK saw the black squirrels here, they'd think again. These creatures look very sinister as they watch you walk past with a malevolant glint in their eye, pretending to be innocently nibbling on their nuts.

I can see through their charade of cuteness though. Unlike other squirrels, black squirrels are organised, carnivorous monsters. They've even been known to form packs and hunt dogs, as reported by the BBC. Yesterday, we found one in our garden: it was hanging around the bird feeder trying to bully chickadees and robins. From the image below you can see that it was preparing to pounce on my wife, its little nose twitching with murderous intent.
 

If you come to visit from the UK, beware these evil creatures of the night!

Are you talkin' tae me, pal?

Although a lot of the things about the US seem quite alien, there's actually one aspect of USian culture I enjoy a lot because it makes me feel like I'm back in Glasgow. And no, I'm not talking about a growing obesity epidemic due a penchant for sugary, fatty foods (although that is also the case). In America, it is completely acceptable to talk to strangers, which is a stark contrast with the south east of England.

As Kate Fox notes in her excellent book, Watching the English, talking to strangers in England is an interaction that has to follow a very complex, predictable script, otherwise you run rough-shod over  social conventions and cause enough trauma to make the English person need to have lie-down and a cup of tea. Acceptable interactions involve asking the time, complaining about the weather or crappy public transport system, or sharing a disapproving look if someone else breaks social norms and does something as appalling as skipping the queue.

(Note to Americans: a queue is something you wait in; a cue is stick that you use to hit small balls. Sort it out folks, it's not hard!!!)

In the US, no such conventions exist. To pick one example from many, Dom and I went for a walk in the park on Sunday as I wanted to take blurry and badly-framed pictures of birds with my posh new SLR camera. Their was a lovely woman walking her child and dog and we ended up chatting to her for about 20 minutes. Of course, because it's America, we also ended up with her business card, but that happens a lot here.

Occassionally, the talking-to-strangers thing does come with a risk of people massively over-sharing, and it's possible that you'll end up with a person's entire life, medical and personal history when all you wanted was a coffee and to quietly read your book in a public place, but you can learn to avoid these hotspots of self-obsession (e.g. don't drink coffee in Bethesda).

In the interests of fairness, I must point out that talking to strangers DOES happen in England. Generally, this only happens after drinking about 8 pints of social lubrication. In Glasgow, talking to strangers is fair game all the time, although some less kind people would suggest that is because Glasweigans are likely to have indulged in social lubrication at any time of the day. But these unkind people are generally found in Edinburgh, where the social norms are somewhere between the south east of England and Glasgow (sort of like Manchester, but less fun).

A positive one today. Perhaps it's because another good thing about America is the four-day weekend that they give us at the end of November, although I'd recommend staying away from free blankets. So, happy Thanksgiving, folks!

Mick

p.s. The day after I wrote my last blog post, some arsehole of a woman ran a stop sign and very nearly killed me on my bike when I was cycling home from work. I need say no more.

The Great American Dream (part one)

One of the most striking thing about Americans is their deep and profound love of the car. The usual clichés probably apply to an extent: the car is the ultimate embodiment of the American sense of freedom and convenience. And words cannot emphasise just how much Americans love convenience and freedom, even if that freedom is usually exercised only as the freedom to buy things.

As a European, I come from a country where the cities were built before the car was invented, so we have narrow roads, which are ample for what I considered to be normal-sized cars. But the cars here are absolutely huge! Below is the one we hired when we moved house a few weeks ago:

I don't know if this is purely a DC thing, or a general US thing, but the standard of driving here is absolutely terrrible! If I had a pound (or dollar) for every time I've seen a massive SUV fail to stop at the right place at traffic lights and be 2 full car lengths past the line, I'd have enough to buy a new lens for my camera. As a pedestrian or cyclist, there is nothing more annoying than having a massive car blocking the crossing, although shouting at them seems to be socially-acceptable here. However, this is a completely moot point because, well, there are no pedestrians and very few cyclists. Although it's illegal in the state of Maryland, I see many people driving whilst sending text messages and we even saw a guy with a laptop open on his dashboard. Absolutely crazy!! Which explains why so many cars have obvious signs of bumps and scrapes.

The public transport system here is bloody good - you can track the buses by GPS from your smart phone / computer so that you can time your arrival at the bus stop with minute-accuracy (did I mention that USians like convenience?). The bus is also cheap, with a $1.50 flat rate. However, it seems that, in general, only poor people use public transport - tell someone that you've walked more than a mile or got a bus, and they ask "Oh, is your car broken?". Quite a bit of the suburb we live in doesn't have any pavement (or sidewalk, if you're that way inclined), because there doesn't seem to be much demand. We live about 1 mile from the metro station, and people genuinely have asked us how we get there if we don't drive.

So far, we've resisted the American dream and have refused to buy a car, instead using our trusty Bromptons to get about. Alas, this whole country is built around the automobile and is massively spread out. Although the public transport system is great, it's only useful for ferrying people around places where they can be good capitalist-consumers and buy more stuff to keep the economy afloat. Ah well. I think a lot of people who know us are placing bets on how long it will be before we break and get a car - at least that's good motivation to hold out!

However, we did spend several hours yesterday trying to convert our driving licences to US ones. I refused to surrender my UK licence to get only a provisional licence here, so I now have a learner's permit and Dom has to supervise me for 60 hours driving over 9 months. The state of Maryland only recognises Candian, French and South Korean licences! Obviously there've never seen people driving in France!! Or perhaps that's the point!? Maybe countries like the UK and Germany have too many standards for driving, so our licences aren't recognised as we'd expect too much skill from other drivers!?


Of course, in this crazy country of extremes, nothing is quite so clear cut as I've laid out so far. At the NIH, where I work, there are 15,000 employees and the number who commute by bike regularly is only 600. Quite shocking. So although cyclists are very much the minority, they are a very vocal minority and have managed to get quite a lot done. There are some absolutely stunnnig trails connecting most of the different urban and suburban centres, so my 5 mile bike ride to work consists of being surrounded by stunning trees in Rock Creek Park and trying not to run over deer. Dom has a 15 mile cycle, and most of that is also off road with the excellent Capital Crescent trail, which connects Silver Spring to downtown DC. There's also a funky scheme called Zipcar, where you can hire cars by the hour - the scheme operates quite a bit like the Boris Bikes in London.

Although it's quite tricky to avoid buying a car, so far so good. Hopefully we can get by without one... our tune may change once the winter kicks off properly (still T-shirt weather there!), but we'll see.

Breid - Plain or pan or sweetened?

I've been rather quiet recently, as we moved house and didn't have any internet until last week. Dom and I like to make our own bread, because store-bought bread is generally fluffy, air-filled rubbish that has no flavour, unless you want to pay several quid for a wanky, artisan loaf. When we first arrived in the US, obviously we had to buy bread until we had could find decent flour and yeast, and also live in a house where the kitchen was not infested with ants (don't ask!)

So we went to the supermarket, grabbed a loaf that looked reasonably decent and didn't think more of it. The next morning, I made a cheese and ham sandwich for breakfast. I bit into this sandwich. I was then somewhat startled with an unexpected explosion of sweetness in my mouth: unexpected explosions in one's mouth are not generally welcome at the best of times!

It turns out that, in the US, it's pretty much impossible to find a loaf of bread that has not had corn syrup, honey or sugar added to it. It's absolutely disgusting - bread should be a neutral medium upon which you build your desired outcome. If you want it sweet, add peanut butter and jam (urgh! Another weird North American habit). If you want your bread savoury, make toast or a sandwich. But, damnit, I reserve the right to choose how my bread should taste!!! I know Americans have a sweet tooth, but I hail from the land of deep-fried confectionary, and even we wouldn't do this to bread. And this isn't a case of me being a bread facist, honest! Another UKish person in Dom's work has been here for 5 years and still makes her own bread because she can't stand the sweetness of the USian stuff.

Of course, bread is an institution for me. Very few culinary experiences give me greater pleasure than a well-crafted loaf of bread, which I can easily demolish if left alone with some butter and toaster. Bread is beautiful, but what the Americans do to it is sacrilege.

Although they defile bread, however, they do have very pretty trees in the autumn.