For the past four days or so we have been touring around Virginia with Dad and Mom T and I must say I have laid eyes on some of the most beautiful sights in nature that I have ever seen. The Shenandoah Valley surrounded by the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains are just stunning. Everything looks like a postcard. I really couldn’t believe I was actually walking around amongst these extremely beautiful sights.
And yes I’m still seeing and experiencing new things on a daily basis and I love it. Here is my list of observations for this post:
For those residing in the US, can anyone answer this little dilemma of mine? Why are public bathroom doors so short? I mean, why does everyone have to see my legs when I’m doing whatever I choose to do behind those closed doors? I feel it is an invasion of my bathroom privacy somehow. Am I the only one bothered by this? I wonder.
As I understand it, any trip to the US is not complete without a visit to the one and only Wal-Mart. On my first visit I saw some things with which I was unfamiliar. First was an almost blatant display of obesity. Oh my God! I have never seen people that obese in my whole life. I kept looking at one woman while trying to decipher what I witnessing. Then I decided to stop before I made a fool of myself. I saw people packing extra weight in places I never knew people could carry fat, like on their back for example. Somehow, this made me feel good about my weight.
Another interesting sight was the Mennonites. When I first saw a woman with a small cap on her head I thought it was some form of fashion statement. But when I saw a second woman with the same white hat, I knew something was going on. Luckily, the husband was there to provide me with the answer.
I’m now in the process of Americanizing my accent. While in London I spent some effort Anglicizing it but it didn’t really work out. Let’s see if my efforts pay off this time. The first thing I’m working on is pronouncing the word "water." Instead of saying "wa-ter," which I guess is the British pronunciation, I’m trying to say it the American way: "wa-der." I guess I still sound weird but I will keep trying none-the-less.
That’s all for now. More to come as time allows.
my friend from England once made the same comment about bathroom doors, he also noticed that they never fully close; there is always about half a centimeter which everybody can peek through. i personally don’t care since i am an exhibitionist.
now if the bathroom doors are annoying you that much, i recommend raising you feet above the ground when you are sitting on the toilet. however, this is a delicate task as you run the risk of falling back and breaking you skull against the wall, or worse falling in the toilet itself. now many bathroom stalls have a rail next to the toilet paper holder. you can certainly use that rail to hold on to when you raise your feet, otherwise, try to find a prop to hold on to.
best of luck, if you have any questions, email me. I’ll draw you a diagram.
I never really thought about the bathroom door length. Men have the urinals with usually nothing between them. YIKES! I guess you won’t have to worry about that unless you accidentally walk through the wrong door…and believe me you’ll know right away and run out of there so fast. At some stadiums there is a communal urinal which is basically a converted bathtub with water trickling through it. Really gross….but when 5000 people have to go at the same time this is the only way to do it.
As for accents…I say Midwest accents are the coolest. Everyone can understand us!
As for the wieght issue..come to Detroit to experience the most overweight city in the US. Even the mayor is talking about taxing fast food restaurants.
Natasha hope you and Jeff are enjoying yourselves. I would like to hear more about any culture shock you are experiencing.
Linda, you could always put “Walmart Sux” on your cap. Bet you’d like that.
Short restrooms ? This is the 10 million dollar question I have never had a satisfying answer for so far (10 years in the US). But I can tell you few facts in connection to this subject; first, I prefer the Turkish toilet with negative comments mentioned in a previous post over this kind of short door one. Second, Way to go, this is the land of shameless; you stay shy, I say bye-bye. Third, Ventilation is natural in this kind of restroom. Fourth, to keep the person on his/ her toes. In traditional, full door restrooms, people tend to compose songs, or start wistling; in this short door version, its practical, do it, and get out !
1. Obesity. Well.. When you have an endless supply of food and the people selling it are the primary lobbying groups responsible for setting government policy about it… Oh wait, I am a liberal, so I am *supposed* to be apposed to the government telling people they are idiots… But speaking of which, there is a movie called, “Super Size Me”, which was made about the subject. One of its funner points was that Bush’s new ‘No student left behind’ nonsense is causing schools to do the only thing some of them are good at, cutting physical education, extra curricular activities and sports, in favor of teaching kids how the fill in the right blanks on the tests that are ‘supposed to’ tell us how much they are learning. Rather than figure out what is wrong, set a universal basic standard, then enforce it in a rational way, we get tests. So now we are getting both stupider ‘and’ fatter as a country. Somehow people seem to have missed that in the last 50 year the world have gotten 50 times more complex, teachers have fallen behind even their students and ‘fixing’ the problem by using 1950’s logic about schooling is a ‘bad idea'(tm).
2. Your accent. I agree, keep the british one. NY doesn’t sound like the south, and the south sounds nothing like the rest of the country. My sister lives in West Virginia and we living in Arizona can barely understand her. lol Now, I am sure we mangle a bit of it over here too. Like ‘warsh’ instead of ‘wash’, but imho, no where near as badly as it seems people in the south east do. 😉
yeah what’s the reason for the short restroom doors? why is there a 20 X 50 cm hole in the bottom of each door? ka7ateet bedhom ywafro khashab? 😀
you really want me to tell you Natasha or are you just being sarcastic?
i remeber that funny comment by Bill Maher
“Stop describing anyone is a Nazi. George Bush is not a Nazi, Republicans or democrates are not nazis, Nobody is Nazis……..except for Walmart :D”.
As an obese man i enjoy being in america because i’m having an average weight here. I guess the main problem is people don’t advise the obese to lose weight because it may hurt their feelings. In Jordan i remeber almost everybody telling “beddaksh ten7af sheklak zay el feel” and my grandmother told me “3am tensa7 ya jiddeh sayer methel el bagara”, and my freidns’ first impression 8 months after seeing me was, even before 7amdella 3al salameh, “waaaaaaal sho amerka 3amleh feek”
Anyway Natasha a few more weeks in america and you’ll recognize that there’s no american accent. There’s the american black accent where many words are read almost backwords (aks instead of ask” and the second half of every word is not pronounced and the southern accent and the asian-american accent where all letters are pronounced alike, and you’ll find arabs speaking english with ya3ni and bass and ma3lesh and aah as every other word, and the hispanicks who are the majority here start speaking in english then ben3ajgo and go “hombre yo no hablo el inglez por favor hable en solo el espanol” 😀 😀
o u’ll recognize that the american accent we know “the muhannad jazeereh accent” is not sth you’ll hear often in the street.
enjoy ur time in the united sa
Keep the British accent! Americans love it. A Brit reading the phone book sounds better than an American reading the Gettysburg address. If you had an Eastern European accent, that would be another matter.
Ok Linda, tell me what ‘s wrong with Wal-Mart;-)
hahahaha. this is too funny. as for bathroom doors, this is so true, for some. not all, but some. and the same thing goes for women’s dressing rooms in some clothing stores. this was actually a conversation between george and jerry on senfield.
as for wal-mart, oh no, i cant believe you went in there. okay, well i guess you had to go in there at least one time to check it out for your self. yes, obesity very much exists in this country, and well, its an epedemic. i wonder what other things you noticed at wal mart?