Ok, so I'm in The United States of America, also known as The Oosa! It's apparently a country of some importance near Canada, although seeing as most people in Australia don't know much about the war-like Oosa people (except that they are war-like. And near Canada), I have had to do a lot of research for this trip.
The first is learning the local lingo, which in this case is called "American". It appears to be a derivation of English, but is spoken with a slur and has a hearty helping of the letter 'z' put everywhere imaginable. They also like to drop off letters - for example, the title of this blog actually reads (in english)
"Hello! How are you, friend? Did you say something earlier?"
I've been trying my "american" out with people here, with some limited successes, I suppose I'll have to keep studying those notes!
Kidding aside (most Australians know The Oosa is also near Mexico) I'm in San Fran right now. I've returned to the mundane world of working, which, after kicking around London for a while, figured that the oosa would be a nicer place to check out. So I am back to IT (again) working for another large bank (this one's British!) and am, well, going to work tomorrow. For the first time in, what? More than a year? Unless you count my time working in India as a poorly paid actor for a day, in which case I've only been out of work for a few months.
What else? Well, I've been put up in a suite here in "The Financial Sector" with, ummm, a distinctly 80's decor? It's serviced, it just doesn't have any cutlery, which was a nice touch, and made eating ice cream impossible last night. I also don't know about tipping! This morning, at the breakfast area, there's a woman whose sole job is to
put bread on my plate and I think I maybe should have tipped her. Because she had a plate full of money next to her.
And I can watch tv again! Very exciting - I have 60+ channels, all of them full of crap. And medical drug ads. In the UK, all the drug ads are trying to get you to be a guinea pig. In america, they are for you to buy pharmaceuticals - anything from the pill (the disclaimer went on for 30 seconds, and explained that the pill did not stop hiv) to "natural male enhancement drugs". From the ad, I couldn't work if it was for viagra or hair enhancement, it was just a bunch of men wandering around waving their arms every so often.
Finally, a big big thanks to Emma, from Melbourne, who SAVED MY LIFE whilst I was in London by giving me a floor to sleep on, a room to lock us both out of, an oven to ignite the occasional cookie in, and person to talk to lots, to stave off the madness. Thanks again Emma, you're as beautiful as you are kind (and you are very kind!)
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