The US: The Good and The Bad

I'm just waiting for my flight back to London for Christmas (delayed due to chronic fog at Heathrow apparently - hurrah), and I think the time has come for me to take stock and figure out just what's good and bad about this behemoth of a country. The last couple of months have been exciting but frustrating, purely because I've been too damn busy at work to really build a proper life out here. I got off to a flying start when I arrived, but things have stagnated somewhat over the last few weeks with all the travelling around I've been doing. I must have spent about 6 days in Boston out of the last 30 - not really the way to settle in. That said, here goes - the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good

The Weather
Typical of an Englishman to hone in on the elements I know, but the weather really is great here. None of your drab London greyness here - in Boston it's been crisp, bright and sunny. In the Carolinas and California it's proper autumn right now, and in the Midwest it's bone-chillingly freezing. There don't seem to be any half-measures - it's either raining/snowing (HARD) or it's bright and chilly. Interesting, if you will. Over the course of the Boston winter I may be forced to revise this opinion - apparently it's been unseasonably mild so far.

The Food
Generally not the stuff you get in restaurants. While I've had the best steaks of my life here (yes, including in France) the portions in restaurants are almost always too big, and overly endowed with some sort of American cheese that's utterly tasteless and superfluous to proceedings. The supermarkets though (particularly in Cambridge) are wonderful. I have two near to me, a Co-op and the Whole Foods Market, and they're like being in your favourite farmer's market in London, all the time, but everything's half price! Gorgeous deli counters abound - the branch of Whole Foods in Union Square in New York is truly a thing to behold. The variety far surpasses anything Europe can offer as well. In the Co-op the other day I counted no less than fifteen different varieties of houmous - that's fifteen different ways to present chickpeas, garlic and oil! My particular favourite is "Garlic-lover's Houmous" - garlic-y dip with extra garlic. Mmmm.

Flights
They know how to make them convenient here - people really do use them like buses. None of this turning up at the airport 3 hours in advance malarkey - you just turn up, check in at the machine, stroll through security (somehow, there's rarely a queue) and board your plane. Simple. Usually.

The Bad

Taxi Drivers
By Jove, taxi drivers in the States are awful. New York is the worst, but anywhere you can guarantee that they will be pretty dodgy drivers, coupled with almost no knowledge of their environs. I've lost count of the times I've been asked how to get somewhere (as if I would know!) and had to get my laptop out and call on Google Maps for assistance. The grumpy London cabbie who would sell his mother before clarifying your destination seems a long-forgotten memory. The best example of American cabbie's cack-handedness was when I was in New York once. In New York destinations should be pretty simple to find - you just say "33rd Street and 5th" or some such, and anyone with a rudimentary grasp of numbers should be able to find their way. Not this guy - I had to guide him at every turn. Admittedly, he'd brought be all the way from Long Island, but still...

Is anyone out there?
It's a cliche I know, but America really doesn't care much about the rest of the world (except when her soldiers are there). It's partly this that gives the country an air of smug middle-class, nuclear-family satisfaction. An alternative ideal never enters into anyone's heads, because that's all that's ever portrayed in the media. The BBC website has been a lifeline to goings on elsewhere, and despite concerted efforts I couldn't find a single place in Boston (the most English city in America) that could show me the cricket. Thank God for www.willow.tv.

Just a little backward
I'm still getting my head around that there are so many live issues out here are signed, sealed and buried back home. Abortion, race, employment law, you name it and the US is probably less progressive than Europe in most people's thinking. The cherry on the cake was an article in the paper today, declaring in a shrill voice that "9 out of 10 20-year-olds have had premarital sex". No shit.

Team America
No matter how "liberal" or well-travelled the individual that you meet over here, there seems to be an underlying current of patriotism, that the US is generally in the right. Perhaps this is what Britons were like back in the imperialistic days, and we'll see a new kind of American guilt/humility in the 22nd century. Right now though it has the air of righteousness and defiance against the rest of the world which is a little disconcerting compared to someone from England, where displays of patriotism almost always come with jingoistic overtones.