That's right, it's a year since Taylor Swifts 22 song was stuck in my head and that can mean only one thing; I'm now a legitimate 23 year old. A second birthday spent in beautiful California which is an improvement to my 2 previous birthdays on tour. It's nice not to be punished for being born.
My birthday was actually a week ago but thanks to sport in the USA I was able to work 2 softball and 1 volleyball games instead of celebrating. It wasn't all bad though; I had a really lovely birthday breakfast with my roommates which involved cinnamon rolls and plenty of English tea.
As a compromise I celebrated my birthday this weekend and was very lucky to be treated to a day at the 'ball park'. I went to a Giants game basically (Translation: San Francisco's Premiership Baseball Team). We got the train into SF instead of driving like we usually do. It was actually a really nice way to see parts of the Stockton-San Fran journey that you don't see from the freeway. The views weren't much except maybe the UC Berkley towers but to see such varied houses, roads, and factories was nice. It just goes to show there's still so much to learn about places. This is definitely noticeable when you ride through some of the more sketchy parts of Oakland. You think that places like that only exist in movies like Coach Carter but being 15 minutes from Richmond you realize how accurate that representation of socially deprived areas actually is.
The game was great. Well actually there was only 7 hits so it wasn't a great game to watch in itself but that didn't really matter. It was a beautiful day and I had my doubts about sitting through 9 innings of baseball but it was surprisingly really fun. I bought a t-shirt of course, and so I sat there in the beautiful sunshine watching the game and drinking a beer. I could totally understand why this was the "American pastime".
On the way home we stopped at Texas Roadhouse, the restaurant we went to for my birthday last year. It's so funny looking back at my initial reaction to this place how it all seems so normal to me now. We had steak, BBQ chicken, and ribs. We were so full when we got home we couldn't move for hours. That combined with the sunburned faces meant we were asleep by 9:30pm.
Today was another beautiful day of sunshine and so I've just been relaxing in the sun following the busy week. I'm certainly going to miss this beautiful weather. I'm going to get out in it as much as possible for my last 5 weeks here.
A couple of things I noticed this week:
Bumper stickers. I know that's strange but it dawned on me how some Americans can be douchebags with their bumper stickers. This is not really a thing in England which is why it seems so strange to me. Basically, there are people in America who will have maybe 4/5 bumper stickers on the back of their cars with their political stances on things. Firstly, bumper stickers are a nightmare to peel off, they loose colour in the sun/rain, and they make your car look kind of messy and untidy. That's perhaps my own personal opinion and each to their own I guess but secondly, the 'political stances' I speak of are not necessarily "I'm a proud Democrat" but are more specific to certain social issues. The one's that shock me most are probably the anti-abortion ones and maybe the anti-gay ones. I'm not surprised that people think this way but I am surprised that they feel the car that drives behind them should know about it. Get your political views out of my face. Even the more liberal pro-equality stickers irritate me now because I want to drive around without thinking thank you very much! There is literally a war-of-the-bumper-stickers happening and I truly do not understand it. How important do you think your opinions are that you feel you need a sticker for your car? and why your car? Why not a tattoo or a sign on your front door? I DON"T GET IT. Someone please explain this to me (without telling me it's your constitutional right because I swear fkgheubrgjlegnepkvm)
Another thing I noticed this week is my reaction to puddles. Again, weird I know, so let me explain. In England, when you go outside and see a puddle or that your car has drops on it, you assume it rained. In California, when you see a puddle or your cars has drops on it, you assume the water sprinklers have been on. It's so strange because the first few times this happened I was confused because it seemed to be raining overnight in California a lot. Recently we had a few weeks of rain and now we're back to the sunshine. On Wednesday when I saw a puddle I had to consciously remind myself it hadn't rained and that the puddle I stepped over was from a leaky sprinkler. Seriously, I've been here two years and my brain is still playing catch up.
Finally, I realized these past few weeks how much better at customer service roles Americans are. Now I used to work in a bunch of kinds of customer service so I wouldn't say this lightly, but Americans are just way better at it. After a few restaurant/Starbucks/store visits I noticed people in these roles in America are much older than at home. In England these roles are mostly taken by students and the oldest person is the manager. Not in America. In America most servers are older. This is their full time job and they enjoy it, and that makes a huge difference. I literally remember being the worst waitress in the world as a 15 year old, and here I can ask my server what's good and they know and they are usually right. I cannot tell you the amount of times I've had crappy service in the UK compared to here where it's only happened once and that's because she was an inexperienced kid. It's not just in these areas actually, my doctors for my broken wrist, and people in call centers, all awesome. Maybe I've just been lucky but I'm not looking forward to taking my American friends to English restaurants after this.
Anyway, I graduate on May 10th. That's less than a month now and I will officially be a Master of something. I fly home two weeks later. I will try to get some more blog posts in before my American adventure is over but there'll be plenty to write about when I get home I'm sure!
Hope you are all well, stay safe!
x
P.S. This was on Parks & Rec this week and I can't think of a better representation of America:
As a compromise I celebrated my birthday this weekend and was very lucky to be treated to a day at the 'ball park'. I went to a Giants game basically (Translation: San Francisco's Premiership Baseball Team). We got the train into SF instead of driving like we usually do. It was actually a really nice way to see parts of the Stockton-San Fran journey that you don't see from the freeway. The views weren't much except maybe the UC Berkley towers but to see such varied houses, roads, and factories was nice. It just goes to show there's still so much to learn about places. This is definitely noticeable when you ride through some of the more sketchy parts of Oakland. You think that places like that only exist in movies like Coach Carter but being 15 minutes from Richmond you realize how accurate that representation of socially deprived areas actually is.
The game was great. Well actually there was only 7 hits so it wasn't a great game to watch in itself but that didn't really matter. It was a beautiful day and I had my doubts about sitting through 9 innings of baseball but it was surprisingly really fun. I bought a t-shirt of course, and so I sat there in the beautiful sunshine watching the game and drinking a beer. I could totally understand why this was the "American pastime".
On the way home we stopped at Texas Roadhouse, the restaurant we went to for my birthday last year. It's so funny looking back at my initial reaction to this place how it all seems so normal to me now. We had steak, BBQ chicken, and ribs. We were so full when we got home we couldn't move for hours. That combined with the sunburned faces meant we were asleep by 9:30pm.
Today was another beautiful day of sunshine and so I've just been relaxing in the sun following the busy week. I'm certainly going to miss this beautiful weather. I'm going to get out in it as much as possible for my last 5 weeks here.
A couple of things I noticed this week:
Bumper stickers. I know that's strange but it dawned on me how some Americans can be douchebags with their bumper stickers. This is not really a thing in England which is why it seems so strange to me. Basically, there are people in America who will have maybe 4/5 bumper stickers on the back of their cars with their political stances on things. Firstly, bumper stickers are a nightmare to peel off, they loose colour in the sun/rain, and they make your car look kind of messy and untidy. That's perhaps my own personal opinion and each to their own I guess but secondly, the 'political stances' I speak of are not necessarily "I'm a proud Democrat" but are more specific to certain social issues. The one's that shock me most are probably the anti-abortion ones and maybe the anti-gay ones. I'm not surprised that people think this way but I am surprised that they feel the car that drives behind them should know about it. Get your political views out of my face. Even the more liberal pro-equality stickers irritate me now because I want to drive around without thinking thank you very much! There is literally a war-of-the-bumper-stickers happening and I truly do not understand it. How important do you think your opinions are that you feel you need a sticker for your car? and why your car? Why not a tattoo or a sign on your front door? I DON"T GET IT. Someone please explain this to me (without telling me it's your constitutional right because I swear fkgheubrgjlegnepkvm)
Another thing I noticed this week is my reaction to puddles. Again, weird I know, so let me explain. In England, when you go outside and see a puddle or that your car has drops on it, you assume it rained. In California, when you see a puddle or your cars has drops on it, you assume the water sprinklers have been on. It's so strange because the first few times this happened I was confused because it seemed to be raining overnight in California a lot. Recently we had a few weeks of rain and now we're back to the sunshine. On Wednesday when I saw a puddle I had to consciously remind myself it hadn't rained and that the puddle I stepped over was from a leaky sprinkler. Seriously, I've been here two years and my brain is still playing catch up.
Finally, I realized these past few weeks how much better at customer service roles Americans are. Now I used to work in a bunch of kinds of customer service so I wouldn't say this lightly, but Americans are just way better at it. After a few restaurant/Starbucks/store visits I noticed people in these roles in America are much older than at home. In England these roles are mostly taken by students and the oldest person is the manager. Not in America. In America most servers are older. This is their full time job and they enjoy it, and that makes a huge difference. I literally remember being the worst waitress in the world as a 15 year old, and here I can ask my server what's good and they know and they are usually right. I cannot tell you the amount of times I've had crappy service in the UK compared to here where it's only happened once and that's because she was an inexperienced kid. It's not just in these areas actually, my doctors for my broken wrist, and people in call centers, all awesome. Maybe I've just been lucky but I'm not looking forward to taking my American friends to English restaurants after this.
Anyway, I graduate on May 10th. That's less than a month now and I will officially be a Master of something. I fly home two weeks later. I will try to get some more blog posts in before my American adventure is over but there'll be plenty to write about when I get home I'm sure!
Hope you are all well, stay safe!
x
P.S. This was on Parks & Rec this week and I can't think of a better representation of America:
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