Thursday 22nd January 2004, Day 131/273 - Portland, Oregon.

I asked myself the question - How do you know when you've spent too much time in America?

Is it when you start saying eyeglasses instead of spectacles, or when you measure temperatures in fahrenheit rather than celsius?  When you say fries instead of chips and chips instead of crisps?  When you call taps, faucets and the laundrette a laundromat? When you have to specify regular coke instead of normal Coca Cola?  When you ask where the restrooms are, or say zucchini instead of courgette and egg plant instead of aubergine?  When you pronounce Aluminium - aloo-min-num, or when you look for a trash can to put your rubbish in?  When you find the ground floor on the 1st floor and the 1st floor on the 2nd floor?  When you say Happy Holidays rather than Merry Christmas?  When a light beer means low fat and not low alcohol, or when you fill you car with gas?  When you call a shop cashier a front end associate or when if you want to smoke a fag it means to shoot a gay man?  Is it when you get subjected to advertising campaigns like 'You may burp, others will want to smell it.' and you have to tip in bars before you buy a beer?  Is it when you have to go to a drive thru window to order a take away, or to get a prescription, or to get a drink from the off license and to take money from the bank?  When you can ride a motorbike with no helmet. or when you get huge measures in expensive bars?  When you feel compelled to stick a flag in your front garden and sing the national before playing a sport?  When you can't get decent spring water rr when the money all looks the same and you get a pocket full of change that the shops hate accepting? Why make it then? Is it when the biggest party of the year is Halloween or is when you still do mexican waves at sports events to make them more exciting?  Is it when you wait an hour for a bus and a day for a train?  Maybe it's when you write the date in wrong order or is it when you buy a huge car and really don't care about your mpg? At $1.40 a gallon who would?  Is it when you start asking for passers by for spare change or when you start liking baseball and other boring sports? When driving on the wrong side of the road/car feels normal or when you start giving directions in blocks (How big is a block?)? When you get used to having all the keys on the keyboard in the wrong place and having no pound sign?  When you get used to giant sized portions in McDonald's? I swear when I get back to England and order my first McDonald's, I'm going to stamp my feet and say "Why have I only got a thimble and not a bucket of coke?" and "Where's the extra half million chips that I won't eat?" and "Why don't you sell double cheeseburgers for a $?".  Is it when you get used to reading crap newspapers and walking in street named after numbers?  When you're never sure how much you're going to pay for an item because of all the different sales taxes in different states or when you turn on the TV to millions of channels of tat and spend hours flicking through terrible adverts by ambulance chasing lawyers, whilst waiting for the news to come on to tell how the fire department spend all day rescuing a cat from a tree and about a farmers price winning pumpkin, followed by how many Americans died in Iraq today and then going onto the weather?  They fail to tell you anything interesting let alone something that might be important. So then you turn on the Sports News and watch a 30 minute tape telling you who scored the best ally oop or monster jam or TD reception or interception or double play or biggest hit and how many points LeBron James scored in the Cleveland Cavaliers latest defeat. That tape is repeated until the next night of games.

I've been here nearly 4.5 months and I've thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'm so looking forward to getting to somewhere new. 1 week left till Hawaii.