Missing Uncle Sam

Today I am doubly wistful.  Not only is it the 1 year anniversary of the first time I set foot in the glorious US of A but it is also Thanksgiving today which is my favourite holiday of all time that I don't get to celebrate because my stupid ancestors knew how to hunt, fish, farm and survive in a new world and didn't need to be rescued by helpful natives bearing delicious poultry.  Thanks a lot ancestors!

Anyway, I guess all I'm trying to say is, Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the US!  Wish I could be there again.  I did find this little ditty that expresses my feelings really well though...   

On "missing" home

A couple of my friends (and my grandpa) are having a hard time dealing with just how much I loved my US visit.  It's like everyone just assumed I would be missing home something terrible!  Well to be completely fair, while I didn't miss home that much I did actually miss a couple of things from home:

Jackie the dachshund.  She's 12 years old, dumb as a box of hammers and loves barking at all hours during the night and jumping into my bed with muddy paws.  I missed her so much!  Wouldn't you?  I mean just look at her, she's adorable!

Afrikaans.  I never expected that I would miss my mother tongue so much.  I missed speaking it, hearing it and reading it.  You'd think that would be obvious but I speak a lot of English and even when speaking Afrikaans people tend to mix languages so I never thought it would matter much to me.  It did though.  Not hearing the language you think in spoken outside your head is a strangely lonely feeling.

Chips of many flavours.  This one surprised me since in the US there seemed to be so much variety and flavour in just about everything.  Yet, when I walked down the chip isle at Wallmart I was shocked by the lack of selection.  Lays had a couple of nice flavours but for the most part the selection was pretty monotone.  Here on the other had I can expect to find flavours like: Tomato sauce, Salt & Vinegar, Mexican Chili, Smoked Beef, Cheese & Onion, Fruity Chutney, Creamy Cheddar, Spare Rib, Snoek & Atchar, Masala Steak Gatsby, Peri-Peri Chicken, Lightly salted - and these are just some of the potato chip flavours, I'm not even counting the corn chips, puffs etc.

VAT.  Normally I wouldn't list our local tax system as a good thing but it did have one feature I really missed when shopping in America - getting to pay the price you see on the pricetag.  Maybe I'm just being silly but I hated seeing something advertised for let's say $9.99 only to have to pay over $10 when I get to the cash register.  It felt like I was tricked somehow.

User friendly money.  As much as I loved walking around with dollars in my wallet, using it was a little awkward at times.  Do all the bills really have to be the same size and colour?  Is there any good reason why they can't just stamp an actual number on the coins?  When you have to hunt around for the value of the money you're holding then something is wrong!

Gingerbeer.  Not Ginger Ale, Ginger beer, the stuff that tickles your throat when you swallow.  If I was staying any longer I would have brewed it for myself!

Biltong.  I had heard that jerky was pretty much the same thing as biltong.  It's not by a long shot.  Jerky was a deep disappointment, it doesn't even kind of compare!

And yeah, that was about it...

Zen Surfing in the First World

The other night in bed, as I was trying to dislodge a flying insect who seemed incredibly determined to climb down my ear canal, I realised for the umpteenth time that I really miss the USA.  I really had the time of my life there and to list every little thing that I enjoyed there would be very hard indeed, but just off the top of my head, here (in no particular order) are some of the American things I really miss:

Free drink refills.  Such an amazing thing and yet it seemed like I was the only one who really appreciated it!  I tried my darnedest to have my own body weight in soda refills everytime I ate out.  Sure, I had to pee like Seabiscuit for the rest of the day but it was so worth it!

Rootbeer.  I am forever grateful to my cousin who told me to try rootbeer.  The stuff is like nectar of the gods and it breaks my heart that it's not sold in South Africa.

Beer.  Now make no mistake, South Africa has no shortage of beers to choose from but it tends to be pretty straightforward stuff, lagers and pilseners mostly.  The US on the other had gave me a dazzling array of interesting beers to choose from.  I loved everything in the Sam Adams collection and the first time I saw 20 different beers on tap in a restaurant I think I blacked out for a few seconds!  Special mention to Harvest Moon pumkin ale.  If someone said, "here, try this pumpkin beer" I would have been all "no thanks!", but I accidentally tried one at a party and boy was I pleasantly surprised!

No Taxis.  Allow me to clarify, by "taxi" I refer to the South African minibus taxis - overloaded, poorly maintained, unroadworthy deathtraps that speed along our streets with zero regard for the law or anyone's safety.  They stop where and when they want, turn whenever they feel like it, are constantly honking their horns to attract customers and tend to take traffic signs as mere suggestions. 

Geen donnerse sokkie gatstamp treffers nie!!  OK, non-South Africans won't get that but trust me, if you knew how horrible popular Afrikaans music was you would have been happy to be without it for a bit too!

Snow.  I wrote a whole blog about it, do I really need to say more?

Silent nights.  OK so this one is not so much something I miss about the US in general, it's something I miss about Sparks, Nevada.  I loved the quiet of the high desert.  Here I have to cope with a nightly chorus of crickets, frogs, dogs, cats and birds (and the occasional alarm going off somewhere on the block).  There I only had blessed silence.  Also not once did any bugs try to violate my earhole and I really miss that!

Being foreign.  Being a stranger in a strange land was great.  For a month and a half I got to be exotic and interesting and all I had to do was be myself.  Over there, my accent was actually considered sexy.  *Sigh*  I miss that...

Variety.  I am a big fan of variety and the US offered me more than I could take.  Americans take a lot of flak from certain groups for the fact that they like everything bigger and bolder but really, screw those guys!  I loved the living crap out of American muchness!  I thought Wallmart was incredible and I loved Costco!  I loved standing in a grocery isle or in front of a fast food menu in a state of shock and awe.  Why should there be 5 kinds of Vanilla Ice Cream to choose from?  Who cares?! It's fantastic!!  If variety is the spice of life then America gave me a flavour overload - and I loved every second of it!

Mexican food.  What could be more American than Mexican food?  I loved it so much but sadly it is virtually unheard of around here.  If I want taco's I have to make it myself - if I can find the ingredients that is.

Junk food.  Fine, we have plenty of our own junk food here.  We even have American junk food here - McDonalds and KFC - but what we have here simply does not compare to the delicious madness of actual American junk food.  In the US, I got to experience food with the safety off, where the only question you have to answer is "Are you a fan of delicious flavour?".  This is food at its orgiastic pinnacle - uninhibited, wild and joyful!  It's food as it should be in other words, the kind that makes your eyes roll back in your head while your tastebuds go zing!!  Chicken sandwich made of chicken?  Pizza with 3 kinds of bacon?  Would I like cheese with that?  Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!!

Law abiding citizens.  I wrote about this in my previous blog, it was great to live in a place where the law was not treated as a suggestion.  Cars stopped for me at crosswalks.  Security guards didn't treat me like a would be shoplifter on general principle when I walked into a store.  I didn't see any litter (though with a $1000 fine for littering, that made total sense!).  When a traffic cop pulled you over he doesn't expect a bribe.  It was... refreshing...

Climate control.  Yes, we do have air conditioners in South Africa but no one I know of can boast that the temperature of their entire house is controlled by one thermostat, yet in the US it seemed pretty standard (it's only in office buildings here).  Having your house permanently set to t-shirt weather, regardless of the weather was pretty darn sweet!

Good internet & TV.  In the US I got to sample a couple of the great websites that are not available those outside the USA, like Hulu and Pandora.  Furthermore not only was there a dazzling array of channels to choose from (I currently have 4) but I got to see all my favourite shows hot and fresh - not a season late (like on SA TV) or even a day late (if I download the episode).

Now this is by no means an exhaustive list, I could go on and on.  I had so many wonderful times and met so many great people.  I miss Taco nights, Doughnut Bistro and Jack in the Box's Steak & Egg burritos on Sunday mornings.  I miss Francesca the coffee maker, the gas stove and the dishwasher (OK so we have all those in SA too but I don't have them in my home so I miss them).  I miss Wednesday night poker, getting to try new things and experiencing so many things for the first time.  More than anything though I miss being part of a family.  The Meredith family didn't just let me into their home, they really opened up their world to me and allowed me to be a part of it.  I got to spend time with their kids (which I rarely do), even played with them (which I've never done).  They gave me so much more than a bed to sleep in and a dinner table to sit at and for that they will always be in my heart.  I haven't felt like part of a household for a very long time and it meant the world to me.  Guess that is why leaving Reno felt more like leaving home than leaving Pretoria ever did.

A New Normal

As I told a classroom full of 10 year old Americans the other day, Africa is a pretty dangerous place to live. For as long as there has been life on this continent it has been a brutal and violent place where survival depended on constant vigilance and even then there was never much of a guarantee that it wouldn’t all be over in the blink of an eye. It has always been that way, it’s that way now and it’s a fair bet that it’s going to be that way for the foreseeable future. The weather can be harsh, the diseases are terrible and the only thing that is more dangerous than the many carnivorous predators are the herbivores*. Then there are the bugs. Good Lord, don’t even get me started on the bugs! Not only do they kill more people than anything else, they’re annoying as hell.

Everything else however pales in comparison to the people of this land. Much like the land they can be great and breathtakingly amazing but some unfortunately mirror its brutality instead. Don’t get me wrong, in Africa you will find some of the finest people you will ever have the privilege to meet. It is a hard and dangerous place and that brings out the best in some people. Some, but unfortunately not all. Some people on this continent do things that will make you yearn for the soft, warm comfort of a SAW movie instead.

The thing is though, that if you grew up here then this becomes normal. You either accept it or you leave. For those of us who call this place home it becomes a way of life. You prepare for the worst, living with the constant reminder that you could become a victim at any time. So you turn your home into a fortress, you remain constantly vigilant because you know that those who forget where they are for even a moment tend to end up in the newspaper.

My old idea of normal: Walls, Burglar bars and pallisade fencing

Because of this, going to the US was a shock to my system. During my stay, four (unrelated) armed robberies (where no one was injured) in four weeks made headline news in Reno. Over here I doubt such a non event wouldn’t even make page 3 of the local paper. I remember walking around the neighborhood thinking to myself that I could break into any house on the street with minimal effort. It felt so surreal to live in a house with no fence, barb wire or burglar bars. Driving around without constantly being on the lookout for hijackers or walking around the inner city without a care in the world took a lot of getting used to. Being able to walk around in a mall without security guards checking and sealing your shopping bags felt almost wrong. In fact, it really did bother me. I worried that this soft and easy life in the US would make me soft, dull my edge, make me an easy target once I got back home. For instance in Reno, cars stop for you at a pedestrian crossing (that took a lot of getting used to!) – here you take your best shot, dodge traffic and gratefully thank the occasional motorist who obeys the law. Getting used to the safety of Reno would be hazardous to my health!

My new normal: A neighborhood where your house doesn't resemble a prison

I needn’t have worried though, once I got off the plane it all came back like it never left. Something was different though. The other night, as I was coming back to bed after checking out a suspicious noise outside it hit me – this is not how people are supposed to live. Back when it was the only way of living I knew it didn’t seem so bad. In fact I could even rationalize that it somehow made life more exciting, that less safe meant more adventurous. I can’t do that anymore. What I’ve come to realize is that wasn’t the American way of life that was weird, it was mine. People aren’t meant to live like this, it is the constant fear and paranoia and violence that should be foreign to me. Being safe inside your own home, being able to walk fearlessly down your own street, that is what’s supposed to be normal. Traffic signs warning you of hijacking hotspots and endless messages to be on the lookout for thieves at every ATM is not normal. We just got so used to it that we forgot just how abnormal it really is.

Now I don’t really know how to conclude this blog. I mean I made this realization but now what? This is my reality and realizing just how insane it really is, is not going to change it. I can’t leave here but for the first time in my life I actually want to.

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*Hippo’s kill more people than crocodiles every year and I would keep my distance from Elephants, Rhino’s and Ostriches as well. Especially Ostriches. Damn birds freak me the hell out.

Kickin' the Bucket List

The problem with writing a blog about my Bucket List is that I've never actually written up a Bucket List.  To be honest, my current 5 year plan is "Don't die".  Yet, my trip to the US did offer me the opportunity to do some things I've always wanted to do so I have decided to retroactively put these things on the Bucket List I never created.

Snow glorious snow

Yes, I know that it's terribly cliche to be the little African boy who delights in seeing snow for the first time but dammit, I loved experiencing snow for the first time.  In fact, I wrote an entire blog about the joy of snow.  I'm proud to report that even though I was out in a blizzard today I totally still ♥ snow!!

If you can read that then you already know that no, you are not.

P-p-p-poker

Well you can't come to Nevada and not gamble at least a little!  I had never played poker against another human before so joining a home game, coming in 3rd and winning $5 was a great experience.  I don't think playing Texas Hold 'em on my phone will ever be good enough again.  It's been the weirdest thing, I've had exceptionally good fortune throughout this trip.  I've never won a lucky draw or a raffle in my life and yet here I won a $25 restaurant voucher at the Reno Wine Walk! How awesome is that?!  Apparently in America I'm a winner!

Pissing on the Germans

Once long ago I blogged about Pastor Steve and his hatred for German men too wussified to pee standing upright.  Turns out he wasn't talking crazy for once, ze Germans really do have a major bug up their asses about men standing up to pee. Now much as I hate agreeing with Pastor Steve on anything, I knew that I just had to pee standing up in Germany if the opportunity ever presented itself.  Since I flew to the US via Frankfurt I had my chance and I utilized it fully! 

Yes that is a real German bathroom sticker.

The Doubledown

My trip to the US of A has been one great culinary adventure.  In America the portions are as huge as they are deliciously bad for your arteries.  I believe the KFC doubledown sandwich personifies the wonderful madness that is American food and I would have created a Bucket List just so I could put this magical chicken creation on it!

America! Fuck Yeah!!

Dashing! (In the snow)

I remember reading this anecdote in an old Readers Digest once about a young man from somewhere in Africa coming to study in America.  While in US he encountered snow for the first time and was completely enamored by it, shyly remarking to his lecturer (the one who wrote and submitted the story) that he wrote a poem about snow.  Anyway, it then turned out to be a particularly brutal winter and the punchline was that before long, he told the same lecturer that he threw away the poem.  Before coming to the US myself, a friend of mine (who had traveled extensively) told me something similar, warning me that snow is great for about five minutes and then its just really annoying.

To these and all who agree with them I say "Bah! Humbug!"

It's so fluffy!!

Snow is awesome!  I loved it from the moment the first moment I stepped out into the snowy air and I love it still, even though I'm writing this with an aching back from shoveling snow off the driveway.  On my first morning in Reno I walked barefoot in the snow (not 20 miles to school but still) and my love of snow has not cooled to this day.  I love the way it falls like fluff from the heavens, I love the crunchiness of it under my feet.  I loved how trying to catch a snowflake on my tongue made me forget that I'm a grownup.  I love the clean serenity of a snow covered landscape and how it can transform even the most mundane piece of scenery into a wonderland. I love touching it and the soft popping noise a snowflake makes when it hits my skin.  I think snow is amazing.

Now I know that this may all change one day and that there is a chance that I won't always feel so lyrical about the cold white beauty of snow.  That day has not arrived yet though and for now the snow makes me feel warm inside.  I have always had a deep and abiding love of winter cold and all the wonderful things it brings - the warm clothes, the delicious stews and warm drinks - and snow was just the thing that made my winter perfect.

Me, being dashing in the snow! (Yes, I really am that awesome)

The food baby and the wolf pack

Non-Americans envy the Americans for many reasons like for instance their fantastic Constitution and Bill of Rights, their massive retail stores, the freakish amounts of freedom and choice they take for granted and the fact that no one gets thrown in jail for publicly disagreeing with the government.  Now, I too have felt the pangs of envy regarding some of those marvelous things yet the one American thing I have envied most of all has always been the celebration of Thanksgiving.

Like all kids in 3rd world countries I grew up watching American TV and so had to look on with longing every time a Thanksgiving episode aired, wishing and dreaming about one day perhaps taking part in this glorious celebration of delicious food and gratitude.  Well this year I finally had my chance.  You know how the saying goes "great expectations lead to nothing"?  Well fuck that!  My greatest expectations didn't even come close!!  Thanksgiving turned out to be better than I could ever have imagined.

Here's the thing, I love food.  I love it in ways that border on mildly disturbing at times.  The only thing I love more than eating great food is eating large quantities of it.  Yet I write this blog a changed and humbled man.  In my life I had never feasted like this.  Both the quality and quantity of the food was mindblowing - and I don't use that word lightly when it comes to food.

I had the good fortune to be invited to the shared Thanksgiving meal of two families and therefore got to load my plate with both traditional and Puerto Rican Thanksgiving delights.  Brined turkey so soft and juicy it was falling off the bone, pork that I can only describe as magical, mash potatoes, gravy, spicy rice, empanadas, fried platanos, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, apple crisp and pumpkin pie.  I should probably mention that  this list is only the food I actually ate.  There was probably more but after a while I was just too full to move.  I hate to say it but my first Thanksgiving set the bar so high I don't know if any other feast could ever live up to it!

My first (but definitely not last) Thanksgiving plate

To complete my Thanksgiving weekend experience I got to go to an American Football game the next day.  Now I have always considered American Football to be inferior to Rugby and this game really confirmed it for me.  However, I have to admit that this was one of the best sporting events I've seen in a very long time.  See I got to see UNR play Boise state and it was the kind of game you usually only get to see in David vs Goliath sport movies from Disney.  UNR was ranked at around 14 (I think) while BSU was ranked 3rd and for most of the game thats exactly what it looked like.  UNR was getting kicked around and were way behind in no time.  Yet, to everyone's surprise they made an epic comeback to win the game in overtime.  I believe it was the Reno's first win against a top 10 team and I got to see it!  It was -5 degrees C, the porta-potties were disgusting and the noisemakers didn't make much noise but I had a great time.  Even though I had never even heard of the UNR Wolf Pack I'm a fan now!

Go Pack!

The longest day of my life

Time travel sounds a lot cooler than it actually is.  About a week ago I learned this the hard way.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

A cloudy OR Tambo

So it all started with a very nervous Eugene about to leave the country for the first time in his life during a massive rainstorm that seemed to have arrived out of nowhere.  This was to become a theme in my journey, I left a cloudy, rainy South Africa, flew to a cloudy Frankfurt, took a connecting flight to a slightly less cloudy San Fransisco and from there took a small plane to a cloudy and snowy Reno.  It felt a little bit like being an Israelite during the Exodus though thankfully there was no pillar of fire at any point.

Cloudy Frankfurt

One thing this journey gave me was a renewed sense of appreciation for my homeland.  It's very easy to get negative about South Africa, especially when you live there.  However I got to see first hand that we actually have a lot to be proud about.  OR Tambo International is a beautiful airport that compares favourably to every international airport I traveled through.  In fact, I had a smoother, more professional travel experience in "3rd world" South Africa than I did in "1st world" Germany.  I flew Lufthansa both times but the flight from Johannesburg boarded on time in an organized fashion (by row number) and departed exactly when it was supposed to with zero hiccups.  I could not say the same thing about Frankfurt.  Not only did we start boarding late but when we did it was just a rush to the gate by everyone.  Then, once we all got seated we learned that 2 wheels needed replacement causing a delay.  Then while waiting for the wheels to be changed the electrical systems failed and that needed to be repaired and then the on-board computer needed reprogramming resulting in us taking off well over an hour late.  Not saying all this to dump on Lufthansa, they are a great airline, they were friendly and professional and I am certainly glad that all got taken care of before we took off!  All I'm saying here is that I learned first hand not to be so quick with the "first world/third world" labels.

A cloudy but rapidly clearing San Fransisco

Now the time difference between Germany and South Africa was not so much so it was only on the journey to San Fransisco that I learned the hard truth about time travel.  See we left Frankfurt at about 11 am, traveled for over 10 hours and arrived in San Fransisco at 1 pm - 2 hours later the same day.  Honestly I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around that.  I lost all sense of time as a result, in fact I still have trouble figuring out when I am.  Oddly enough, the dreaded jet lag I had heard so much about seemed to not affect me at all.  I've been on a normal schedule since arriving in Reno and have had no trouble adjusting at all to living in a new time zone.  Just don't ask me to guess what time it is because my sense of temporal awareness is still shot to hell.

Reno Airport, cold and snowy on the outside...

So here is what my long journey to the US taught me.  First off, don't buy into all the stereotypes.  Things can run like Swiss clockwork in Africa while running like Zimbabwean clockwork in Germany.  Similarly, while they get a very bad rap all over the world, my experience of the American people have been overwhelmingly positive.  As for the dreaded security, my entry into the US was professional and pleasant and I did not feel violated at any point, despite all the horror stories I've heard.  Germany on the other hand was a different story.  They had all these beefy and extremely aggressive looking security personnel sporting Mohawks who looked ready to snap at the slightest provocation.  Due to a mixup regarding my boarding gate I had to go through security twice.  At the first one my bags made it through without a hitch but I got a really invasive pat down and every stud on my denim got checked.  Meanwhile at the second checkpoint I got through without a hitch but then someone decided my camera charger looked suspicious and it had to be checked for explosives.  Like I said, I learned not to believe the hype, reality tends to be a lot different.

... but bright and entertaining on the inside!! (Yes that really is the airport)

Another thing I learned is that of all the airports, San Fransisco definitely has the prettiest girls.  Admittedly at that point I had been travelling for well over 24 hours so I barely had the energy to notice or care but still, it was worth the mental note.  The most important thing I learned however was this.  When you are flying Lufthansa and the stewards come by after a meal offering you coffee, tea, Baileys or brandy - take the brandy!!  Trust me on this, that stuff is amazing!  I only wish I knew what the brand name was, I suspect it was a cherry brandy of some kind.  I may never be able to drink Klipdrift again!

My year of 2 winters

Global warming sucks ass.  This year, it robbed me of one of my favourite things in the world - Winter.  Oh we had some cold days, even a couple of cold weeks, but all in all it just didn't feel like much of a Winter.  It also ended really abruptly, I was wearing a jacket one week and shorts the next.  Just like that, winter was over before I had the time to really savour it.

However, all was not lost since this year I'm getting a second chance.  This year, I get to have a proper Winter in the USA!  So on 22 November I got to say "Yo home, smell you later!", boarded a plane and left sunny South Africa for the snowy hills of Reno, Nevada.  So far it's been a blast and I'll try to blog my journey as best I can since I would always want to cherish the memory but I'm never going to get into scrapbooking.

So whenever I get a moment I'll take a minute and tell you all about how my life got flipped turned upside down!