America

Shantal and I arrived safely in America on June 26th. By the time we got here, I had been up 27 hours. I can't beleive I drove three hours after not sleeping for so long.

We stayed in Wisconsin for a few days. Shantal stayed with friends and I stayed at a hotel with a bunch of freaks. Seriously, I stayed at a hotel with some online scrapbooking friends I was meeting for the first time.

I did have problems with Jet Lag. I was only sleeping about 3 hours every night for the first few days. I would wake up around 5am and couldn't go back to sleep. When I caught up with Shantal a few days later, I asked her if she had been sleeping ok. She said yes. But then, she proceeded to tell me that she was waking up at 4am everyday. So it appears that she too was experiencing Jet Lag.

We have now flown to Utah to be with my parents. Both my brothers were here visiting for a day and this morning I woke up to an empty house. And so now I can just relax without the noise.

There are some things that have stuck out to me as different and odd. Nothing big, but still things that made me go, oh boy, I can't believe I forgot about this. I am talking the differences between America and Germany.

First thing was: The toilets. I remember the first time using the bathroom at the hotel. I was trying to figure out where to flush the toilet. In Germany, our toilets either have a button to push on the wall above the toilet, or a button on top of the toilet. And I wasn't finding these buttons. It seriously took me like 30 seconds to figure it out.

Another thing I noticed. The first time I went out and used American money and got change back, the dollar bills are so long. Well, that is in comparison to the Euros I am used to using. American money is just like play money to me at this point.

Driving was definately different. I had to keep slowing down on the freeway. I wanted to drive so much faster. But I did love driving in my flip flops and also turning right on reds. I think my driving habits have definately changed since moving there and I am a bit more of an aggresive driver verses a cautious driver.

Well, there is more on my trip, but I will have to post later.