US Soil

We just arrived a few days ago to spend the summer with my parents in Salt Lake City, Utah. It's going to be the longest time I've been on "US soil" in over 7 years! Life is so different here than it is in Spain and everything seems familiar and foreign to me the same time. At first it's the small things that I notice. The aluminum foil is thicker than it is in Europe and the Special K cereal flakes are thinner. Almost everything else is enormous, especially the food. Everything looks like it's been pumped up to three times its normal size.

Nevertheless the stores are full of low-fat this and non-fat that. Today when I bought cottage cheese, they didn't even carry full-fat and I was forced to buy "semi-skim." I wonder how many Americans know that in most other parts of the world (including developed nations such as Japan and Spain), finding low-fat anything is a rarity. Yet in those countries obesity is nowhere near as prevalent as it is here.

As I wander around the grocery store, people look at me and smile and it confuses me because my immediate reaction is to think that they're smiling because they know me from somewhere and so I look at them with a tentative smile and a puzzled expression on my face. This makes them think that maybe they too, know me from somewhere and then we both look quizzically at each other until we realize that we are indeed complete strangers and then we shuffle off in embarrassment.

I stopped smiling at strangers after I lived in Paris and realized that for many Frenchmen, a friendly Utah-style smile translated into, "Hey why don't we go make out in the Tuileries?" It's too bad but c'est la vie.

I think that I confuse people too. It´s clear to them by my accent that I´m American and yet they see me standing transfixed for long periods of time in the cereal aisle of the grocery store, overwhelmed by the abundance of choices. Later I get confused about how to use the credit cardswiper at the check-out counter. I In the meantime, my five-year old son doesn't know what the words "shut-up" or "soccer" mean. Maybe they think we're escapees from the nearest polygamous compound. Or maybe that we're just really stupid. Or both.

Anyone in Utah want to meet up for a coffee? Let me know!

Comments

[Johanna]

Thanks Rachel!

[Rachel K.]

Welcome back to the US! There is that weird transition, isn't there. . .hope you're feeling at home soon. Wish Utah was much closer to Washington; it would be so fun to have coffee with you!