Why I Think America is OK

Hi!


I'm gonna write about the USA now. This is not something I will do very often, because sometimes cultural comparisons make people fight-y. Hence why the list is made up of trivial things. I LIKE AMERICA AND I LIKE NEW ZEALAND!!! OK??? 


Here are some things which I like about this place:

• The butter in the fridge is always soft. How does it do this???
• Squirrels exist (they don't come out when it's raining though, and it rains ALOT in Portland). If I see a squirrel, I get a point. If I get 10 points in a day, I get icecream. I can get points for other things also. I might tell you about this game on another day. Germans can't say 'squirrel'. 
• They have these carrots which come in bags and they're baby sized but peeled. Apparently they aren't actually baby carrots, but regular sized carrots which have been put through these machines and they come out much more small. No more cutting carrot sticks!!! 
• There are many yellow school buses. I guess I knew that they existed, but I always thought that they were over-represented in movies and on the Simpsons and in those books about The Magic School Bus, for some kind of 'yellow school bus nostalgia' effect; but they're actually everywhere. When travelling from Portland to Salem, I saw where the school buses slept, and there must have been around 500 yellow school buses located in one small location! THAT'S HEAPS!
• Tater tots. They're tasty as. I could write about the food here for years. But all I'm gonna say about this is that now I understand why Napoleon carried them in his pocket. 
• People who look like they might be trying to be pirates. So far, I have seen many of them. They're either guys with bandanas and pierced-ears, or long hair and beards and cargo pants. Pirates invented cargo pants because they needed all the pockets they could get. I think the mullet in New Zealand is like the pirate in the US. 
• Homeless people have dogs as pets and they look quite happy.
• Seeing baseball parks. I don't quite know why I like this so much, maybe it's because they're differently shaped and there's a little mound where the pitcher stands and for some reason I think that's nifty. 
• There are fewer annoying birds; I haven't seen any seagulls yet.
• The way that people from some states seem to hate other states. Often it seems irrational. For example: "Nothing fucking happens in Alabama." I'm sure many, many, many things happen on a daily basis in Alabama. Five million people live there. Also: "People in Minnesota remind me of badly smashed potatoes. Lumpy and white."    (I actually kinda hate Florida. Don't tell anyone.)
• You can keep a snake or a chimpanzee as a pet if you want to. Wouldn't recommend the chimpanzee.  One day, when I have far to much money, I'm going to keep otters as pets. Probably in my moat. They hold hands when they sleep so they don't drift away. This is not a joke. If you click this link, you will die of cute. 

Other thoughts from me this week:

• I thought that Gatorade was spelt like 'gator aid' and it was a kind of drink that would also aid alligators. To fight or something. Now I feel funny about Gatorade because I don't know what it stands for or what the premise is. 
• I've always wanted to do that thing where you make the recipes out of the jelly beans on the Jelly Belly packaging. Does strawberry shortcake really taste like strawberry shortcake? I don't know. I don't feel ok about not knowing. 
• Are guinea pigs really 90s pets? Or is it just that it was the 90s when I was the appropriate age to own a guinea pig? FUCK. 
• Watch this!

Bye bye. Thanks for reading!

Much love

Liz Tritops

xoxo