Day 17: Adjusting Cultures!

I guess it just goes with the territory. You change cultures, you feel stupid...even if it is the culture you were born into.

Reverse culture stress seems to crop up in the food area...especially when you're in charge of shopping and cooking. I found spaghetti sauce. It described it's contents close to what we get at home in NZ...but no. It had lots of garlic. Had to throw out the whole thing...meat included. (After I ate it for lunch for 2 days.)

Then I bought fruit that was out of season. (I couldn't remember what should be ripe here, when. After all, strawberries are ripe at Christmas in NZ.) Luckily, the berries and peaches I took to Steve and Jan's were OK...but the ones here were SOUR.

Beyond food, there's the car. We had to pay for gas before filling. How many gallons would you ask for in a car you've never filled before...(and you're used to thinking in litres.) Then they had a hard time with Dan's credit card because they wanted our address in NZ and the ZIP code only has 4 digits. Embarrassing!

Oh, well. A little humility is good for the soul. (And dinner DID turn out ok tonight, and the car IS filled with fuel and ready to go.) Yahoo!