Two Countries Separated by a Common Language (and set of customs)

We've collected a set of things which are notably different here in the US which we're loosely grouping together for your entertainment, education and edification in this week's first blog. It's quite possible there's a second blog coming about our furniture arriving here, which is happening as I write this, so stay tuned folks!

A quintessential UK experience which we all know and love is going to the tip. Tips in the UK are big facilities with even bigger queues, attended by 'friendly' staff. As we had a large amount of cardboard from various purchases here, we felt the need to go to a tip to dispose of same.

The tip here is not out of town. It's in the back of a car park on the Stanford University campus, and it's pretty small: just half a dozen small skips. As we pulled up there on a Saturday afternoon, we thought something must be wrong: where were the queues? Where were the friendly staff to police our every move? Well, dear reader, there were no queues and no staff. This was more like a supermarket recycling centre in the UK, but it's all there is here.

Across the country, the US is not great at recycling, but California is something of an outlier, particularly Northern California where we are. We've had to print out the list to work out what goes in what bins; compost isn't what you think it is, and we can happily recycle electronics etc at the kerbside (or as they say here, curb. I will teach them that kerb and curb are two different things, that gaol is the real spelling of jail, that the letter 'u' is to be cherished and used liberally, that 're' endings are as in French, not German, etc etc. Really settling in!). The hippy spirit is alive and well here in the Bay Area - as I used to repeatedly say in my first year at Google, "I'm a punk, and everyone here is a hippy!"

We also attended the monthly Palo Alto Flea Market last week. In the UK you might expect to see a lot of crafty stuff at such a thing (maybe some beads?), but here in the US, a Flea Market is basically what we'd call a car boot sale. Mostly it consisted of folks getting rid of their old junk. The advice from Phyllis, who helps run things, is that it will get more craft-oriented as the holiday season approaches.

I wasn't the only thing from Yorkshire at the Flea Market.

Our first brush with the US Healthcare system also tells you how different things are. We're very lucky to get what is considered to be a really good health insurance package from Google. Helen needed to book an appointment to get a practitioner to sign a form indicating that she doesn't have TB; it's required so that she can volunteer to hear kids reading in the Sunnyvale schools. We looked through the directory of private practitioners and tried to sign up with one of them; nope, not accepting any new patients. Second one, fine, might get an appointment in a couple of months, but wait for cancellations. We complain about waiting times on the NHS, but at this point, a healthcare service which is both free at the point of delivery and able to service you in less than a month seems like an unbelievable prospect. My name is Aneurin Bevan, and you can claim your £5.

Something extraordinary happened on Monday: after 45 days here, it rained for the first time. The rain was what you might call light but persistent in the UK; more than drizzle, but by no means a downpour. It persisted for a couple of hours. Bear in mind, this is in an area where typically it doesn't rain from March to November, and rains less than the UK from November to March. So, the local news that evening led with stories of 'the storm', and Palo Alto council have sent us a leaflet to ensure we're prepared for the storms coming during 'the rainy season'. We consider ourselves prepared after 40+ years of living in the UK, although we have not located our sandbags (seriously, the San Francisquito Creek is not far from the house, and it did flood 20 years ago, but the water didn't reach our house as far as I can tell).

Last but not least, I got my 'proper' California driving licence (OK, driver's license) in the post (OK, mail) this morning. It's a flimsy-ish bit of plastic, but apparently this is enough ID for me to board any domestic flight I like here. This seems to be a big deal; I'm not entirely sure why this is massively more convenient than just carrying a passport, but perhaps I don't yet understand how little my US friends actually leave the country.

If I'd have known they were going to take my picture, I'd probably have washed my hair.