2011-10-23: Random ramblings of a New England traveller
We have spent the last three weeks travelling in New York and New England. I have been visiting the US five times in the last two years, but this has been the longest time I have ever continuously spent in the United States, and so here are some random ramblings of a New England traveller. Comments are welcome, as always.
- Food:
- While there is very good and tasty food available, there is also a lot of terrible food, especially on chain-hotel breakfast buffets. The food processing industry screws up everything. They take out fat and put in sugar; they take out sugar and put in high-fructose corn syrup; they take out the syrup and put in artificial sweeteners. Nearly every processed food item you can buy in a regular supermarket has something taken out that belongs in (like fat in milk and yoghurt) or something put in that does not (like extra vitamins into a fruit mix), or both. I tried one of these fat-free yoghurts from a breakfast buffet once; it tasted as obnoxiously chemical as bubble gum and had a texture like some kind of building material. On the other hand, a freshly boiled soft-shell Maine lobster with drawn butter is to die for. And even a home-made half-pound burger with fries in a country store somewhere in Vermont can be really really good.
- Soft drinks:
- Forget it. There is no sparkling water (and if there is, it has been brought over from Italy), and the sweet stuff is undrinkable because it is either sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (see above), which tastes awful, or artifical sweeteners, which are bad for you. Tap water is chlorinated and therefore also tastes kind of funny, even if it is available for free everywhere. So you end up drinking a lot of bottled, uncarbonated water.
- Beer:
- I can happily report that New England is home to a number of excellent microbreweries that make really good beer, like the Long Trail Brewing Company in Vermont, and that their products are readily available in restaurants, bars, and shops.
- Wine:
- Wine is expensive. Eight dollars plus tax and tip for a 6-ounce glass of house wine? Three dollars buys you a bottle of drinkable red in a German supermarket. We mostly abstained. See “Beer” above.
- Rubbish:
- The amount of rubbish you generate is mind-boggling. Even in middle-priced hotels, the only plates, cups and cutlery available at breakfast time are discardable plastic. The Wal-Mart (and other) plastic bags are now very thin, but they are dispensed as liberally as ever.
- Driving:
- The existence of speed limits everywhere, and the fact that it usally applies to trucks as well as cars, makes for a very relaxed driving experience, even on Interstates. Plus everything has tons of parking space. Or nearly everything.
- Road signs:
- I really love the way highways are marked as going north, south, east or west. Much better than the German system of listing intermediate destinations which makes it necessary to have a rough idea of the geography around you to figure out which way you need to go.
- Prices:
- Most of the time, but not always, there is some form of sales tax added to the prices you pay, which sucks. Not because of the rate, which is ridiculously low at well below 10 per cent even in New York City, but because it means you can’t easily predict how much anything is really going to cost. Plus, you often end up with some amount just above an full-dollar amount which leaves you with a lot of bulky change if you just fork over a banknote.
- Dollars:
- Dollars suck really badly. The banknotes suck because they are all the same size and practically the same colour, even the latest editions of some denominations that have a hint of a different hue on them. The coins suck because they are so few one-dollar and half-dollar coins (we went through the whole holiday without seeing a single specimen of either) that you always get single dollar notes, and quarters as change, which are quite big, bulging up the coin compartment of your wallet. For a fun effect, try giving exact change to the person at the supermarket check-out. They will look at the coins in disbelief and start counting them as if they do it for the first time in their lives. They are obviously not used to handling coins, except to hand them out as change.
- Customs and Border Protection:
- Ugh. Nuff said.
All in all, we had a wonderful holiday and really enjoyed our time over there. But I do know that I am happy to be back home here on this side of the pond.
