On leaving the U.S., again

Let's start at the beginning: what does a pop tart really taste like? I have been in the U.S. long enough that I should have had plenty of opportunities to find out, but honestly, I've never tried one. And never really felt like trying one either. Especially not for breakfast. I have vastly different ideas about what a good breakfast should and should not entail than what most Americans do (judging only from the breakfast aisle in any given grocery store, naturally).

Well, even if I am leaving I have made sure I'll get the chance to figure out this mystery. I've bought a box of pop tarts. I fully expect I won't like them very much, but at least now my expectations aren't too high...

Don't get me wrong, I approve of a lot of breakfast related things here too. For instance the concept of going out for breakfast (even if I normally would choose a different dish than pancakes, but even I get that this only makes me weird...). Or even better, brunch. One of the restaurants in the vicinity of my hotel in Atlanta advertizes that they serve bottomless mimosas* or Bloody Marys for Sunday brunch. Even if that makes me think of Kenny Falmouth of Monkey Island, it does sound like a sweet deal.

My own breakfast routine most days while I've been in the U.S., however, has been quite a bit more sober than that. I've been in two different hotels in two different parts of the country, but I could always find some channel that showed reruns of old shows - especially "Charmed". Interestingly I never really watched "Charmed" when it was a big deal way back when I was a kiddo (many of my friends did, and I can't remember exactly what made me not watch it, though I suspect it might have had something to do with the fact that we didn't have cable or satelite, and thus a very limited range of channels). Anyway, with all these reruns - and not just this time, but last time I visited the U.S. too, as well as when we went to the U.K. for vacation in November - it seems I have the show pretty much covered. But then, yesterday, the seemingly endless string of reruns ended. The very last episode of the show! Now what will I do for breakfast? I suppose it was only fitting as I am leaving today. Also, I am ignoring the fact that they started over again with the very first season this morning, so I really could watch it all if I only stayed a couple of months more - with three episodes per day that should probably cover it...

Even if I haven't watched it religiously in the past, however, I still know the show well enough to have the benefit of rewatching, as the best thing about watching old shows, of course, is that you don't have to pay very careful attention. So I could walk back and forth, take a shower, get dressed, eat, or even work a little while it ran in the background. While this has been a perfect mode for the minial task of sorting through archive documents as afterwork from my visit there during work hours, I am relieved it is over. My back aches from being slumped over my laptop for long stretches at the time, in uncomfortable seating positions in a hotel bed. My eyes are sore and my head hurts from trying to remember archive codes and sorting the files into their right place. My fingers have paper cuts from old documents, and I am sick of working twelve hour days (even if portions of them have been accompanied by "Charmed"). I even missed out on vacation days during my stay here, as most Norwegians take the whole week of Easter off.

Another good thing about ending my TV-meets-work streak now is that I don't have to watch commercials anymore. We have commercials on most channels in Norway too, but first of all I don't watch all that much TV at home (I have Netflix and HBO Nordic, after all), and secondly, last time I checked our commercials were less disturbing than many of the ones here.

What mostly baffles me are the medical commercials. This and this drug will help you with this and that disease. It will have the following side effects: [insert long list of terrible things that almost always ends with DEATH for good measure]. Talk to your doctor today!

Talk to your doctor? Why would I, as the patient, go to my doctor and explain about some drug? Isn't it the doctor's job to tell the patient what the best treatment for whatever disease or ailment they have should be? I realize doctors in the U.S. are frequently sponsored by the medical companies and thus might have preferences for specific drug for other reasons than what works better, but if that's the case you really ought to find another doctor with a better sense of ethics, rather than presenting the one you've already got with a lecture based on a TV commerical.

But that set aside, back to the commercials themselves. Can we all agree that they are pretty disturbing? Listing all those side effects is obviously something they are obliged to do for legal reasons, but I still find it amazing that someone would take them up on the offer of talking to their doctor after having heard all the horrible things this drug might inflict, presented to them in a voice of an actor you can *hear* is wearing a fake smile (how can you hear that, you ask? Well, just listen the next time one of those commercials are on. You can hear it).

Secondly, why are they always walking on the beach in these commercials? Strolling along the shore, or in a forest, or playing in the garden with a pet or child. Always the same setting. Fake smiles. Super disturbing.

Finally, the most disturbing thing to me isn't the medical commercials themselves, but in combination of another type of commercials: the mass lawsuit ones. "Have you or your loved ones experienced [insert terrible side effect caused by medical malpractise]? You might be entitled to compensation!" I realize there isn't a coherent line from people suggesting to their doctors what medicines to take for their ailments to them suing the doctor (or whomever) for having suffered consequences of malpractise. But it seems to me there is something strange about where the system puts liability. The patient is supposed to advice the doctor, while the doctors and other parts of the healthcare system are forced to focus on covering their butts legally rather than providing the best possible option for the patient. I'm not saying it's necessarily different elsewhere or that I have a solution to this, but I am saying the frequent commericals serve to give a creepy reminder of what a nasty world it can be.

I'll miss things too, though. I might have issues with certain parts of commercial America, but I don't think I'll ever stop marvelling at the selection in stores here. Whether it is grocery shopping or browsing for dresses, I keep finding myself enchanted. It's dangerous for my wallet, but it's making my little shopping heart burst with joy. Every time I visit the U.S. I seem to end up with a new wardrobe and don't even get me started on bookstores. When I came here in 2009 the selection seemed wider (I miss Borders!), but give me a good Barnes & Noble any day, and I'll be lost that day. They even have coffee in there! Why would you ever want to leave?

More important than the things I leave behind (good or bad), though, are the things I'm going back to. I miss my home, I miss my friends and family, I miss the regularity of my daily routine (the normal one, not the one involving "Charmed"), Norwegian language, food and weather (!), Oslo, my apartment, all the things I know and love. Most importantly, I miss my boyfriend. Four weeks is a long time to be away from everything, and even though I've enjoyed my stay in the U.S. I can't wait to go home.

Now I'm going to make the hotel cat who has been keeping me company this morning go back out into the corridor so I don't accidentally pack him, and then I'll finish stuffing my suitcase. Somehow, it gained weight during this trip (see section about "shopping" above).











*Huh. When I googled "bottomless" to find the link for Kenny, Google automatically suggested "bottomless mimosas atlanta". Apparently, this is a big deal here!

On people I meet

Sometimes you meet people who make an impression.

This week I met one of the Presidents I am writing my PhD on. Jimmy Carter, even at 90, is still working hard, and thus spends a fair amount of time at the Carter Center in Atlanta. However, for a researcher to catch a glimpse of him is still a rare treat. I didn't speak to him, but must admit I was rather starstruck by his mere presence in the cafeteria where he, like everybody else, queued to have a 4 dollar lunch.

Despite the central role Carter plays in my current work, however, he was only one of the people I've met recently that I will remember for life.

Today I met some guy whose name I didn't catch. I frequently don't catch names here, even when people introduce themselves. The Southern accent is foreign to me, and it often takes me a while to figure out what I understood from what people were saying - a lot of it gathered from context rather than a direct comprehension of the actual words uttered - and names tend to disappear in this process (besides, I am notoriously bad at names. Faces, I remember. Names, never held much importance to me anyway).

Anyway. I was trying to catch a bus. At the bus stop, I was approached by Some Guy. Had it been in Norway, I would have shied away from a conversation. But having been in the U.S. for a few weeks, the last of which in the South, the local social code is starting to rub off on me. I've progressed from small talk to conversations with random strangers (side note: Random Stranger at a zebra crossing the other day - he commented on my t-shirt. It's a Harry Potter shirt, with a big, Hogwarts logo on it. He asked me where I'd bought it, and I said London. He was all impressed that I'd been to London - not yet having realized that I wasn't American, presumably. "You speak any French at all, then?" he asked. I could have pointed out to him that this was a rather strange question to ask after having learnt that I had visited the British capital, but instead I just shook my head, wished him a good day upon the turn of the lights and our departure to the other side of the street, and made a mental note that it was far more important to appreciate the fact that we had this nice little talk than to point out to him his obvious lack of geography skills).

- so conversations with random strangers - and with this new social code guiding my conduct I've talked to everyone from grocery store clerks to the hobo in the park I pass each morning (he just wanted to know if there was a fee to go see the Jimmy Carter museum. I told him I believed it was, but that the grounds were free of charge, and beautiful, so well worth the walk).

Thus, talking to Some Guy at the bus stop wasn't all that strange for me anymore. And I am glad I did.

This was a man with a storage of stories, and the key to open them all at once was simply being an active listener. I learnt all kinds of interesting things about the city of Atlanta, the specific area of Atlanta I'm staying in, African-American history, the Democratic party, and about Some Guy himself. He gave me pointers about things I should see before I leave, showed me a picture with him and Obama (who recently visited the area, apparently), and even shared his hotwings with me. When the bus finally arrived (it was very late, due to a lot of traffic over a Barnes & Noble booksigning with Google later informed me was a YouTube phenomenon - there were crying teenage girls queuing all around the block for YouTube Guy), he told me to pay attention to the driver, as she was a character all of her own.

She was. Talking to herself, yelling at traffic, and making conversation with the passengers made for an entertaining bus ride as well. "What's that guy doing in the Mustang?? Oh, noooo, you didn't!!!" I probably would have given up on the bus without Some Guy, It was worth the wait.

When I go home in less than a week I'll be glad to retract back into my Norwegian shell, where we don't make conversation with strangers unless absolutely forced to, and where the only small talk you make on a bus would be to ask the passenger next to you to let you out if they haven't already noticed all the subtle non-verbal signs you've given them the last minute or so (most do. In all my years of using public transportation in Oslo, I've probably only had to ask about five to ten times, if that).

Until, then, however, I am glad to have been let out of my shell for a while. It makes for good stories. It makes me appreciate the world. It makes interesting things happen, and it makes me learn things I otherwise would have never known.

I was startstruck when I saw President Carter, but most of my time here I've been struck with awe of the extraordinariness of ordinary people.