Some Initial Observations From The Homeland

-- Though I have been flushing my toilet paper down the toilet, I am still not comfortable with this, and am worried that it will clog up the system.

-- There are a lot of people here with baby strollers. This is one of the first things I noticed when walking the streets of NYC. A lot of women (and a few men) with strollers. No one seems to hold their kids in the street.

-- I can read all of the street signs, and overhear and understand people's conversations, without even trying to. Very abnormal.

-- There are a lot of Asians on the streets. A lot. I don't know why it's odd for me, but it is. I mean, when I was in Praia, I would see Asians on the street all of the time. But, here, they are everywhere. And they all speak American-accented English! The first day I was out on the street, I wanted to stop all of them and ask where they were from. But then I restrained myself.

-- White people have a lot of different hair colors. And their skin tones are all slightly different.

-- When, for example, I walk down Lexington Av, and I see all of the stores, I kinda think, "ok, so these are all of the stores that are here on the upper east side" and then am a bit shocked when I go down another street, and there are even more stores. I'm still used to one main street having everything. But not here, I guess.

-- It is still so wonderous that you can just turn the faucet one direction, and hot water will come out of it.

-- I used Google Earth for the first time the other day. Simply amazing.

-- No one stares at me in the streets. I can walk down one and be totally ignored! Bliss!!!

-- The level of customer service in this country is just amazing.

-- I am unclear if you don't have a cell phone or landline here, how do you make a phone call? Are there anymore public telephones? And why are cell phones so complicated here? I just want one that makes and recieves phone calls, and can send text messages. Everything else is a waste of my time.

--The Internet goes so fast here.

When I was on the bus from JFK to The Campus Observer's apartment, and I could understand everything I was seeing in the streets that we were passing through, I realized one of the things that makes PC so tough -- and so rewarding. By doing PC, you give up control and understanding of your surroundings. For two years, you have to unlearn everything you had contextually understood about the world around you (this is what a house looks like, that is an off-ramp, there is a strip mall, etc, etc), and adapt to the understanding of a different culture. This is not easy -- and despite the view of PC as a bunch of hippies or humantarians -- you have to be hard (and a little bit nutty) in order to even be willing to take up the challenge, let alone survive it.