USA! USA! USA!

Being back home is a little wierd. But mostly because pretty much nothing has changed. Target has been rearranged, the B-School was blown up, and they are now re-paving the other side of Stadium, but that's about it. It's both comforting and depressing that things are exactly the same.

There have been a few re-adjustments/instances of reverse culture shock, of course. The first one I noticed immediately upon landing in LA. In New Zealand, I always listen in on other people's conversations trying to listen for American accents. In LAX, I got excited that the first conversation I overheard was two American accents, but then I realized, duh, an American accent in LA is not special. I'm glad I realized how stupid I was, because the people probably would have been creeped out if I had started talking to them with the opening line of "I couldn't help overhear your accent. Are you from the States? What are you doing over here?"

Surprisingly, driving on the other side of the road has tripped me up a few times. I have only driven once overseas and I mostly walk everywhere, so I didn't think the traffic patterns had affected me much. On Thursday evening my friend was driving me around and we were on a pretty empty road. I totally thought she was on the wrong side. Then on Sunday night I was driving, again on an empty road, and definitely had to question which lane I should be in when I made a left turn. One side felt natural, but then I thought that I might be in NZ mode, so I should do the opposite of what felt natural, but then I couldn't remember whether I was actually in NZ driving mode or not, so I just ended up confused. Luckily I didn't hit anything.