In the USA

Asakura is in the USA (米国 bēkoku) . How did this happen? That’s very simple, key word: business trip.

America turned out to be a bit disappointing. To be fair – yes they have big cars, big houses, big ……., but thats all folks. I live near Cincinnati, OH – that is a city not much smaller than Warsaw. This city on weekdays is supposed to have some life on weekend it’s as if nobody lived there! Thanks to gay community being friendly and helpful I spent today with Jürgen who lives here (he’s German) . We were the only people walking thru the streets. I barely noticed any traffic! Can you believe it?

This is another thing about US people – they don’t walk, they drive. And this is taken to the extreme – most suburbs don’t even have any sidewalks!

Another disappointment – coffee. This shit they make you here and call it coffee would never, ever qualify as drinkable substance in Europe! One would think than a coffee-drinking nation would have some better coffee. NO! Forget it.

Let’s go to surprises that one may stumble upon when coming here for the first time.

My baggage got delayed, thus I was entitled to buy some stuff. I went to Macy’s – a big clothing department store. What does one need when one doesn’t have clothes – underwear, some t-shit, or shirt. I started with underwear. Going by EU standard I wear XL. Nothing special. So having in mind that in US everything is bigger I go for size L. Take one off the box and….. judging by the looks of it this somewhere near the EU XXL size. Somewhat confused I go for lower sizes. With some effort I determined I need S. (a was really afraid I would have to go to the teenager section to find correct size) . In the end I didn’t buy I.

Then a shirt. Again lets try size L. Naah — two of me would fit inside (and I’m not that slim as I used to much more of a regular size now.) Finally I found good size – this time size M.  Funny thing. Did you ever try to by a short in Poland? It always comes whit a gazillion of needles and they won’t let you unpack it if you don’t buy it. Here things work different “you’re welcome to unpack it”  and there is usually some place where you can pin the needles so that they don’t hurt anybody (or you).  Naturally don’t have to buy it.

Great thing about this time of year is that you get discounts everywhere 60% off, 50% off, 40% off. I have already bought clothing worth $150 for about $60. That’s a great shopping opportunity! And I’m gonna bring some more.

That’s all for now.