Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Things YOU Take for Granted

Here is my ongoing list of things you take for granted living in the US:

  • Automatic garage door openers
  • Central air and heat
  • Doing a load of laundry in less then 3 hours
  • Free plastic bags at the grocery store
  • A "bag boy" at the grocery store (I can't imagine being offered helped to my car in Norway!)
  • Being able to hire someone to do anything you don't have the time or energy to do yourself such as a maid, lawn care etc
  • Watching a movie (in English) at the theater without subtitles
  • Having to wait up to 3 months after the US release date for new movies to be released here (sometimes we can rent them on iTunes before they make to the theater here!)
  • Bagged ice (or ice in general really)
  • Not having to think "will that fit in the oven?" about anything
  • Appliances that are larger then what you find in a college dorm room or studio apartment
It is funny the things you never think twice about in the US that are completely different here.  

Nothing much new to report.  After a week of warm temps and us looking forward to Spring --- it snowed another 6 inches!  Grr!  But it is warmer each day so the snow that fell has already melted.  I do think I saw one of the first real signs of Spring though - the city trucks sweeping up the tons of gravel they use on the roads.  But we are not changing out of snow tires yet :)  We are looking forward to our Easter Week trip to the Canary Islands in two weeks. Interesting note- Norway has three and a half days of national holidays surrounding Easter (not including weekends) and from what we hear everything closes down including the grocery stores - can you imagine?  

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