Weird-American-Thing

24 November 2017 We are staying in the Hilton Union Square in San Francisco. A very nice hotel — so good in fact that it is not for the exclusive use of humans. Believe it or not, you can have two dogs of up to 70 lbs (approx. 35 kg) each stay with you in your room! I love dogs more than most, but that sounds a little excessive (and weird) to me.

25 November 2017 This one is very closely related to Weird American Thing #1 and was relayed to us via Victor — our moustachioed Mexican tour guide from yesterday. Apparently San Francisco has more dogs than kids (definition of kids not provided). While it is apparently a close count, I think that qualifies as weird. Having watched the first two rebooted Planet of the Apes movies on the flight over, where hyper-intelligent apes rebel and effectively take over San Francisco, I’m having some disturbing thoughts about whether the next time I visit San Francisco it will be the humans wearing the leashes in public areas.

28 November 2017 In America, when you go to buy something, all is not as it seems. When you look at something in a shop, on a menu, or online, you assume that the listed price is what you will be paying. First mistake. As soon as you say you’d like to pay for something, on the sales tax goes. In California it seems to be around 10%. It would be like advertising everything in Australia with prices excluding GST.

10 December 2017 We’ve been in the USA for over two weeks now and yet I’m still coming to grips with the fairly extreme (and not always consistent) level of automation in public toilets — also referred to as ‘bathrooms’ by the locals. I know that in Australia we have automated taps in most such places, however here it extends to the soap dispensers and paper towel dispensers as well most of the time. So if you would like a bit more soap or three sheets of paper towel to make sure your hands are clean and dry, that requires holding your hand in exactly the right place, on multiple occasions. Even most of the urinals and toilets flush automatically. Maybe they are actually not automated and I have just been heightening the powers I have in using The Force! Who can really tell.