America is Weird

Back from 15 days vacation in Japan. One of the interesting things about foreign travel is how strange your home country looks when you get back. So before that fades completely, you get this post.

Americans are big. Really, really big. Fat, yes, but tall too.

And we're sloppy-looking. I was really struck by how few people tuck in their shirts here (hey, I never do myself). And we wear oversized shirts and sweatshirts, and unfashionably faded jeans. (Japan has a high population of thin men in black business suits and white shirts at all times, so they really bring the neatness factor up on average. The Japanese men in suits on the plane to San Francisco with us didn't take their jackets off the whole flight - though I saw that one of the younger ones had loosened his necktie. Slacker.)

We eat everywhere. And we eat really big sandwiches, with lots of meat on them. At the Chicago airport the beau and I ordered a "large" soda to share, and it was like a liter and a half of root beer in a giant plastic cup.

We have lots of different color hair. We have no cell phone charms. We drink really big coffees.

Welcome home.