Lost in Translation
absailing (ab'-sail-ing)
n. the sport of repelling
"We drove to the top of the mountain and went absailing down the North face."

Little Hurdles: Get Over It
One site I was reading about culture shock suggested writing down the aspects of the new country that bother you initially, and then you'll have great fun looking back in a few months and seeing how silly you were... or something like that. And since people keep asking me about what the differences are, I figured I'd just start keeping a little list of my complaints.

• the lightswitches go the wrong way... down means on
• the moon is upside-down
• none of the constellations are the same
• everyone's clothes/accessories have graffiti-like screenprints across them, and while it looks kinda cool, it also annoys the crap out of me right now
• in homes, the toilets are in a separate room from the rest of the bathroom
• instead of repeating a number or a letter, they say "double [whatever]". For instance, when spelling my name, I would say "d-a-n-i-e-l-l-e" but they would say "d-a-n-i-e-double-l-e". Think the goose from Charlotte's Web.
• traffic on the wrong side of the road
• pedestrian traffic on the wrong side of the sidewalk
• standard paper size is A4, which is somewhere between letter and legal in length
• when you pick up the phone to dial, the tone is what you'd expect a long ring to sound like
• dairy products do NOT taste normal

That's all I can think of for now, but it really DOES feel better to get that out.

Shoe Therapy
Do you think the fact that I just cashed in some travellers checks and with the exchange rate, it came to $388... and then I come back and find these shoes? Yeah, I know that's $388 American, but still. I don't think I could ever bring myself to spend that much anyway, but they still are stinking cute. Besides, I now live in the 84th most expensive city in the world. Gah.