Swimming suit

I came to the US knowing that the Speedo-style swimming suits are not OK in here. If you live with the same belief, I will reveal a big secret: they are ok. They are not typically worn on the beaches (where most people go to the water in shorts and T-shirts), but they are acceptable as "distinctly European". But when you go to the swimming pool, you are expected to wear them (the Speedos). Why? Just try to swim in the shorts and you will understand...

Getting used to...

It is about a month since I arrived to SD and I'm very surprised by these two things. First, how fast the month went by and that I'm still not used to life here. Everyday I discover something new - new restaurant, new food, new place... I hope ten months will be enough :-)

Walmart

Well, you knew it was coming. The Wal-Mart has a shop near the Social Security administration, where I had to go anyway.I couldn't miss such opportunity.
The Wal-mart's shops are probably the largest shops, but they do not seem to be particularly large to me. You could compare it to the Tesco outside of the city center (the biggest ones). The prices are good (sometimes very good), they have a good selection of cheap clothes, which I usually hate in these shops, but they have excellent prices as well as good quality, colors and materials. Except for that, nothing special. Sometimes, they were even poorly stocked on things. And it was next to impossible what you actually came for.

SSN

I had to apply for social security number and it was worth the experience on its own. To get to the closes office, it took me about 1.5 hours. There, I took the number and waiting. The room was full (about 60 people) of old, sick, poor, unemployed and generally no-English speaking people. Just two "windows" were open. Even thought the workers at the office were generally reasonably smart, dealing with very old and sometimes very confused people is difficult. So I was happy that after about another 1.5 hour waiting, I delivered my documents and left after a few minutes.
I just hope that the card will actually arrive, so that I don't have to there again.

Bus

It took me two weeks to gather courage to use the public transportation, especially after warnings from my landlady Patricia. She actually said that her sons never used public transport in their life.
I found out that I can use it for free (parts of it sponsored by UCSD), and that the bus should take my bike. I went to the other side of the city to get a Social Security Number (see other post) and I needed to change once. Well, the buses are coming every 30 minutes but they are always late (I mean ALWAYS). The drivers are nice and even though they do not help you to put the bike on the rack in front of the bus and secure it properly, they can at least explain. Moreover, once you do it properly, it is actually very simple. The down side is that the bus can take only two bikes, so sometimes you have to another 30 minutes for the next one.
The passengers are mostly poor, often black, unemployed and sick (sometimes mentally) people. They tend to do all kinds of things in the bus (eat, make-up, etc.), but they are very friendly and easily start to talk to each other (about absolutely uninteresting things).
The other "funny" thing is that all stops are "on-demand", and you request a stop by pulling a "cable" on both sides of the bus. I guess the point is that you don't need to stand up before the bus stop, because, you know, this is too much work. And of course, you have no idea what stop is next...
Except of all these shortcomings, it was great to use the bus instead of bike. Especially when you go to the public office and shop.

Dreams&Nightmares

I have a theory that the dreams are related to how the brain sorts and stores information you learned during a day.So when you learn/see a lot of new things, you have more dreams in night.This makes me happy when I have a dream - it means I did not wasted the previous day completely.
Since changing the place where you live exposes you to a lot of new things, it was no big surprise to me that first couple of nights I had a lot of dreams. Still,I have a lot - so far no surprise.
What is beginning driving me crazy is that I keep having a nightmare. It is not the same nightmare over and over again, as it often happens, but it always a different one with the same topic!
The topic is that I flew back to CR after about a month here. Then I'm in CR, wondering why I wasted so much time (and money) on completely pointless trip back?
I'm not sure what this recurring nightmare is trying to say. Either I love it here and I don't want to go back, or I hate it here and I want to go back. On the conscious level, I don't feel either way, so I really cannot tell.

Delivery services

I ordered quite a few things from Amazon and its sellers, so I gained some experience in how the thing are being delivered. First, I bought a headset and books to quality for Free Shipping. It should have come in one package, but instead, it was delivered in two (both for free). The headset came first and very fast - it was basically next day. Books took more time - about 3 days. Then I bought bags for my bike. This took one week to deliver, because it was sent from the East Coast to the West Coast, while the previous packages were sent from Nevada to California - not a big distance, really. All three shipments were done by UPS. You can track UPS packages online in basically real time - you can see where it is, when it was picked-up etc.
Finally, I ordered watches. There were in stock, so I expected them to be shipped quite fast. The first information was that it will take a week just to ship them (give to the carrier). That was bit of a shock - I was really hopping to get them earlier. Fortunately, they have been shipped in two days.Instead of UPS, the USPS is used and the Amazon shows expected arrival on October 15th! I guess it will arrive earlier.
Overall, it seems that the Amazon is slightly overestimating the time it takes to deliver a package. I guess they use the least optimistic estimates in order not to make the customers disappointed. But I'm also wondering whether the use of carrier depends on the amount you spend and how long you are a customer of Amazon.I prefer the Free Shipping, but first few packages arrive very promptly. Now, it is getting worse. I'm wondering whether this could be intentional - make you used to good service, then deliver the bad service for free, hoping you will prefer to buy the better service next time.
It makes sense, especially because I know that when I finally decide to buy something, I want it as fast as possible! The decision itself can take couple of weeks or months (or a year), but I want the delivery itself to be fast. Well, I don't want it badly enough to pay for, though.

Red light and driving

California is one of the states in the US where you can make a right turn against red light. Before you do that, you have to stop and yield to pedestrians and other vehicles. It sounds like an incredibly dangerous idea, but in fact, it smooths the traffic and is probably safer at the end.From the perspective of a bicyclist. When there is a car on my left when I go straight ahead, the car can pass me (turn right in front of my) and thus I don't have to be afraid of the car crossing my path when I have green light.
I guess it works because drivers are more careful and tolerant in comparison to what we can see in CR. Also, roads are wider, so I feel safe driving to school on bike, when I have to go a few kilometers along three line road (three lines are not enough for the name "highway" here).
P.S. I read the Driver's Handbook and I could not believe what I saw. First, I'm not sure that such thing even exists in CR. Second, it is not a list of rules, but list of thing you should do for your own safety, safety of other etc. Instead of looking like a list of threats, it reads like a list of recommendations that mostly make very good sense.

Olives

I love good olives. I was surprised to find that black olives are typical in the US, while I was used to green olives in the Czech Republic (for the description of the difference, check Wikipedia). The cheapest olives I found (Safeway) were probably the best black olives I have ever had. Moreover, they were not salty, which is the thing I hate the most about the green olives you can often buy in CR (try to find green olives that are not salty and let me know).

Stove

Since everything is bigger in America, also stoves are larger than I'm used to. But the one we have has other advantage, probably much more useful than its size. It is a system that generates sparks automatically, when needed.So you do not need matches or lighter and if the fire stops (whatever the reason) but gas continues to flow, it automatically restarts. WOW.