Digesting, tipping and public transport

After being here for almost a month I try to avoid eating in restaurants. Apart from the fact that I don't wanna look like a loner with a mobile phone, I really can't stomach the rich food and portion sizes anymore.

For the past month my stomach has been glaring up at me and screaming "oi we're not in our 20s anymore!", and groaned and grumbled under the unexpected overtime he's been putting in. poor thing. And I have tried da bao-ing (taking away) where I can, but its just weird to do that with steak and chips, or any other ''American'' main. Why don't I order an Entrée you ask? Well I tried that the second night and then found out they call main courses here Entrees. Americans and their need to be different huh?

Most of  the time it's the amount of meat that comes with a main that fills you  up fast. And if you're trying to be healthy here, don't accept if they ask to add a piece of salmon to your salad. You pretty much end up getting a full course serving again! Even a ham sandwich contains a grotesque amount of ham. I think I had one with at least 8 slices in it.

But the other distressing part of dining out is the tipping, especially when you just arrive in the country.
''omg! what's the going rates?"
''omg! what's considered decent service?"
"omg! do I have enough small notes?"
"omg! does she know I need change from that 100"?
''omg! is it bad if I leave coins?"
all these questions rush through your mind as you try to finish your food.
Currently the rate is 15% for decent, 18% for good and 20% for great service, but it seems most people around me have been tipping 20% Or maybe that's just because I've been hanging around foreigners and we're all erring on the side of caution and trying to prove foreigners aren't stingy. When I last came to America 10 years ago the rate was about 10-12.5%, so at this rate who know how high it will go in another 10 years. I understand that waiters only get a couple bucks per hour, but it still doesn't seem fair to me that the consumer has to pick up the slack where the employers should be paying a higher wage. Seriously, the government needs to raise the minimum wage because not everyone works in roles where they can collect tips. and it might go someways in addressing the widening inequality!  I was earning more in Australia when I was 18 years old in 1999 which just doesn't seem right.  Sorry! rant over.

I have gotten take-away a few times here, where tipping isn't considered customary, but then I started getting all self-conscious if I picked up takeaway too often from the same place. and then there's other services where you're not sure if you're supposed to tip and by how much. It's just such a hassle!

The other thing I wanted to talk about here was public transport. I can only speak for the local buses in Kansas City, but you definitely feel like you enter a different world on inner-city public transport. Most of the commuters are definitely from the lower end of the socio-economic scale (or have fallen off the scale altogether), and theres definitely a few scary looking people there you'd rather stand up for.  It's pretty much confirmed when you take notice of all the ads around the bus. One poster advertises about teen pregnancy, another one promises the reader they can obtain that certificate they never finished, and there's even one recruiting for human subjects for pharmaceutical drug testing (Phase II for my fellow Pharmacist friends :)  . It can seem like a journey for the destitute and desperate.

When I first caught a bus here I was clutching my bag for dear life and silently relieved that I'd dressed down that day. But after a few subsequent trips I quickly realized that I was in no danger, and that those fellow riders, albeit a bit rough round the edges, were just as friendly and courteous as any other American. You're safe if you catch a bus here, but don't expect to feel any joyous or upbeat vibes in the cabin.

Hello Toto!!

I'm home Toto! Well maybe not Kansas state, more like Kansas City in Missouri. But who really knew where Dorothy was from.

I've come here to do a bit work training for the new job, so Kansas City will be home until the end of February. I wasn't planning on writing a blog in the US, because frankly it can't be that much different to Australia. But surprisingly after being here a week I've accumulated enough things to warrant a blog i.e. thoughts to get off my chest!

So what is there to Kansas City? I know I certainly had to Wikipedia it to find out where the hell I was going. And yes, the only thing I knew about Kansas was it's mention in "The Wizard of Oz''. Apart from that, I couldn't have told you the sights to see, things to buy or the food to try here. In fact I still don't. But from the souvenir shop I learned Kansas is famous for BBQ marinades and is right up Tornado alley. It says so on the mug which is a sure winner. Because I'm sure most people want to be reminded of a horrific natural disaster that wantonly kills while they enjoy their morning cuppas......





The first thing that struck me when I arrived was ''where the hell is everyone?" On Sunday morning it seemed like the plague had rolled through town and the bodies removed. Suffice to say my Sunday morning leisurely stroll into the CBD turned into a hair-raising experience. The only people who were roaming the streets were either beggars, or joggers who were briskly running past beggars. I'll call them beggars, as I'm not sure if they were homeless or just looking to score change to go towards a pack of cigarettes.

Interestingly though, the behavior of these beggars and joggers exemplified two typical American traits:-

1) American's are extremely polite and courteous. I had a jogger say hello to me as she ran past me from behind. You might not find that out of the ordinary, but I jog myself and I've never tried to utter a clear and calm ''hello'' between my laboured panting as I lumber past pedestrians. The most you'll ever get from me is a nod, and that's only if I'm approaching someone from the front and that other person has been making eye contact with me for the last hundred meters with a warm smile on their face. Otherwise, you ain't getting anything from me.

2) American's are go-getters. I had a  random guy come up to me in a pharmacy and say hello. A minute later he asked me for loose change saying he needed ''bus money''. The beggars don't camp out and wait for you to come to them, they come to you.    Upon rejection he profusely appologised for troubling me, again displaying those American manners. I wasn't really expecting him to appologise to me. I was just happy he didn't stab me.

Apart from the empty roads, the other thing you'll notice from the pictures are the large parking lots. It feels like the Kansas City CBD is just one big carpark. It seems car parks outnumber the populance of Kansas City, because I can't see all these things being filled even on a weekday. Perhaps though, all the space is required for the many Pickup trucks driven by Americans. And when I say there's a lot of pickup trucks, I mean ''there's a lot of pickup trucks''. I can't figure out if everyone's a tradie in Kansas City, it's just a fad, or they actually need them to transport ''stuff''. Maybe if they didn't have such luxurious parking lots and gasoline was as much as it costs in Australia, they'd consider trading in their pickup trucks for Mazda 2s.