The one you’ve been waiting for. The downside of living here, the not so good, the bad and the ugly.
Traffic
Given that everyone has, at minimum, one car and/or truck each from the age of around 16, and the population of the greater Houston area is over 6 million, there are a lot of cars. At certain times it is at a standstill and at specific locations almost always so. The 6/7/8 lanes – on one side only – are petrifying to navigate. Especially when coupled with top equal hate…..
The Standard of Driving
Not mine. No. The general standard of driving here is abominable. Texting, phoning, eating, drinking, probably driving while drunk, on drugs or asleep, increases your odds of being involved in an accident considerably. And don’t expect any regard for the plight of any other driver on the road. Oh no. Heaven forbid that you let someone in to a queue of traffic – it’s every man/woman for himself. They call it defensive driving. Defensive in this context means completely, idiotically, rude, aggressive, dangerous and plain stupid. It’s quite remarkable in a country where you encounter such polite people on a day-to-day basis. The “your welcome” right back at you hardly before you can complete the “thank you”. “Have a nice day”, ” How aaaaare you?” or “How are YOU?” so frequently asked, even by folks just passing by on the bayou. But driving – oh no sir. No manners AT ALL!
Traffic
Use of the word ‘awesome’
I used to think this meant wonderful, amazing, making me feel, well, full of awe. Here, it is just a word uttered in response to any action by another. Check Google for the usage of this word over time and its growth in recent years. And many scholarly articles. It’s interesting to note that in US English (at 2008) ‘awesome’ was still very much in its ascendancy, in British English it had taken a dip. [BTW Google contributes to this over-use with their ‘auto-awesome’ feature with your photos, altering, beyond recognition, a perfectly good pic and placing it in a slideshow, a ‘movie’ or saturating it to the point you can’t recognise it.]
How can using one’s debit card in a supermarket illicit a response with the same adjective as normally used, say, when seeing the Rolling Stones in concert?
Language barrier
Yes there is one. We all know that we are ‘separated by a common language’. But when you find that your accent is just not understood at all, it becomes wearing, especially on the phone. The natural tendency is to enunciate more clearly when asked to repeat. This just makes matters worse as the now-more-ridiculously-posh voice is even less understood. So you find yourself drawling a bit, dropping the odd ‘t’ and stretching the odd vowel, painfully, just to make yourself understood. But don’t worry, the American accents in this house are purely for very targeted and limited use. Y’all are safe. It’s awesome.
Gun culture
Don’t get it. Never have. Never will. The most recent tragedy on the local news here – a 3 year old boy shot himself in the face after finding a gun in his grandparents’ bedroom. In what looked like a lovely area of town. Not that that should matter but it would draw less attention if it were not.
Homelessness
Yes, we have people begging on the streets back home. But so many? And at intersections of busy roads holding signs up detailing their plight? We are advised by the locals that these people ‘choose’ to be homeless or indeed are not actually homeless at all.
But over 6000 people are actually homeless in Houston on any one night. This has been addressed and reduced in recent years and Houston is no longer in the top 10 cities in the U.S. NYC holds the dubious honour.
Ok, so also one of my likes. But not so keen on the torrential rain. Or flooding. Storms are not pleasant although Tropical Storm Bill was less Kill Bill and a bit more Free Willie. Houston was colder than Aberdeen on many days in winter. And now we are in to July it is very hot. I dislike not being able to go out on what looks like a lovely day – staying inside in the cool is just not instinctive for us Scots. But it soon becomes so when I attempt a walk and manage a miserable mile before giving up. Phew! Lucky that Wimbledon is on tv.
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Bureaucracy
It’s relentless. From finding a doctor to dealing with tax matters. Setting up utilities accounts, booking a driving test, paying bills, registering for anything and everything. For an advanced (so-called) country – there is just so much paper-trail stuff you have to do here. Now, ok, part of this is because we are entirely new to this country and the reverse would be true I am sure if US citizens were moving to the UK. However, there are so many instances where legalese inaccessible language is used, where one word would do, or where you have to do the exact same thing and provide the exact same information to systems you think should be speaking to each other that I do think it is part of the culture here. To be bureaucratic. US natives I speak to agree that their country is bureaucratic. Another reason/rationale is that the different states have very different approaches and laws, and then there is the Federal Government too. Where in the UK we are small enough for things to be reasonably joined up where public services, taxation, the law and other government services are concerned, over here, the myriad of possibilities in any given situation and the interpretation of approaches means that lawyers and accountants win big time!
US Tax…a riveting topic
Missing the garden
Our garden is a narrow corridor at the side of the house. We have a lovely home here but a bit of a garden would be nice. Mind you, not sure I would last doing any actual gardening tasks in the heat of summer. And I’m pretty clueless about what grows well here. Trial and effort has been the order of the day on the patio. And wilting flowers.
Wilting flowers
Beasties
They are bigger, beastlier and bitier. Mosquitoes seem to love my epidermis, less so Maurice’s hide. Every day I lather copious quantities of chemicals on to my skin, only for yet another swollen red bite to emerge in a forgotten corner of my body, tantalisingly out of reach (no doubt why it didn’t get adequate coverage) so I can’t scratch when it inevitably starts to itch. Anti-itch cream is essential.
Missing having pets
We’re not allowed under our lease terms. Although have been advised we could have a reptile if we so wish. Not so appealing as a cat or dog so we’ll just have to make do with the ducks, squirrels and geckos…
Missing the folks back home
We do. Really we do. It’s great to have visits from friends and relatives lined up and we’ve enjoyed having you.
Whole Other Country 