It’s not until you go to a new country that you realise how much you rely on brand recognition when you go shopping (particularly for food I am finding). Whether this is just a male thing I don’t know, but I find myself looking semi-blankly at a shelf of products and trying to find an equivalent of the product I would buy in Australia (which often simply doesn’t exist) and then being hugely indecisive when I have to decide on a substitute. So instead of a shopping trip taking 10 minutes as you just pick the same things off the shelf that you always pick off the shelf, it takes half an hour as you look at each product and decide if it is going to be an adequate substitute to fill the given required culinary niche, and then you move to the next item on the list and repeat.
Month: October 2005
Orange cheese
Being the fervent cheese-ivore that I am, I’m finding it quite strange in South Africa, because they don’t seem to make much cheese domestically, and certainly not much good cheese (I’ve already purchased a few small blocks which I’ve eaten one or two slices from and then gone “Bluck!!!” and thrown the remainder in the rubbish). In addition to the quality, much of their cheese is this quite vibrant orange color, and being used to creamy-yellow cheese it is quite odd seeing these deeply orange cheeses.
Brand ignorance
It’s not until you go to a new country that you realise how much you rely on brand recognition when you go shopping (particularly for food I am finding). Whether this is just a male thing I don’t know, but I find myself looking semi-blankly at a shelf of products and trying to find an equivalent of the product I would buy in Australia (which often simply doesn’t exist) and then being hugely indecisive when I have to decide on a substitute. So instead of a shopping trip taking 10 minutes as you just pick the same things off the shelf that you always pick off the shelf, it takes half an hour as you look at each product and decide if it is going to be an adequate substitute to fill the given required culinary niche, and then you move to the next item on the list and repeat.
Jetlag
Bloody MF melatonin. It’s totally bizarre sitting down at 5 in the afternoon and having your brain go ”right, by my reckoning it’s 1am, way past your bed time young man” and to then want to go to sleep, and then at 4am have the opposite, with your brain going “allrighty, midday, well and truly time to get up”.
It will presumably sort itself out (and since the universe loves irony, it will probably happen some time 2 or 3 days before I leave to go back to Australia. I can imagine that the first few days of trainee internship when I get back to Brisbane could be interesting as a result).
Fuzz Therapy
The people I’m staying with have not 1 but 3 cats, and I’m rediscovering what a simple joy it is to have cat hair on all your clothes. They are also great big softie cats, who burst into purrs at the earliest signs of a stroke, and so as you would expect the three of us are getting along just famously. I hope Simone doesn’t start to get jealous…. 🙂
Jetlag
Bloody MF melatonin. It’s totally bizarre sitting down at 5 in the afternoon and having your brain go ”right, by my reckoning it’s 1am, way past your bed time young man” and to then want to go to sleep, and then at 4am have the opposite, with your brain going “allrighty, midday, well and truly time to get upâ€.
It will presumably sort itself out (and since the universe loves irony, it will probably happen some time 2 or 3 days before I leave to go back to Australia. I can imagine that the first few days of trainee internship when I get back to Brisbane could be interesting as a result).
Continued Bigness
So it’s not only the plane that was big, both of the hospitals I’ve been to are huge, and the medical school is enormous (with something like 1500 medical students). The city has some 8 million or so residents and a motor way system to match (which is also unbelievably complex if you’re completely new to it and have to get across town using it).
Fuzz therapy
The people I’m staying with have not 1 but 3 cats, and I’m rediscovering what a simple joy it is to have cat hair on all your clothes. They are also great big softie cats, who burst into purrs at the earliest signs of a stroke, and so as you would expect the three of us are getting along just famously. I hope Simone doesn’t start to get jealous…. 🙂
Continued Bigness
So it’s not only the plane that was big, both of the hospitals I’ve been to are huge, and the medical school is enormous (with something like 1500 medical students). The city has some 8 million or so residents and a motor way system to match (which is also unbelievably complex if you’re completely new to it and have to get across town using it).
Movie madness
With 14 hours to kill what else do you do but watch movies. Back to back. Four of them….
- Charlie and the chocolate factory
- Batman begins
- Mr and Mrs smith
- Madagascar
My eyes aren’t so much square as that slightly rectangular shape of the little screens on the back of the airline seats.