A real 'American' day

Today, marking the end of my first week in the United States, I spent my day doing very American activities.
Sarah and I went to Walmart and shopped til we dropped. I like Walmart, I am only slightly ashamed to say that I have visited 3 times since i've been in Salt Lake. This Walmart had heaps of cool stuff to look at, but we ended up in the supermarket section buying all this food that we didn't need. The goldfish crackers which we have loved since we were kids, Sarah got some of her favorite soup which you can only get here... It was really just a supermarket, but the shelves were full of so many possibilities! We decided on our cereal (its rare that Sarah and I agree on anything, so this must be good) - it was Reece's peanut butter and chocolate cereal! Just what you want to wake up to!

It is clear why America as a nation seems to strugle with its body weight. The food is so cheap and the portions so large. We have seen bottles of coke bigger than i ever imagined. Two 2 Liter Dr Pepper for $1.00. On top of this, the food tastes so good! Its liike every snack, every meal has been perfected, every time. Also, we have become aware of a 'super-ingredient' which seems to lurk in American food. I only need to eat once a day and it fills me up for the whole day. Sometimes we can have half a meal each and still both be completely full.

I have learnt one lesson in my first week in America. When at a McDonalds or similar restaurant, always, always, always have a 'small' combo. Small combo's here are the equivilent of larges in New Zealand. I accidently ordered a medium the other day and the size was just ridiculous.

Anyway, i have deviated. After Walmart, we went to a sports bar/pool hall with a guy from our hostel who had a membership (you have to be a member of a bar in Salt Lake if it serves anything harder than beer - membership costs about $4) . I had outregeous good fortune on the pool table, almost completely clearing the table in a couple of turns in my first game. Sarah sat there, jaw hanging there in amazement, "do you actually play this?" I don't, but i enjoyed winning. Then I sunk the white ball right behind the black ball and lost.

After that we went to the basketball. When we walked into the stadium, hawkers were selling tickets at huge prices on the street outside. It was so much fun i can hardly tell you what happened in the game - the off-court entertainment was just so good! We ate pretzels and nachos and enjoyed the mascot making a fool of himself. The mascot kept firing cannons into the crowd with prizes and just all kinds of things, people were singing and dancing in the aisles! I did get really into the game towards the end, when Utah was behind but looked like it was going to do a spectacular comeback. Unfortunately it was more like a craptacular comeback and Memphis won it. When we left the stadium there were people pouring out everywhere, preachers preaching loudly and holding bibles, homeless people asking for money and Salt Lake City seemed to really come alive.

Leaving for Denver early tomorrow. We'll talk later!