South of the Mason-Dixon line

Another guest post this week, courtesy of Alice (the last member of the family to contribute; the bunnies have already written their article):

I normally wake up at about 7am, because school starts at 8.05am. School in America is different to my school in England, for many reasons. We have no morning break (recess) as we have lunch at 11am. Sometimes we have burgers and fries, Mexican food or South Carolinan food (cornbread, grits and fried or breaded chicken) and there is always a yummy salad bar with vegetables, fruit and pasta. After lunch we have recess for 30 minutes and play outside where it is normally very hot. After that, we often have PE which is every day of the week. We also have French three times a week, and science and ballet once a week. We have a snack at 2pm, which can be practically anything apart from peanut butter. I sometimes take in fruit, humus and crackers or chips. Home time is at 2.45pm.

So America is the land of the automobile: apparently there are 253 million cars and trucks on the roads over here – something like 80 for every 100 people, compared with 52 per 100 back in the UK.  Being a car owner here is so different than it is in the UK: the main difference being that there are actually enough places to park.  Anyone who has tried to get into the John Lewis car park in Kingston-upon-Thames on a Saturday afternoon will know what I’m talking about here…

Anyway, being the Land of the Car, everything is set up towards car use.  Even at school, there’s a car pool lane for drop-off and collection.  No standing round chatting at the school gate: the teacher recognises the car pulling up, and calls the pupil out of the school to hop straight into the car.  The ideal scenario for the antisocial parent!

The Land of the Car also means Drive Thru’.  So far, I have discovered:

• drive-through (sorry, I can’t bring myself to write “thru”) barbecue restaurants
• several different drive through burger joints
• drive-through Starbucks
• drive-through Chick Fil A (for the uninitiated, Chik Fil A, with an advertising campaign featuring three cows exhorting you to “Eat Mor Chikin”, is like KFC except staffed almost exclusively by students)
• drive-through Baskin Robbins for ice-cream
• drive-through pharmacy
• drive-through ATM and drive up banking (this is awesome – you talk to a cashier through a microphone, and money flies back and forth through plastic tubes in a little container).

Theoretically you could drive through the bank, withdraw some cash, drive through the burger joint, drive through the ice cream shop, then drive through the pharmacy to get some Alka-Seltzer on the way home.   That’s a lot of driving through.  The only one I knew of in London was the truly terrible drive through Krispy Kreme by the A3 (!)

My initial reaction was something along the lines of “why do you need a drive through when you can just park up and walk?”  But after five months, I have started to realise that there are at least a few reasons.  Yes, you could still park up and walk.  But when it’s 30+ degrees C outside, it’s a lot more comfortable to keep the air-con in your car on.  And when it’s torrential rain, like Tropical Storm “Colin” which passed over yesterday, it’s a lot drier to stay in your car.

To be really useful, someone should invent a drive-through supermarket, a drive-through gas station, or perhaps a drive-though office…

The aircon in this car is low-tech.

A Guest Post by Charlotte

I am a well-travelled person, and love the challenge of absorbing new places. After all, I learned from the best. My parents were living in New York when I was born, and we travelled back to live in the UK when I was six weeks old. As a child, we had a map of the world fastened to the kitchen wall and I would mark a spot every time my mum travelled to a new place. It became quite a busy picture. I lived in South America for a year during university, and then Chicago for my Masters. So moving abroad is not a big deal for me. But relocating as a family, with a young child and a husband felt completely different. We had established friendships, a routine, a life.

However, from day one of this adventure it has always felt like the right thing to do. There have been some hiccups, but Alice is very settled in her school and beginning to pronounce a few words like a true American. Chris has a great job that he really enjoys, and spends a lot of his free time in the neighbourhood pool pounding out laps. I have made so many lovely friends, and have three amazing part-time jobs. But there is so much more that has made this transition feel so seamless. Here are a few of the reasons.

Fashion (I know not essential, but it does enhance ones wellbeing :))

Did you know that many of Alice’s friends here in South Carolina are dressed in Mini Boden? Boden has its own US website and distribution here in the US, so you can order it with local or free shipping and have it to your door within a few days. It’s very popular here, and I must admit came as quite a nice surprise. I can still dress Alice in British styles, even though she really wants to dress like an All-American Girl.

Asos is the same, as is Topshop and Zara. Although my husband will remind me at this point that we are really not supposed to be spending money. And let’s be frank, there is more than plenty of great shopping in the US without these brands but it is nice to have that option.

Communication (An obvious one, but so important)

When my mum was working at the United Nations in New York in the 70s, she was away from her family in the UK. If she wanted to call her parents, she would have to call the switch board and see if they could connect her. Flights home were possible, but not as normal or accessible as they have become. Steve Jobs and Apple have changed that for all of us. I can FaceTime my parents every week, or even daily. We can text them, call them and email them with a lot less bother and expense. Alice keeps in contact with her grandparents and friends. Social media makes us feel like we are closer to our friends living around the globe. However Alice, Chris and I still do write letters and cards, as you can’t beat the old-fashioned way of communication. But even a handwritten letter can arrive pretty quickly.

TV (some would say crucial…)

So when we were living in the UK, Chris and I pretty much only watched US TV shows. Since coming here, we have watched BBC productions of Happy Valley, The Night Manager and almost anything else British we can get our hands on. Although I have to say not Downton Abbey and Grantchester, which comes as a great shock and possibly disappointment to our Anglophile American friends who have watched every episode and are more familiar with the English actors than I am. But I did have a very good chat with a friend the other day about famous redheaded British actors. So you see, even television shows are globally friendly. And Chris and I are still obsessed with US TV shows.

Last but not least…Food (another essential…)

I am pleased to say that we still have a pot of tea and biscuit (or two) every afternoon. After trial and error with tea, we have found Yorkshire Gold tea leaves in a upmarket shop about 10 minutes from the house. Scones are readily available in most supermarkets and bakeries. And of course Cadbury’s has been bought by Kraft, so I get our supply of Fruit & Nut from Target on a regular basis 🙂 Ice Tea is a Southern Drink, but hot tea drinkers are increasing and I think I may have to make Tea & Cake Day a US National Holiday.

As we know globalisation has indeed changed the world, and makes it feel almost smaller and more accessible place. Of course we are not yet true Southern charmers – we do have British accents, and can’t give our loved ones a hug whenever we feel like it. But that was pretty hard to do in the UK anyway with the busy lives we all lead. Our new friends are not just from South Carolina, and whilst many are – others are from New York, Delaware, Adelaide, Switzerland, Germany. It turns out my new hairdresser is originally from Newcastle, via Bermuda and one word in ten sounds Geordie. What’s more, the lady working in the department store last week (I wasn’t shopping Chris, just trying on…) was from Huddersfield and offered to be Alice’s babysitter. Everyone, whether native to Charleston, or a transplant like us, has been so welcoming. It just proves that the UK is really now just a hop across the pond.

As anyone who has been here knows, the US is sports-mad.  This is a country truly obsessed by sport.  TVs show sport all day in bars, airports, and even offices.  People sit in bars and happily discuss sporting statistics for hours on end.  There is a 5% reduction in the country’s electricity usage during the Super Bowl, when more than 115 million people turned off other appliances and gathered around TVs.  Sport is big.

The obvious American sports are American football, baseball, (ice) hockey and basketball.  A few years ago, the stereotype was that Americans knew no sports outside these four.  This is definitely changing, and it’s alarming when some of my colleagues here know more about the Premier League than I do.  They can even pronounce “Leicester” correctly…!

However, I haven’t – yet – managed to educate any of them in the finer points of cricket or rugby.  To be honest, cricket is never going to have that much of a market in the US, but rugby is taking off and could be big – and I reckon the US, given its population and general sporting prowess, would be really successful at rugby if the sport ever really got going.

Charleston is not really a sporting hub.  The local baseball team, the RiverDogs, is a minor league team and is perhaps best-known for having local celeb Bill Murray as co-owner and “Director of Fun”.

But the reason for this blog is not actually to show off how little I know about professional sport in the USA.  Rather, I want to talk a bit about how the relentless obsession with professional sport affects the general population, particularly in our “family” sport, swimming.  Although Great Britain and Australia both punch above their weights, if you will excuse the metaphor-mixing, the US dominates world swimming events.  Why is this?  Partly it’s about facilities.  There are just way more high-quality swimming pools in the US than there are in the UK.  This is also true in Australia, where there were two 50m pools within walking distance of my hotel in Sydney last year.  Charleston, population under 150,000, has an Olympic-sized swimming pool, not to mention any number of smaller pools.  Meanwhile in the UK, we read that the City of Derby has closed its one remaining public pool, leaving World Record Holder Adam Peaty without his home base to train in.

(This is in Sydney – can you imagine anything like this in the UK?  And look how many people are using it!)

So the number of facilities is one thing.  The other main factor is how seriously everything is taken.  This summer, Alice has joined the summer swim team at our local sports club.  Today was “Swim with an Olympian” day for the swim team.  A former US Olympic swimmer came to give a motivational talk, let the children wear his gold medal, and then there was some racing.  Even the younger children – Alice is in the 7s and 8s age group – raced, with numbers written on them, and had their times recorded.  Once you start doing this at a young age, it becomes normal to compete and take sport very seriously.  Hence there are more people who would even consider becoming a professional sportsperson in the future.

(Incidentally I was once in a swimming race: I represented my Scout Troop in the Harrogate & District Scouts swimming gala, I think in 50m backstroke.  I made it to the final – but the Scout Leader didn’t notice.  Thanks a bundle.)

I feel life I have a bit of writer’s block at the moment, which explains the lack of blog last week and frankly the slightly Christmas newsletter style of this one.  My editor has been suggesting all sorts of changes, additions, corrections: mostly all met with a “nah” from me.  Hopefully normal service will be resumed next week!

So here goes…

It’s hard to believe we’ve been here for four months already.  In a strange way, time has been running at two different speeds simultaneously.  The weeks here are flying by, but at the same time, our old life in London seems long gone.

As you can imagine, we’re gradually slipping into a routine.  I take Alice to school three days a week, which I could never have done in London.  Even better, my office is only about 15 minutes from the school, so I can be a lot more involved with what she’s getting up to at school: yesterday, for example, I went to watch her in a dance recital at lunchtime.  Charlie is juggling three jobs: two different Pilates studios and subbing at Alice’s school.  So far, she’s taught Spanish to some early teens, taken a class of first graders all day, and helped with younger children.  Whilst the school teaching has a lot more responsibilities attached than Pilates, it’s true that teachers do it for love rather than to get filthy rich.

Alice is doing everything that we hoped: swimming a lot, cycling, playing outside with neighbours her age, and living the outdoor lifestyle.  The other week she decided to wade around in the marsh, get covered in sticky black mud and lose a shoe.  I did try to find it, but almost lost my own shoe too.  It’s not uncommon to get through several sets of clothes per day – and that’s just me…

The good news is that, even though some parts of daily life are getting routine, other parts are not.  We’re finding it easier to do many more different things, from spending a weekend at the beach to taking the bunnies for a drive on the golf cart in the evening.  We’re enjoying every minute of it, and almost every day we find time to stop and appreciate how lucky we are.

(no filter!)

One thing that Brits abroad complain a lot about is the tea.  Wherever you go, it’s just not the same as you get back home.  Not in the US, nor in France, nor Germany, nor Italy (“You want tea?  Not espresso?”) nor anywhere else I have been.

Of course, tea is part of the history of the British Empire (along with opium, but this is a family blog) and it has become part of the British psyche.  Generations of Brits have “a brew” every day, whether it’s hot or cold outside.  This is why, about 9 years ago, you would have found me wandering the streets of a small town in California looking for a cafe that would make two cups of tea, hot, with milk, and definitely no lemon.

(As an aside, there are definite advantages to not having a tea culture.  The removal men who came to pack up our house in the UK arrived and promptly started drinking tea.  It must have added a good 2 or 3 hours to the packing time.  The guys who unloaded in the US refused a brew and completed the job in double quick time.)

What I didn’t know until arriving here is that just south of Charleston is the only tea plantation in the USA.  Being fans of a cuppa, we thought that was worth a visit, so off we went.  Charleston Tea Plantation is on Wadmalaw Island, about half an hour from the city. The drive is actually rather beautiful – the urban environment gradually dissolves into a rural idyll of trees overhanging the roadway, bridges over creeks, and marsh all around.

About 15 years ago, in one of my previous careers, I visited a bunch of coffee plantations in Southern India.  This was fascinating: coffee plants grow best in almost jungle-like conditions, shaded by trees.  The berries are bright red, and after picking there’s a lengthy – and smelly – process of washing and fermentation before you even get to roasting.  So I was interested to see the tea process too, and relive my “Man from Del Monte” days.

This tea plantation is run by just a handful of people.  In some countries they have hundreds of people picking the new leaves from the tea bushes, but the Charleston Tea Plantation manages with just five and a machine called the Green Goddess, a version of a cotton-picking machine, that drives over the fields and cuts the tops off the bushes.  It’s only the very newest leaves that are used for tea, which is why the bushes in the photo below look like that – as soon as fresh young leaves appear, they are picked.

A lot of people in the Deep South drink iced tea, often flavoured with fruit, which suits the climate a lot better than a hot cup.  There’s a story, maybe apocryphal, that iced tea was invented at the 1904 World’s Fair in St Louis, when the East India Company pavilion was trying – and failing – to give away hot tea under the sweltering Missouri sun.  So, rather than throw it all away, they mixed it with ice and discovered that the punters rather liked it.  I’m yet to be convinced, though I have found peach tea very refreshing on a hot day.

Finally, in case any Limeys need reassuring, we have found a place here to buy Yorkshire Tea.  So that’s all fine.

Anna: You know, Ginger Snap, it was all such a big surprise…

Ginger Snap: I agree!  One day we were living in our hutch in the garden in London –

A: – it was cold, there, though –

GS: – and we were free to run around the garden most days –

A: – where I spent all my time munching on the herbs that the tall human with glasses planted –

GS: – and then, without so much as a by-your-leave, we were shoved into a wooden box and taken away!

A: The place we stayed that night: I didn’t like it.  I could hear dogs and cats.

GS: Quite!  Bunnies should be with other bunnies, not with cats and dogs.

A: Still, it was better than the wooden box.  But the next morning we were put back in the box.  I really didn’t like that.  I thumped quite a lot.

GS: Me too – but I was rather interested what would happen next.  It could be quite a fun adventure!

A: I’d rather be eating that lovely lavender plant 😦

GS: Anyway it wasn’t as much fun as I hoped.  We went somewhere very loud, and then our box was put inside somewhere dark.  It started moving, and there was lots of noise.

A: It felt like we were going upwards!  And it made my ears hurt.

GS: So all we could do was snuggle together and hope it wouldn’t go on for too long.  In the end it finished, but we were still in the wretched box.

A: And after that, we saw our people again.  We thought we’d be able to get back into our garden now and munch on some grass –

GS: – but we stayed in the box, this time in a car.  They got us some nice fresh apples and kale to eat, but all that noise had really put me off my food.

A: Me too.  I had really lost my appetite. Finally, the car stopped, and our people let us out of the box for a bit.  But we weren’t in the garden.  We were somewhere completely new.

GS: So, frankly, we both had a bit of a sulk.

A: The next day, our people got us somewhere new to live.  It took us some time to get used to it, but now it’s OK.

GS: I like it when they let us out to run round the house.  I go everywhere!

A: Yes, I remember they weren’t very impressed when they discovered the number of poops you had left in the guest bedroom downstairs – or when you peed under the sofa…

GS: Whoops!

A: And now they always close that door to stop you causing trouble.  Sometimes we still get to go outside, though.

GS: I went to a street party!  The tall person with long hair put me on the leash and off we trotted to a party round the corner.  The little humans there thought I was very sweet.  But it was very hot and I got very tired so I had to lie down for a bit.  All that socialising is very demanding for a small bunny.

A: I didn’t like the leash at first.  But now I do like to go for a bit of a walk and run with my leash on.  I’m a bit worried though, that our people are going to get a reputation.

GS: What do you mean?

A: Well, other humans might start to say “Look, there are those crazy English humans taking their bunnies out for a walk again”.  I mean, there aren’t many house bunnies round here.

GS: Mostly dogs.  I don’t like dogs.

A: Exactly!

GS: Our little human – lots of her friends haven’t seen bunnies before.  They always want to hug us.  After a while I just want to escape.

A: You’re right – a bunny can have too much affection.  Especially if all the kisses make my fur a bit soggy.

GS: Anyway, today was the best adventure of all.  I heard the two humans with long hair calling it a “golf cart”.  I enjoyed sitting on that seat and watching the world go by.

A: I did too, I think.  But it was rather fast, and there wasn’t any food there.

GS: So what do you think, Mummy rabbit – do you like it here?  Or would you rather be back in your garden in London?

A: I’m not sure.  There were some lovely plants to eat in London.  But here we see our humans a lot more.  So probably – here!

GS: I agree, I like it here!  But where is “here”?  Does anybody have an atlas for bunnies…?

Charleston is well-known as the foodie hub of the Southern USA.  In fact, it boasts 3 restaurants out of the top 40 in the US, according to this list from Business Insider, and there are new ones popping up every week – not bad for a city of just 130,000 people.

But of course I’m not going to write about any of the restaurants that make this list.  Nor am I going to write about any of the new, and achingly trendy, restaurants that keep appearing downtown.

No.  The subject of tonight’s review, ladies and gentlemen, is the Bombay Bazar.

Luckily I’ve been to enough different restaurants in different places to know that the outside is not always a reflection of the quality of the food within.  (This holds particularly true in Tokyo, or Hong Kong.)  And let’s be honest, Indian food is pretty much a rarity in the US.

I’ve been to the Bombay Bazar twice now, both times with Jools, another displaced Englishman.  And despite the exterior, the food isn’t bad at all.

We started with an unusual beer.  Firstly, it was called Godfather.  Closer examination of the bottle revealed that it was indeed brewed in India – in Rajasthan – but this did not explain the picture of the gentleman on the bottle, who looks like some sort of bastard cross between Lenin and Brian Blessed.

As for the meal, I had a lamb sag.  It wasn’t much to look at (I can’t possibly put here what Jools said it looked like) but it tasted pretty good.  The sauce was creamy, and the meat tender.  Jools had a chicken madras – a slightly unusual colour, but tasting just the right mix of fiery and flavoursome.

As far as I know, the Bombay Bazar is one of only two Indian restaurants in Charleston, so I am sure I’ll be back.  Though Charlie keeps inviting people over and saying “Chris will cook curry for you” so maybe I will end up opening Charleston’s third Indian restaurant myself…

Last week, Charlotte found herself up before the judge.

How and why, you might ask, did a fully paid-up member of the Goody Two Shoes Club end up in such a situation?

You may remember from a previous blog that a couple of weeks ago, she got pulled over for speeding.  In the UK, you pay a fine, get a couple of points on your license, curse a bit, and that is it.  In the US, a speeding ticket is a criminal charge.  Of course you can pay the fine, accept the points, and curse a bit (and watch your insurance premium skyrocket).  Or, you can go before a traffic court to see if you can get the fine reduced.  Charlie is not the sort of girl to settle, so off she went to court, 8.30am on a Tuesday morning.

(Full disclosure here, I would have just paid the fine, and that’s what I suggested she did.)

Traffic court is an amazing thing: a microcosm of the US judicial system, with people there reflecting all parts of society.  And it’s deadly serious.  Whatever you do, don’t think that it’s just a speeding ticket and you don’t need to take it seriously.  There are even websites devoted to what to say to the judge at traffic court, strategies to get off, right down to what you should wear to appear respectful.

Start with the judge.  “All rise”, and everyone stands – then he (or she, he in this case) comes in, wearing a gown.  Our judge was called Jack Sinclaire and he was excellent.  He explained what would happen during the hearing and what everyone’s options were, and ended by expressing the hope that we would all be out of there within a couple of hours – presumably so he could go back to his far more lucrative private practice.

In the US criminal justice system (now I sound like the beginning of an episode of Law & Order) you face your accuser.  In this case, it’s the officer who gave you the ticket – so he was also there, along with a motley collection of people he had given tickets to over the past month or so, one of whom was Charlie.

And what a collection it was.  One lady stood up, said she was sorry, and the judge said “OK, thank you for turning up today, I can take $50 off your fine”.  Another man – more like a boy – had already paid his ticket, so why he was there in court is anyone’s guess.  One of the more amusing defendants – to me, anyway – was an extremely lanky kid who stood there with his mother, having got his second speeding ticket within about six months.  “You’ve got a lead foot, boy” was the judge’s piercing critique.  And with two tickets in such a short period, there was little chance of any leniency for him.  There were various stereotypes, of course, like the kid caught both speeding and driving unsafely – oh yes, and he had pot in the car too.

Within the parade, there were some actual, real, stories worthy of sympathy – and it seemed as if Judge Sinclaire knew when to show mercy.  There was the elementary school teacher who had been caught speeding on her way to pick up her ill child from day care.  And the other that tugged on the heartstrings was the man who had been told at the doctor he had early onset dementia, and had been caught speeding on his way to an AA meeting, as he was afraid he was going to have a drink.

And then it was Charlie’s turn.  She apologised profusely, told the judge we’d just moved from the UK and she had only passed her US test a week ago, that she’d never had a speeding ticket before, and that she was driving my car which goes faster than hers – and guess what?  It worked.  The ticket was deferred for six months – so if she doesn’t have any other offences within this period, the points and the fine go away.  Result!

As for me, I had a fascinating insight into the US legal system.  Interesting as it was, frankly I hope I don’t experience it very often, and certainly not for anything more serious than traffic court!

1.  We didn’t go away anywhere.  Last Easter, we were on holiday in Charleston.  Easter 2014, we were also on holiday in Charleston.  Easter 2013 – I know what you are thinking, but you aren’t right – we were in California.  A pattern of Eastertime visits to the US.  Now that we are here, we decided not to go anywhere and just spend our time enjoying our new neighbourhood.
2. Alice learnt to cycle.  I had been trying to teach her to ride a bike for years, but without any success.  Then her “boyfriend” visited from North Carolina – his grandparents live over the road – and within a couple of hours she was cycling around like a maniac.
   She then spent the rest of her week off wanting to cycle at every opportunity, rain or shine. Mostly shine.  I was pleased, but secretly seething that my years of work were trumped by a six year-old boy.

   

3. I went to work.  I’m discovering that there don’t seem to be as many bank holidays and vacation days in the US as there were in the UK (bummer), though I did get Good Friday off.  It doesn’t feel like you need a holiday so much if you still get home with several hours of sun and warmth left to enjoy.  My only problem (and to be honest it’s not a major problem) is getting out of the mindset of having a beer every night, just because the sun is shining.
4. We almost went to church.  We made up our minds to go to Mass on Easter Sunday, and we got as far as the church.  But it wasn’t just standing room only in the church – it was so full inside that there were people standing outside too.
5. We went to an Easter Egg Hunt.  The rain started just as we got there and within minutes we were being doused by a full-on tropical thunderstorm, so much so that we needed a change of clothing.
6. I finally hauled my no-good ass out of bed to go swimming before work.  And boy, was it worth it.  It was dark when I started, but the pool was deserted and the sun rose as I swam.
7. Alice went feral.  She spent hours every day with her friends, running round the neighbourhood, swimming, cycling (see above), climbing trees over the marsh, falling down, getting up, and generally having a crazy fun time.