Last year, Cherie and I went on a holiday to the US for nearly five weeks. I attempted to write a blog post detailing the entire trip, but once I got done writing up the first week, it was really long and I couldn't decide what to take out of it and I really couldn't be bothered proof-reading it again or writing equally long posts about the remaining four weeks, so I decided to scrap the idea, and instead opt for some shorter blog posts about the trip. This is one such post.
In those five weeks, we came across a lot of things I wish we had back here in Australia, or at least in Melbourne, in case other cities are smarter than mine.
Pedestrian Countdown Timers
We did a lot of walking and, despite initially being skeptical as to how useful it was going to be, it ended up being really handy. They need to make noise though; I don't remember exactly how many times it happened, but on more than one occasion, while out on my own, I almost missed the lights because I was looking in another direction.
Truck Stop Food
Breakfast burritos? 99 cent tacos? A seemingly endless selection of beef jerky? Drinks that are bigger than the size of my head? On our bus trip in the first week, there was nothing better than hitting the highway in the early morning with a cheap breakfast in-hand and a stash of meaty snacks to chew on.
Mexican Food Everywhere
The thing I liked about going into almost any restaurant was that there was always tacos on the menu. Sort of like the equivalent of our chicken parma. Except, you know, better.
Slow Cooked Meats, Better Sandwiches and Burgers, Sweet Potato Fries and Chicken Wings with Blue Cheese Sauce
Big Boy BBQ, in Caulfield, is the only decent place for slow cooked American-style meat in Melbourne, and it's awesome! We need more places like that. More Australians need to be into slow cooked meats. Slow cooked meats are better than a sausage in bread, and pulled pork tastes better in burgers than self-oiling rissoles from Woolies.
Speaking of which, the sandwiches and burgers here suck. The US loves their burgers. Whether it was in a restaurant in Chicago, a liquor store in Washington DC or an outlet mall in Nevada, the sandwiches and burgers were better than almost anything I've had here.
And they often came with sweet potato fries! We first had this (above) at Smashburger in St. George, Utah. Sweet potato fries are a golden idea and taste soooo much better than regular fries.
Now, ok. Sure. We have chicken wings here. But it's not the same. They're not cooked the same. They're not spiced the same (but we'll still call them Buffalo wings, anyway). And the blue cheese sauce is NOT blue cheese sauce.
Interstate Rail
On the east coast, we rode a lot of trains, with Amtrak, between New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC and Norwalk, and the longest train ride we had was 4 hours from Norwalk to DC. If I want to take the train to Adelaide, I'll be in transit for at least 10 hours, including lay-overs of anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes, and will pay a lot of money to do it, while it takes about 8 hours to just drive there, or 1 hour to fly there for about half the price.
Our interstate train system is craptastic!
Although, I've since heard that catching trains on the west coast is a very different experience.
That's about it! We're going back to the US later this year again, so I'll probably update this in a few months.
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