Vegas & Thanksgiving

As soon as hubby and I decided to move to the USA we promised ourselves to make the most of the country.....so here we were all booked up and ready for a weekend in Las Vegas without the children! The flight was 3 hours long, we checked into our hotel and then headed out into town....we unfortunately went to a restaurant in a bleak part of town with a heavy rock band just setting up, so we ate up quick and went straight back to our hotel to test out the bars, gambling tables and to find our UK friends....

Our hotel http://www.mgmgrand.com was bigger than I could have imagined with the reception area as busy as the underground tube stations in London plus every person you pass looks completely different to the next person you pass!

The gambling tables were more serious than I anticipated and the staff were not as friendly as I was expecting, they ALL look at you sideways like they are expecting you to cheat or pull out a gun any second..not sure us slightly tipsy tired stumbling Brits were exactly prime targets to keep an eye on!

Saturday morning arrives and after an extortionately expensive breakfast ordered from room service we head out down the Strip - 4.2 miles of concentrated resort hotels and casinos south of the Vegas city limits - it feels like we have stepped into a real life computer game, there is so much colour and plastic as far as the eye can see Vegas is truly extraordinary!

We stopped at http://www.bellagio.com to watch the water show which was far more entertaining than I was expecting! Then a late lunch, plenty of cocktails, and people watching later it's time for a nap and we are ready to party round 2! We started at http://www.wynnlasvegas.com/Restaurants/FineDining/Mizumi where the food was amazing, then a party bus picked us up outside and took us down the Strip, stopping at the famous Vegas sign for pics - like true tourists - then dropping us outside a club where we spent the rest of the night....the flight home the next morning was not something we were looking forward to!

Thanksgiving has arrived! There are no houses decorated and no present giving but the children are off school, hubby is off work and we have been invited to a friends house to join them for their Thanksgiving dinner, we enjoyed some traditional dishes such as smoked turkey and sweet potatoes with marshmallows.....the day felt similar to our Christmas Day, shops were closed, everyone getting together cooking and drinking, kids playing outside and terrorising the dog!

The day after Thanksgiving is called 'Black Friday' shopping day, we had been advised by numerous Americans to stay off the roads and away from shopping malls as it is a jungle out there on this day....and watching the news I'm glad we did!

English V American

I've been thinking about doing a post recently about the experiences I have come across since moving to America involving vocabulary differences.....most people know of the usual ones such as Petrol garage/Gas station, Primary school/Elementary school, Playtime/Recess, Toilet/Restroom, Lift/Elevator and so on, so here is a list of some of my vocabulary challenged experiences so far......

I took my youngest into a hair salon to have her fringe trimmed and was mildly taken aback when the friendly lady said 'oh you mean you want her bangs cut' eeerrrr what??

We went out for dinner one night with a couple from New York, my hubby unfortunately still smokes so when one half of the other couple came back from the restroom they asked where had my hubby gone? I said 'he's just popped out for a fag'......in wide eyed hushed tones they said 'you can't say that over here'....turns out Americans in no way ever use the word fag to describe a cigarette!

I had heard numerous times in public toilets and in homes Americans say to their children 'do you need to use the potty' which is actually still a toilet....as it turns out adults 'do not need to use the potty' this is only said to children luckily I made this mistake in front of a friend who corrected me whilst laughing loudly of course!

I recently said to an American I was planning to wear hotpants to ACL - the Austin music festival - I could tell by her wide eyed smiling face I'd maybe said the wrong thing...please read below for the American definition of hot pants "a  female who can't control her sexual appetite- nympho" turns out over here they are just called short pants...one to remember that one!

That awkward moment when an American asks 

"Do British people love the American accent as much as we love yours?"

Halloween And A Driving Test

I will just briefly cover Halloween again as so many people have asked me about Halloween in America....well on the night our local HOA's - Home Owners Associations - organised another block party with pizza, drinks, face painter etc then after a few hours the trick or treating began quite a sight to see at least 50 kids running the streets across everyone's perfect lawns in all their different outfits, one difference here from the UK is that kids dress up in ANY outfit for Halloween whereas my two stuck with their traditional witches outfits........I wondered why there wasn't many 'Halloween-y' outfits to chose from in the local stores!

The day had finally arrived to do my driving test 19 years after the first one, for two weeks I studied online and completed my 'theory' test, then it was time to sign up for the practical. 

I have to say I was not looking forward to it one little bit, the week before and on the way to the test centre I was concentrating so much on the rules and regulations that were slightly different to the UK test, when I started driving out of the car park towards the road to start the test I suddenly realised in horror I was driving on the left hand side of the road, my tester said as long as I didn't do that on the roads I'll be fine I mumbled my apologies, blamed my nerves and still managed to pass the test that day phew!