Seattle Bewilderment Blog

#2 Portion Sizes and Doggy Bags

6/10/2017

This one's a favorite to discuss on the Aussies in America Facebook group.

It's one thing to be told all your life how big the restaurant servings are in the US and how it's normal to take home leftovers, but it's another to be faced with it.
But on week one I shocked myself by finding I'd already finished my delicious ravioli, the free garlic bread AND the free chicken and leek soup that came with it.
The person next to me expressed their amazement that I finished all that.

So yes, I need to learn to take leftovers, which six months in, I still forget to do.
My great-aunt lived in the US for 30 years. All my life, whenever she wanted a doggy bag, she'd ask the server for the container so she could pack it herself. It stemmed back to a (now hilarious) experience in New York where the waitress came back with massive a massive bag for her. My Aunt asked "what's all this?" and the waitress said in hushed tones "I gave you everyone else's too" with a wink.

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#1 Massive Cars

29/9/2017

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The cars here are massive. Tons (pun!) of 4WDs, the biggest pickup trucks (Australians: utes) I have ever seen, and also unlike Europe but just like West Australia, very wide lanes.

I refused to drive in Britain despite them also driving on the left because the lanes were so narrow. I would often be terrified as a passenger that the driver would lose a mirror or scrape cars. It took TWO YEARS years for the feeling to subside enough for driving to not be horribly nerve-racking.

Walking around downtown on my first full day in Seattle, the sheer size of the vehicles parked in parking complexes really stuck out. It was my first true impression of America. Recently I met a fellow Aussie who used to live in Texas and told me that there, instead of perhaps 20% of locals owning tank-sized vehicles, it's more like 80%.

Personally, I'm one of those people who thinks an unnecessarily big vehicle or 4WD that never goes off-road is for many people, either a manifestation of an attitude "I can do what I want," "keeping up with the Joneses" or a way to make yourself feel safer, both at the expense of other drivers around you and an increased chance you roll your vehicle. Unless you, dear reader, have a 4WD or pickup truck, in which case I am not judging you. (ಠ_ಠ)

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#2 Portion Sizes and Doggy Bags

#1 Massive Cars

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