I’ve been in the United States a week now. I’ve been to a sweet wedding of two dear friends in swanky Key Biscayne, Miami, to the well-loved college town Gainesville to see my dear old friend Albert the 10-speed Schwinn road bike and my darling pet bunny rabbit Arnold (and mom, grandma, and sister, of course) and to the St. Pete area to visit Gainesville friends and say hi to old colleagues and friends at the Times. Through it all, I have been applying the keen cultural observation techniques I have developed through this so-called web log. So here you have it, dear readers, a scientific theory of the 10 best (and underappreciated) Vainas (Things) about the United States – Dave Letterman style.
10. Grocery stores – How
can you decide what kind of chilled beer to buy?! There are so many choices! And I can pay with my credit card and not have to calculate how many pesos I need to get to the bank
!
9. 10 percent unemployment rate – You all may think you’ve got it bad, but no. You don’t.
8. Lack of ladrones – I haven’t been robbed once!
7. Paved roads and traffic laws – Zoning out while driving is a life-threatening proposition in a place where potholes make up 50 percent of the roadway and drunk motorcyclists the other 50 percent.
6. Bookstores and books and magazines and newspapers and literacy!
5. Mosquito-less-ness. I haven’t itched in a good four days now.
4. Walking around in public without being eye-undressed by sleazy men looking for visas to the United States!
3. Drinking water out of the tap!
2. Bathrooms – This vaina is a combination of the beauty and cleanliness of an American flushing toilet combined with the luxurious resources of toilet paper, hand towels, soap and running water! But let’s not forget the catharsis of throwing our used toilet paper in the toilet!!!! Amazing!!!
1. Hot showers (with water pressure!) – it’s hard for me to not spend every waking moment in one, having hallucinations of the Virgin Mary in the steam.
While hot showers are certainly a great #1 and are necessary to the Best Of list (maybe at #2), my #1 is FOOD. Seriously. We have sooo much variety in the United States. Whatever your heart desires, you can eat. I’m really, really going to miss food when I go back to the DR. I didn’t realize how deprived I’ve been.