Observations from the US

Usually my trips to the US are vacation trips, and we all know vacation has little relation to reality. But this is the first time in a while I've been to the US and spent some "normal" time there. You know....getting up in the morning and going to work everyday, having a routine, etc...

For the record, it's been WONDERFUL! Except that I get really confused sometimes - at my level of German speaking, I'm used to planning in my what I'm going to say before any interaction with others. I find myself doing this, and then realizing how useless my German sentence will be to anyone here

A few random observations on life compared to Germany:

• The food portions are huge, but the beers are small
• Everyone walks to and from the train station, but few walk to lunch (maybe in summer??)
• Due to construction this morning the walk/don't walk lights were out of service for most of the walk.  I think a lot of city-dwelling Germans would have been lost when the lights stayed red forever. I wonder what's the longest someone would wait before giving up and jaywalking?
• Interestingly, everything at Starbucks has a calorie count on all its baked goods now!