So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies

So having been here for nearly a month and a half, I think I am now in a position to make sweeping generalizations about America.

The first is that I am shocked by the people who I have met and spoken to at length. I had always had the impression of Americans being positive and believing whole heartedly and unquestioningly in their country. Almost to a man (and woman) the people who we have spoken to have have all said "I love my country but...." and there then follows a litany of things that they think are wrong with America. And its not the things that you would expect (taxes, weather etc etc) but things like "why can't we have a health service like yours?" or "why does all our food have to be so full of shit/be supplied by huge corporations/be so processed?" This isn't what I expected at all. It may be because we are living in the liberal north west of the country and that the residents Boise, Idaho are different but it has rather wrong footed me.

The most interesting example of this was a guy who was talking to whilst watching a game of junior baseball in a park near our hotel. We were discussing the relative merits of US/UK sports. He completely from nowhere stated with complete irony "Ah thats the problem with us in America - we look at the rest of the world as a third world country" . I was taken aback (not only by his command of irony) as I never expected to hear an American be so candid as to "failings" of their own country. And he wasn't some screaming radical or conspiracy theorist, just what they would describe here as an ordinary Joe. Have the events of the last decade make Americans re-asses their self image?

The other odd thing is that America projects itself (certainly from what I have seen and read - remember this is generalization) as the world's cutting edge country, bringing the world innovation. So why can't we pay our rent online and have to do it with a cheque? And before someone says, no thats just where you live, other people have said the same thing about where they live. The concept of direct debit seems to be something unknown here.

But enough of the negativity. What is fantastic is the attitude of people when you deal with them in business. Two examples - when we came to get our apartment we had to pay the deposit by cheque, no other way was possible and we didn't have any as we had no bank account. Not a problem, the person we were dealing with took cash from us and wrote a cheque from her own bank account at her instigation.

Yesterday I had to phone our cable company to get a router. Its free but when I tried to order it via their website it wanted to charge me $150 to install it. As I can do it myself, I didn't want to pay this but there was no way to get rid of it from the order. The person I spoke to just took the payment off and let me know when it would be here. There was no "computer says no" or stroking of chin and intaking of breath at all. Just an attitude of getting things done with a minimum of fuss.

Coming soon - impressions of food, media, sport, transport and politics (not necessarily in that order).