Okay, so even getting insurance with AIG is proving difficult! But more down to the fact that Stephen isn't here to sign forms, and is using me as an intermediary to ask them questions...He's also got me sending various bits of paperwork to the company who are getting us the car. Between these two tasks I've spent 5 hours today e-mailing and phoning, and I still don't have insurance set up!!! I'm hoping that another 5 hours tomorrow should crack it....
As I was grumpy, tired, hungry and in need of chocolate after all my efforts I took a walk to Balducci's to stock up on goodies. I was (quite) good in that I bought healthy things too! So for every naughty thing, I bought a good thing...chocolate covered nuts/raisins/other stuff (bad) and apples (good)....a tub of peanut butter cookies (bad) and a fruit salad (good)...a dark chocolate bar (bad) and a muffin....okay so it didn't quite balance out!!
As it was I could have saved myself some money and taken the chocolate covered "stuff" out of the basket. I settled down with a cuppa and the stuff to watch Changing Rooms (told you TV was bad!) and the chocolate was disgusting!! To be fair, the stuff the chocolate was covering was pretty vile....malt balls I imagined to be similar to Maltesers...they were such a disappointment! Just as well I had the cookies to take the taste away!
Have I talked about American food yet? Not so much the stuff you get in restaurants which is pretty good (but you have to check the menu cos if you're not careful everything comes with grilled cheese), but the stuff you buy in supermarkets? Some things defy belief....most cheese is plastic, some cheese comes in a can which you squirt like whipped cream. If you want non-plastic, non-whipped cheese you need a deli. There are around 20 kinds of milk (not including soy milk, or other non-dairy types). There appears to be a national shortage of vegetables (which suits Stephen!), but you can get salad. When you do get your hands on veg, then it goes off in hours....but bread lasts for weeks! Fresh herbs (or urbs as I should now call them!) are only to be got in larger supermarkets or deli supermarkets and they don't seem to have chilled ready meals anywhere (but plenty of frozen).
On the whole it's not so bad, but I'm still trying to find bread which tastes like bread (all the bread here tastes quite sweet to me). I packed Stephen off to get a pizza from Safeway last week and he came back with one the size of a wagon wheel (and I'm not talking about those itty bitty biscuits here!). And the sandwiches...I am not kidding - I saw a ready made up Sub in Safeway which was about 18" long x 4" wide and had about half a turkey, 2lbs of cheese, three lettuce and 2 jars of mayonnaise on it. It was delicious....
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