Lately the conversation has been coming up a lot about the differences from living in Indiana and living in Santa Cruz. So I thought I would blog and share some of the differences.
One difference that I noticed right away is the seasons are switched. I have started to think about it, at Christmas we are going to be melting and the thought of putting up a Christmas tree with shorts and a tank top on.
I've really never once thought that Smoky could be a part of the forecast but it's true. The forecast for today for Santa Cruz is 95 degrees and Smoky. There are many many sugar cane fields here and they burn them and smoke just covers the sky. This morning it was hazy and dark and it wasn't cloudy at all--all smoke.
No where in Bolivia can you flush toilet paper in the toilets so there are little trash cans beside the toilets. That's all I'll elaborate on that but I miss Indiana's toilets.
The traffic lights here have red, yellow and green. But yellow is used to warn you when the light is going to turn green. So everyone starts going on yellow instead of green. Strange.
Every house, building or establishment has a fence with glass and barbwire. Also many residences have guards. At the grocery there are guards with guns to protect the store.
Here the police are to serve the people and the army serves the President. This means often they are not on the same team and they fight each other at times.
Instead of snow days being built into the school schedule they have strike days built in and they are always used up by the city going on strike.
Lunch is the largest meal of the day and soup is almost always served. Restaurants don't open until 7 at night and they don't get busy until 9 even on week nights.
Driving is for the brave hearted and aggressive only.
It gets dark about 6:30 pm here and it won't change or get any later as it gets to be summer.
Well that is all I've got right now. I think that some things are already so common place that I don't think about them anymore.
