Things I do and don't miss on the mainland

Things we do miss:

• family, friends, Orion, of course
• holidays with decorations
• being closer to Latin America...and people who speak Spanish
• Amigos de las Americas
• sewing
• Joann Fabrics
• soccer teams
• the YMCA!
• mountains, and the occasional snow (yes the snow!)
• and snowboarding
• the restaurant formerly known as Mi Chalateca

Things we don't miss...

• Traffic
• and by traffic I mean more than one car in front of you
• Freeways
• Big huge stores with endless options of junk
• Garbage trucks outside in the early morning
• Sirens
• Smog
• COLD rain
• never seeing the sky
• or the stars
• fearing getting out of bed in the morning because it's cold
• news programs
• news in general...
• driving everywhere
• people who don't really care "how are you"
• not knowing my neighbors
• warming up my car in the morning
• listening to people complain about the bus system
• listening to people complain about politics
• listening to people who watch reality tv shows
• or just anything not really worth my time
• can you believe the average American watches 3 hours of TV a day?
• That's 3x365 hours or 45.6 DAYS EACH YEAR!!
• Suddenly I'm happy to not have a tv
• Even if I did the channels aren't worth watching 3 hours here anyway...
• just CNN and Discovery plus the filipino channel and the local tourist channel...
• instant gratification
• cell phone