Digital Wanderer |

USA — 24, Woodman's Supermarket Chain and About Food, Part 2

2008-07-23

Now directly onto the groceries. The vegetables taste normal, even if potatoes the size of a small melon are a bit unnerving. The strawberries—and this is the talk of the town—are horribly tasteless, never mind that they're the size of an average apple. One thing I liked absolutely, fantastically much. It's fresh, assorted julienned or whole vegetables in a bag. You can get cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, and so on. They're very tasty; you don't have to chop anything yourself, or, more importantly, buy a mountain of stuff that you have nowhere to store, and it's also awesome to dunk them in dip. We have those too, but they're rare, expensive, and taste awful.

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USA — 23, The Woodman's supermarket chain and about food, part 1

2008-07-22

I continue to delight you with convoluted linguistic constructs and literary devices. In the title, lest you think ill of me, it's not a grammatical error at all, but rather an anacoluthon. Since out of everyone reading these lines only phoneme, and maybe ears_of_tin, actually knows what this word means, once again there's no one to call my bluff. [rubs hands together gleefully].

Amidst all our tourist perturbations we found the time to visit a Woodman's supermarket, where my sister once worked as a cashier. Since then she has become an accountant in the service of a benevolent megacorporation that saves people from terrible diseases. Yes, such things happen. If you don't believe me, you're absolutely right — save people it does, but only those who have insurance. Which about a quarter of the US population lacks. In general, Americans tend to consider their healthcare system the worst in the world, because of all this crap with insurance and terrifying prices. But in my opinion, every nation thinks that way, even those who have free and decent healthcare, like the Canadians or the British.

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USA — 22, Evening Madison

2008-07-21

In the evening, Lolita and I drove downtown. It should be noted that Madison was founded by a judge named James in honor of the founding father and fourth president of the US, who was also named James, and who died shortly before the city came into existence.

Downtown Madison is squeezed between two lakes, dividing the city into a western and an eastern part

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USA — 21, Gym, pet store and ice cream

2008-07-20

After our morning visit to the Capitol, my sister got rid of me by passing me off to Lolita. She is also originally from Daugavpils and lives in her own condo with some boarders. Which one — again, I won't say, to respect her privacy. If Lolita reads this and wants to drop a link in the comments, that'd be great.

The complex sits on a hill, and it's quite beautiful overall. There's a pool, a small gym, and a rec room with internet, all included in the monthly maintenance fee. There were a lot of people in the evening, pedaling away, stomping on treadmills, and swimming in the pool.

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