Driving USA

So I picked out my car the 3.5L American beast known as a Dodge Charger. It comes with two pedals one can make a tire noise the other makes a roaring engine noise, full of the sound and fury of 250 confused horses. Not that these horses come out of the paddock - fear not for your faces being pulled off, my grandma would be quite comfortable overtaking in this car, and would probably floor the accelerator too – big heavy and underpowered (might have something to do with the lolly water they jokingly refer to as Petrol or ‘Gas’) I suddenly see the point of the 6.1L V8 version. The feeling of mismatched proportion continues everywhere i drove this kitten with a megaphone. Of course everything is in miles the mythical distance that seems to stretch and can seem close and yet far... I know i did 2,386 of the little buggers (many on route 66) but I have yet to figure out how far away is “20 miles” A little voice in the back of my head tells me something about 1.6 times something is uhm... how many was it again... ohh well.

Driving always seams slow and the road conditions generally poor. Driving 60 mph is painfully slow and you can drive at 85 miles an hour and be surprised to discover this is 140km/hr. Then you fuel up in Gallons and i have no idea how many teacups per furlong the doge does but i think it’s a few.

A Large Portion, Yes!.... I compulsively order the largest size as in Australia this is a reasonably filling size... in America normal sizes are 500-600ml for coke ect.. fries and burgers are considerably larger and everything has more sugar. Except the coke is not as sweet and less caffeinated than the Australian variety. So here is a picture of my coke and my Car, both oversized and underpowered.

As so i swim in a sea of Quarts and fl Oz, of miles and gallons, nickels and dimes, of inches and feet, of Fourths (quaters that are not coins) and 5/16”, not knowing wich way is up -but in this noisy sea of confusion there is one glimmer of hope – My Sat Nav is metric!