Two American things...

1. The amount of choice here never fails to overwhelm and baffle me. Something as simple as ordering a sandwich prompts about 100 questions. Type of bread? type of cheese? you want pickles? tomatoes? peppers? They often don't even suggest combination fillings, assuming (wrongly in my case) that you know exactly what you want and have the imagination to conjure up a sandwich. I miss Pret with its pre packaged, pre-chosen, no surprises (other than the odd sneaky addition of celery salt) sandwiches.

Yesterday I was in a cafeteria, full of the hubbub of choice and I, being a wuss and unwilling to betray myself as one-who-does-not-understand-the-system-and-isn't-brave-enough-to-admit-it, gravitated towards some ready-made unappetizing-but-apparently-unthreatening wraps. But when I asked for a 'veggie wrap', thinking I'd foiled the choice-filled system, I was asked which veggie wrap I would like. There's more than one kind? I said in a panic, flailing around and looking very confused until a kindly woman behind me pointed out that the bread-wrappings of the wraps were different colours. Oh, America.

2. Yesterday I went with a friend to watch her 6 year old play ice hockey. Yup, UKers, I said 6 year old. To us mild-climate people, that's like a 6 year old playing polo, which possibly happens but it sounds improbable.

The kids were all kitted out in so much body armour they wouldn't have looked out of place on a medieval battle field. The armour, which initially looked a little excessive, turned out to be fairly key since the kids fell over all the time. Don't get me wrong, they were amazing and I wouldn't have a chance of staying upright and racing on ice after a puck while holding a stick, but they fell over a lot. Some of them seemed to use falling over as a tactical technique to trip up the other players or to push the puck towards the goal. It was pretty comical, until I remembered they were 6, but they didn't seem to mind much. Anyway, I was very impressed, and actually think that children's ice-hockey is far more entertaining than professional hockey 'cause no matter what's happening, no matter how inevitable a goal seems, it could all change in a split second as they can always (and generally do) fall over.