Week 5, part two, suburbia in Maryland

The street was like that of any other American "movie". I guess I've never really thought about it, but to Americans that must mean that most streets in films are designed to be quite similar to their own. The mini-post boxes on the street, the white pathways, the coloured rooftops and white painted wooden-looking exteriors with multiple cars per house...

 Earlier this week I took up my friend's invitation to stay at her house, in the state of Maryland (which borders D.C) and experience a typical, home-cooked American meal, as well as seeing around her "neighborhood". I use the American word neighborhood because it is entirely different to a British neighbourhood. Instead of local councils, communities, based on geographic proximity, seem to interact and depend on each other here.

The neighborhood was announced by a polished metal and wooden sign, marking the beginning of one area and end of the previous one. It reminded me of accomodation sections on holiday or camping sites abroad.

I was lucky enough that the day I stayed was a "neighborhood social", meaning that people from the surrounding streets gathered in a park with kid's activities and free pizza and ice cream. What with the music and everything it was like a large family party, only the people were connected by their housing. According to my friend, these events (and ones similar to it) are organised by the resident's association, which every household pays a fee to be a part of each year.

So, the "back yard" was about the size of half my street...although apparently a lot of the land technically belongs to everyone in that area. The house also backed onto some kind of woods, which is atypical for most English housing estates.

The house itself is bigger than practically any other family home I've seen in England. It may not surprise people that the house had 4 bedrooms, at least 2 bathrooms, a basement (converted into a space with a tv and sofas) a double garage (with automatic doors!) and two living room areas. To me the house felt stereotypically American, but I think that this was due to the size of the fridge and the numerous American high school sports team photos of my friend and her brother through the years. The so called "wall of fame", in which the childrens' achievements are proudly displayed in the family home, with photos and sports trophies, is not a myth!

In all honesty, everything from the family dog (a golden retriever named Chad) to the dinner (pork chops, French fries, green beans, grape soda) satisfied my imagined ideal of an American home. Obviously, some things, like the exchanges between siblings, the meal time duties and family rituals, are universal.

If anyone's wondering, after dinner (which was delicious! I've never had pork chops before, especially not with that kind of seasoning) and the "neighborhood social", we watched tv (So You Think You Can Dance by Fox) just to complete the cliché. Thank you Jess!

Vocabulary taught;

"Estate" - when I said "the estate I live on" I think Jess' family thought I was referring to something like Sandringham. I soon pointed out that neither me nor my family own anywhere near as much land as the Queen, and that I meant my neighbourhood/ housing estate (not "neighborhood", in the way I described above).

"Hench" - ok so this is just an example of my embarrassing subconscious use of English slang. I use the word "hench" to mean "massive" or "big" or very solid. I can't remember the context in which I used it, but I justified it by saying that "hench" was like "henchmen" which are supposed to be big and beefy, so it made sense.