We have found people incredibly friendly and helpful. In public, we haven't heard swearing or seen examples of impatience or bad temper. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but we have only come across good manners. It has a very calming effect on you. Even the roughest looking customers in Walmart, and there are some pretty rough ones, behave impeccably.
I'm still fascinated by religion here. The variety, the way it is part of everything. Churches are not struggling along with meagre congregations of old people. Here the churches are full, with lots of teenagers, young families, going often twice a week for hours. All through the countryside there are new churches. Maybe we were like that in the nineteenth century in Britain, why is it still like that here?
There seems to be a lack of cynicism and world weariness here- very different from Britain.
There are fewer safety nets here. No massive welfare state, so people seem to be more self reliant. If you don't work, you don't have any money. The lack of a universal health system I find scary. For example the football coach in college recently had a stroke and his insurance, which from a college, one would have thought was good enough, did not cover all his medical bills. They have been having fund raising events to help him out. We have seen posters in town of similar examples. As someone who has had to use the health service a lot, I can only think if I lived here I would be homeless, bankrupt or dead!
So far, I have survived as a non driver, largely because Roland has had the time to get out and about and other people have driven me. I would find it very hard to live here permanently always having to get lifts. Some of the international students in college are really stuck. At holiday times the only way some people can get to the airport is by advertising in the college paper, asking for a lift.
We have found a very good local radio station, which once you get used to the advertising and their mentioning their name- KBIA- every two minutes, is informative both on domestic and international news. It is funded through listener subscription, so every few months they have to have a fund raising drive, which is fairly relentless. It's not radio 4, but it's not bad.
We have also been quite impressed with the newspapers. They have not gone the tabloid, sensationalist way of most british papers. A bit dull maybe, but it's not all sex scandals, murder and rape. The international coverage is good.
Television news we have found not so good. The sort of interviewing you get on television is very unconfrontational and frankly rather useless. They spend too much time trying to be fair and impartial. CNN has a smarmy presenter Anderson Cooper, very slick, very smooth, but lacking the killer instinct. I yearn for a british rudeness!
The weather has finally turned. Mid seventies on thursday, today down to freezing, though we haven't yet had the snow which is just to the north in Iowa. I think we may be getting the wind off it though. I know it's going to get a lot colder, but this is a bit of a shock after all that warm weather.
I thought I'd leave you with a few pictures I haven't managed to use yet! The Wren church- again.
The columns beloved by all american universities.
Finally, the gymnasium, where Churchill made the speech. It was the biggest venue they had at the time.
Now it's the real test. Winter!!!
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