I know this may be considered traitorous by certain thin-skinned politicians, but I hate visiting the US. (And it's only day 3 of a 2week holiday...)
It was a 12-hour flight from New Zealand, which is about 6500 miles. (Even having to convert back to the Imperial system annoys me--I remember the US made an effort to convert to metric when I was a kid and no doubt the politicians at the time would have called this "woke" and insisted it was un-American to stop using the British system...)
It then took me nearly 6 hours to cover the last 70 miles! It took over two hours just to get out of the airport! The queue at the car rental was huge, there were only four people working and they spent most of their time trying to upsell customers. Instead of recognizing their were 30 people waiting and just trying to process everyone as quickly as possible, they ran through the 20-question script with each customer like they had all the time in the world. "Do you want to upgrade your insurance?" No. "Do you want to upgrade the car you specifically requested?" No. "Do you want to prepay fuel at an even more exorbitant price than the local stations?" No. "Do you want to prepay your tolls?" How much? "$59.99 per day." What?? I'd have to cross the Bay bridge four times a day for that to make sense!
Finally got on the motorway only to come to a complete stop almost immediately. Satnav said it would be 2.5 hours to go the 70 miles. That's less than 30 mph/50kmh. The famous US 8-lane freeways move slower than the back roads at home!
And the drivers -- I know you shouldn't diagnose mental health by observation alone, but these drivers were sociopathic. I mean, no empathy whatsoever. If they thought a different lane was going faster, they pulled into it without hesitation, without looking at other traffic, without signalling. And of course, as soon as all those cars pulled into the faster lane, that lane came to a standstill and they immediately switched back. Undertaking is not only encouraged here, it is it's own art form, and you better believe that if a lane is ending every car will drive at full speed until they have literally nowhere to go, then pull in front of you.
And the saddest part is, I used to drive just like this! Growing up in Los Angeles, there was no other option. When I first moved to the UK and my girlfriend asked why I never signalled, I told her that in LA, when you signalled other cars would immediately move to cut you off, so you learned to only signal at the last second. It took me years to undo two decades of driving in LA, and now returning to it I am absolutely horrified.
I can't find comparable statistics for car accidents but in 2021, the US had 14.2 traffic fatalities per 100,00 people. In 2022, New Zealand had 7.3 road deaths per 100,000 people. The real difference is that New Zealand thinks this is way too high and has been working hard to reduce the total number of deaths:
Thankfully I arrived at the hotel safely and got in line behind someone complaining the water wasn't hot enough. (It wasn't.) I checked into my room and unwrapped a cup to make tea, unwrapped another cup to get water, unwrapped the hand soap and unwrapped a spoon. And of course this was just the plastic on the single-user items that also went in the trash five minutes later!
In the morning I went down to take advantage of the breakfast buffet. That's when I remembered that what the rest of the world considers dessert, the US considers breakfast: Almost all carbs and sugar. I was in heaven, until I realised the cinnamon raisin bagel I had just shmeared was actually blueberry. That is a crime against humanity.
I then went to synagogue. I'd been to this little synagogue many times over the years and was always surprised by their total lack of security. Since my last visit, however, they'd installed a massive gate and, weirdly, had not installed any sort of bell or intercom. If you didn't know the gate code, you weren't getting in. On top of that, there was a local sheriff sitting in an SUV inside the gate, though it's hard to be sure because the windscreen was tinted which, of course, is illegal, but who's going to ticket them? Anyway, if he was sitting in the car, he saw me standing helplessly at the gate and completely ignored me. Thankfully, someone else arrived and let me in.
My brother was looking to buy a used EV and wanted to show me two options: One had a "branded title" which, I discovered, was a fancy way of saying the car had been written off by the insurance company and yet was somehow still allowed to be sold. The other had some damage from an accident. (This is why they were in his budget.) But first he had to return his rental car, which is when I discovered this little trek was going to take 3 hours!! And he didn't think this was unusual! I balk at driving to Palmerston North, which is less than 100 miles!
We got to Tracy, I expressed my reservation about the branded title, they wouldn't budge on the $9,200 price tag, so we got back in my car and, just as we were about to drive off, the salesperson rushed over and agreed to $8,000.
My brother signed more paperwork than I've ever seen in my life. One of the forms was for new plates -- in some States, plates stay with the owner, but in California plates always stayed with the car, so I was confused. It turns out that, because it took 45 days for the DMV to transfer ownership, during that period all of the bridge tolls were applied to the previous owner, and rather than try to fix that system they just decided to take away the license plates.
In New Zealand, we would have just done a straight bank transfer and be done in 30 seconds, but the American bank system is about 20 years behind the rest of the world. (But don't tell Americans that; they don't know anything about the rest of the world and so assume there systems are the best.) So the only options were a debit card, which attracted a 3.5% fee, and a Zelle transfer, except it has a daily transfer limit that you can't override. Between me, my brother and my sister (who wasn't even there!) we figured we could complete the Zelle transfer and avoid the 3.5% fee.
My sister's transfer went through fine; mine seemed to go through fine but then I got an email that said they were going to hold it for 3 days with no explanation; and my brother was told he had to call his bank to verify his identity before the transfer could be made, and when he called the number they gave him, they said it was a different department, and they were only open Mon-Fri. This was a Saturday. Even better, Zelle took the money out of my account immediately so even if I decided to switch to the debit card, I no longer had the money.
Needless to say, we couldn't take the car home, so in a few days - when the bank decides to let us transfer our funds - we'll have to make the 2-hour round-trip to Tracy to pick up the car. With the price of petrol in the States, that 3.5% fee is looking good...
P.S. The debit card option was never really an option because I use my sister's address for my US bank account, and the bank had sent a new debit card to my sister. For some reason she decided to open the envelope and put the debit card in a "safe place." When I arrived, she gave me the envelope the debit card came in, but she has no idea where the debit card is. 🙄
