USA Lesson #7

The little things....

Here are a few LITTLE DETAILS that might help make your 2 months a bit easier.
(These are the things that I was used to and had to change when I moved to DK.)

1. In the US, the week starts on Sunday, NOT Monday.

2. In the US, we write our dates as MONTH / DAY / YEAR
so we will arrive in Seattle on 10/01/2010... NOT on 01/10/2010---that is January 10th!

3. When we write numbers, we put a DECIMAL where you put a COMMA so a price tag in DK that says 29,95 would be 29.95 in the US. The DECIMAL separates DOLLARS & CENTS.

4. Our clocks function with AM & PM, so if you say something about "18.00" to a person, they will most likely think your dad is in the military! :-)
Anything AFTER MIDNIGHT (hence, the AM) is written like this : I woke up at 7am. And anything PAST MIDDAY (hence the PM) is written like this: I got out of school at 3pm (not 15.00). And we write our time with a COLON to separate the hours and minutes... so 3:30pm is your version of 15.30.

5. I know I have mentioned this to you before, but the word "PLEASE" is quite common (and often considered to be bad manners when not used), so PLEASE be aware of this and PLEASE use it so that those you speak to will be so PLEASED!

6. Phone numbers in the US have a 3 digit "area code" and a 7 digit phone number. You dial all 10 numbers to call someone.

7. Our "post code" is called a ZIP CODE and it has 5 numbers instead of 4; and our addresses almost ALWAYS have the house/apartment # BEFORE the street name, so if you are looking up an address on mapquest, you would write it as: 1532 Main Street, NOT Main Street 1532.

8. In the US the "ground floor" is the FIRST FLOOR. So someone tells you that the classroom is on the 2nd floor, that really means the 2nd floor...not the third floor like it is in DK!

9. And I have saved the best for last:
The Metric System is almost NON-EXISTENT in the US! So have fun! :-) Seriously...here is a good site that converts things for you: http://www.worldwidemetric.com/measurements.html
Our temps are Fahrenheit.
We cook with cups and ounces.
We drive with miles per hour.
And we measure with inches and feet.
Again... HAVE FUN! At least as much fun as I have converting TO the metric system in DK!