“You know the funny thing about America? It’s the little differences. I mean, they got the same shit over there as we got here, but there it’s a little different. Example – they got a chocolate bar called ‘Milky Way’, but it’s actually a Mars Bar. Almost no difference at all. Nothing like an actual Milky Way. And they have Snickers of course, but they have a variety of Snickers called ‘Marathon’. No lie! They probably don’t know that we used to call it that, once upon a time.”

When I was a young kid at Goldbeaters school, we had two Americans in our class, Bill and Sarah. We could not believe their outlandish stories about the products Stateside, particularly the breakfast cereals. Apparently, everything was different. Sure, they had Kelloggs and other recognisable brands, but completely different varieties. Now I am here, I understand some of the excitement. It takes time to get used to things in foreign grocery stores, and I still haven’t mastered the cereal aisle. I have learnt, though, that Frosted Flakes are the same as our Frosties, but that’s obvious.

However, some products baffle me. Ok, they don’t have Pepsi Max out here (sadly), but they do have Vanilla and Black Cherry Diet Coca-Cola. Is it necessary to have all those ingredients? at leats they don’t have cinnamon flavour Coke – yet. Cinnamon is, I think, the national flavour. You get Cinnamon Tic-Tacs and Cinnamon chewing-gum, fair enough, but also Cinnamon toothpaste, and Cinnamon mouthwash. Hmm. It doesn’t stop at cinnamon. You can even get Orange flavour toothpaste, and Vanilla, too – perhaps Crest are secretly developing a Black Cherry Diet Toothpaste?

Even away from the grocery store, things that are the same are still different. At the bookstore, I found that Corelli (he of the Mandolin) is not a Captain here. The popular board game Cluedo is known simply as ‘Clue’ here (or, the way I play it, ‘Cluedon’t’), and in California, 50 degrees Fahrenheit is considered ‘cold’. What’s more, in the US, Craig Ferguson is considered to be an actual celebrity. Oh my god, it’s a completely different world.