woo-o, I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien, I'm an Italian in Washington.

Beppe goes to America and writes a book about the culture shock.

Exchanged hands at a bc meet.

"In the style of Bill Bryson"... Well, I've just finished Notes from a Big Country which I liked, so this bodes well.

Almost ten years have gone by, but I'm finally reading this to get it going. Beppe is a bit disappointed that getting a telephone and connecting a telly can be so easy in America - like a matador challenging a dairy cow.

I had just began to think that comparing Beppe to Bill Bryson is a bit much, but then it started to hit home. Beppe had just moved to America and needed a credit card, because without one, you are a nobody. You can't do anything. And to get one, they wanted to see how you have handled your previous depts. Except if you have just arrived to America, you haven't had time to owe anybody anything. In year 2000 I didn't have a credit card, I've never needed one. I was going to travel to a vet congress in Las Vegas as the Finnish representative of the International Veterinary Nurses' and Technicians' Association in February 2001, sponsored by Hill's pet food company. I was going to stay a few extra days, which I would pay for myself. I tried to book a cheaper hotel than MGM, where the congress was taking place. I offered to make a money transfer after my reservation, well in advance of my arrival, but "No Madam, we cannot take reservations without a credit card." So, I had to apply for a VISA-card. It took a few weeks and then a got a letter of denial. WHAT??? No explanation. Then I noticed that they had misspelt my family name. That must be the reason, such a person doesn't exist, you can't give her a credit card, fair enough. I was happily calling the credit company telling that they had made a mistake and denied my credit card because they thought I didn't exist. The very bored lady in the other end said that her computer was down, so she could not see my application, but she doubted it was due to wrong name (!). She said she would go through the questions on the phone and tell me if my correct name would make a difference. Name, address, date of birth, single or married...
"Single".
"That't it", she said. Credit card denied.
"WHAT?"
"According to statistics, single people over 26 years are prone not to pay they credit card bills. Male are a higher risk, but age is another factor."
"WHAT?"
"So we are sorry, but we can't accept your application..."
"Are you saying that if I had a no-good husband, I would be a more reliable person?"
"The statistics show... Besides, we have no record of previous loans."
I asked if it made me an unreliable person that I haven't needed a loan. I said I own half of the company I work in. I own half a flat. I own a quarter of a summer cottage. I have money in the bank. Doesn't that matter at all?
"Do you have proof of that?" she asked suspiciously.
"Of course I can get you proof of that, but why didn't you ask it in your application form? You asked if I was married! I only need the bloody card to be able to make a hotel reservation in the US. I can give up the card on my return."
"That won't be necessary, if we accept you."
So I sent them proof and got my Visa-card. I phoned Helsingin Sanomat. A reporter said he had tried to write a story about it when a single female in a high position with Finnair had been declined a credit card, but all the credit company said was that they can't comment on individual cases and denied on being any way biased.
A client of ours had a stud dog by the name of Brig. She opened Brig his own bank account where she deposited all the money he had received for his services. One day Brig got a letter from the bank.
"Dear Brig J----nen,
We have noticed that you do not have a bank card or a credit card and are suggesting..."
Brig's owner was a giggling when she phoned the bank:
"Brig was very glad to get a letter from you, but I am phoning you on his behalf and telling that he does not need a bank or a credit card, because Brig is a dog."
The bank clark said that Brig's assets are ok, it would not have mattered that he is a dog....
So even a DOG could get a credit card, but not a single woman over 26 years!

This is so me:
"What is slightly more embarrassing is the feeling that you don't know how modern life works."
I don't know from where one buys bus tickets today. The last time I embarked a bus in Helsinki the driver still sold tickets, bus asked a puzzling question:
"Inside or outside?"
It was raining, so what came out of my mouth was:
"It's raining, I'd like to be seated inside, please."
I was met by the driver's dull stare and he said very slowly:
"Inside or outside Helsinki?"
Silly me, we don't have double-deckers in Helsinki...
If I go to a phone / net store I have no idea of what the salesperson says when he opens his mouth. It could be Hebrew for all I know. I am very much one of the Flintstones. I still have a cell phone which I bought in the beginning of the century. I can talk and SMS with it. It has a worm-game, but that's it. Until last week we had a landline at work. It worked fine, but the phone company hated it and notified us that they will triple the already high prices from the beginning of March. Eppu-Oskari, our personal contact, phoned and we gave in, on the condition that the old number remains. I said I wanted a simple phone for talking and sendind SMSs. Eppu-Oskari sent me one with net, radio, camera and a torch, which eats its battery in no time. I had asked for an instruction book to follow and Eppu-Oskari promised there will be one. All I got was a booklet with warnings only. "Do not drop from higher that 1,8 m", etc. I could not open the hole for the SIM card. I mailed Eppu-Oskari and told him not to disconnect the landline before we get the new apparatus working. The landline was cut and Eppu-Oskari told me later he didn't think I was serious. However, he had forgotten to connect the old and the new line, so our phone was mute for three hours last Friday...
We still haven't got the promised answer service working. There we also had a gap of generations between Eppu-Oskari and me. He told me that I could either listen the messages or get them by e-mail. I asked what e-mails got to do with answerphone? We want to give our callers a recorded message. Eppu-Oskari asked what service we use now. I said we have a device attached to the phone, we push a button and it records our message. Eppu-Oskari was quiet for a while. Then he said:
"I was born in 1991. I've seen a landline telephone, but I've never seen an answerphone. I've heard about them..." And he works for a phone company! Or worked, for two days I've tried to contact Eppu-Oskari through e-mail and phone. He does not answer. Today I called their general customer service. They can't find Eppu-Oskari either...
This book was first published in 1995, so I wonder what Beppe would write now. He complained that the most basic fax model had a manual of 100 pages. Lucky them, at least they had a manual!
Faxes... I remember entering the wonderful world of veterinary clinics in 1987 and at the same time arrived the first faxes. A lab company organized an joint order for all clinics and got a good discount. It was the wonder of all wonders and fastened the speed of receiving lab results, we got them back the following day.
Sadly time moves on and faxes are history, even we gave up ours several years ago. In private life I still write a lot of snail mail.
I'm glad I didn't read this ten years ago - I wasn't this out of modern world then...

Beppe says Russian tourists have the urge to buy buy buy... everything they see. I remember the time when Russian tourists were few and far in between and could not afford to buy anything. My brother took one to Stockmann in 1980'ies and they happened to walk past the pet department. "I'm envious to your dogs", was all the Russian could say.

Finished, but I still have several things I'd like to comment on, my tablet just keeps overheating. I hope it won't die on me.
A new explanation for the price 9,99$: The uneven sum was originally put there to prevent shop assistants to slip money into their own pockets as they had to give a penny back and were forced to open the till. Well, they could have kept some change in their pockets...
Shopping... I like window shopping, especially in the UK, where window displays are an artform. Over indulgence happens in card shops and tea shops, before bookcrossing it used to happen in sh-bookshops. Since clearing out two households and a summer cottage after the death of aged relatives I've decided not to buy any more things and the decision has hold pretty well. People can actually get by with very little.
Luckily I've never enjoyed buying clothes; I've last bought a t-shirt in summer 2019 and the oldest I still wear will turn 40 this summer...
Those of you who still remember the Yellow Pages might remember that we, too, had coupons there, at least for Hesburger and Pizza Hut. I don't miss the coupons, I miss the Yellow Pages.

Beppe complains about poor seats at the back of an airplane or restaurant for smokers. Ha ha, he didn't see it coming, the ban of smoking in bars, restaurants and planes. I remember when the travel agent (yes, I remember them, the living people) asked "Smoking or non-smoking?" when finding a seat for me in a plane, but was a joke - as if smoke would have known to stay in that area only.
Beppe listed INs and OUTs of 1994, Hillary Clinton was out. If they only had known what her OUT meant 22 years later...
But very soon after, Beppe predicted it: "In Britain, one of the first words children are taught is 'please'. Across the Atlantic, they learn to say: "I'm great." (...)This combination of attitudes, mixing adoration, apprehension and total lack of discipline that ensures American youngsters will grow up as unruly despots with permanent smiles. The thought that sooner or later one of them will make it to the White House..."
Again I'm glad that I didn't read this book ten years ago, because by now I would have forgotten this prophecy.
The president of Finland has actually quite little power and thus can't do anything really stupid on his own. I guess the amount of power was diminished after we had one demented president, just to be on the safe side. It was only after Donald the Great came into power that I realized blue-eyed Americans had been, trusting their president with so much power that he can cripple the whole country and several others if he so wishes. They had obviously trusted that the president of America would always be in his right mind and on top of that, a responsible human being.
If the first election was a show of its own, we had had some foretaste in Europe with the Brexit-voting. A rebelly cry, if you like, but I have to say the election of 2020 was really scary. It was like watching some banana state's election with a disillusioned dictator accusing everybody left, right and centre, telling to stop counting votes right in the middle of things and telling it was a fake election. But the scariest were his followers, bunches of brain-washed, ignorant, fanatical and angry people, like followers of some religious cult or A.Hitler. And up the Hill they went, to take over the Senate. The scary part was to see that even in modern times and in a so called civilized country it is possible to manipulate masses to criminal and violent actions against their own people and how divided the United States are.
The odd thing was that the only opponent he had was an almost has-been 78-year-old politician. Where were the younger and brave?
I wish Americans have learned something of this episode and would gradually lessen the power of one individual, so that the whole world does not need to be on its toes due to a mad tweeter.

The book gets to travel to the winner of February Sweepstakes. She hates books with clichés, sorry about that, but as one of the Flintstones I found this book mostly an amusing read.

I probably won't be travelling to the US a second time, although I now have relatives there, but I am just too old to sit in an airplane almost around the clock. I can always pick up a book and be there, if need be.

Thank you! In travel literature male Bill Bryson wannabes are as abundant as female 50-somethings going to Paris, but let's see if this guy can make it work...

Ok, nope. Read the first 25 pages about furniture and gave up. If I had trouble falling asleep at night I'd go on with this book, but I usually don't, so I'll just move on.

Amusing, though; just last month I read a book about a Finnish couple moving to US and they made dealing with the bureaucracy sound worse than hell, but an Italian thinks it was a breeze! Well, those Finns moved about 5 years ago so they never got to experience the joy of an easy phone installment, that must be it :D

At the meet-up

I took the book, let's see what I will think about it.

Edit 5/2022 I tried to read the book, but this was not my cup of tea. I wasn't captivated, and the font was annoyingly small as well.

Jätin kirjan kaupan eteiseen. Lukuiloa!