differences

One of the French ladies at work gave me some french candy: Krema. Krema batna has a picture of a leopard on front and is licorice flavored. Krema regalad has a lemon and is lemon flavored. I imagine that krema caramel is caramel flavored, it only has a decorative swoosh for a picture.

I tried the cat one first, because i was curious if it was cat flavored. I asked the lady who gave it to me, and she said she didn't know the word in english. alta vista doesn't recognize batna as a word. so, i stick the candy in my mouth. turns out it'd licorice flavored, but not in a bad way. it was actually pretty good, mild and the candy itself is a bit creamy, like a white rabbit candy (but not nearly as sweet). i'm eating this candy and the candy giver comes up to me with her french-british dictionary and shows me the word. she doesn't know what it is. and in her dictionary they've somehow inserted a q into the word licorice. liquorish? something like that. so we all learn a new word for the day and i start thinking about acculuration. She's been living in America for at least 4 years. she obviously likes this candy. you'd think after a little while you'd want to find something American that was similar. And after I told her a little about licorice, she didn't seem any more familiar with the concept. i'm still a bit perplexed.

Last week when I bought my regular priced peeps doll, i brought it back to the office, very proud of myself. and, like no one knew what it was. In America they've had peeps for 50 years. It's something I take for granted that everyone knows, like baseball and apple pie. So i spent a few minutes explaining to half my department what peeps were. but really, how do you effectively describe them: they're marshmallow, covered in colored sugar and in the shape of bunnies and chicks. and they're cute. so when this year they started with the merchandising for the first time ever i was very excited. no I don't even really like eating them, the sugar crunches too much--not very effective if you don't share the same background.

yesterday i went to target, mostly unsuccessfully, trying to buy peeps dolls for half off. So I pass by the $1 section and I see a bunch of crap. and in that crap there are off brand post-it notes in the shape of a computer. and written on the screen is "luv 2 blog."

hmm, i think, and almost pick the things up until i realize that they are horrible and i think about blogs too much. but i know there is a whole army of early teen aged girls who own these post-its and use them and give them to their friends who also blog. it kinda creeps me out.

then I get all excited because they actually have the blue icee (apparently it's shark tale themed). and my co worker, who did not move to America until she was fully grown was shocked that i liked them. Her daugher wanted one last week (probably because of the color she deduces) but tasted it and hated it. so she tasted it and thought it tasted like chlorine. Apparently until last week this 34 year old had never had a blue icee! this is not really a concept I can fathom. I didn't get a chance to quiz her on her icee habits in general. so she asked me what it tasted like, and I know it's called blue raspberry, but that's a completely fake flavor and it just tastes blue, but really, it tastes like my childhood.