But enough about work. I do have some stories tucked away. Take my roommate, for example, who tried to get me fired because he wanted my position x). But let's change the subject to something more cheerful. It's time to talk about daily life and travel. Let's start with the "debts." I already mentioned the operating hours of local establishments, right? Well, let's expand on that. In New York, they close very early by our standards. It's especially bad on weekends—on Saturdays and Sundays, even tourist spots are often closed, how is that possible?! What a disappointment it was when I realized that tours of Buffalo City Hall are only held on weekdays during business hours. And when I decided to pop into a mall on the way from Buffalo, it turned out it closed at eight! Help! Many eateries close even earlier. That's New York State for you. That very unfortunate mall I also mentioned that you can survive in America without knowing English. That's true. Even at my job, I had colleagues who only spoke Spanish. And living under the same roof as me was a J-1 student from China who knew almost nothing at the start of the program! I already said that technology makes everything too easy, right? Anyway, if you lose your memory and forget English, no worries, you have Google Translate! Seriously, it translates from Chinese quite decently, tested x). However, don't count on it. First, because of this, you'll have a much smaller choice of jobs, and as I said, working with Americans is not scary and even fun, and second, it will be much harder for you to find friends among the locals. I also promised to talk about accents. With Spanish, by the way, everything is much easier. I had problems with African American Vernacular English until the very end; even one American said in conversation that he doesn't always understand it either. But I got used to the supervisor with a Spanish accent by the second day. Latinos, by the way, are even more sociable than regular Americans, don't be afraid of them either x). Essentially, it all comes down to how clearly the person speaks. I sometimes worried that I didn't understand the person on the first try, but then I remembered—in Russia, it often happens that someone doesn't hear someone else, right? So, don't worry more than necessary. Okay, moving on. Now about... Deception in supermarkets! Okay, deception is a strong word, but there is something you should know. American stores often have promotions, but they are cleverly disguised. You see, if a price tag promises you a lower price when buying multiple units of an item, it doesn't always mean you actually need to buy multiple products. It's easy to check—go to the checkout, and if the price per unit is lower than usual, you've found such an example! There were two variations in New York: "Y/X$" and "Y for X$" (X is the price, Y is the quantity), and if I'm not mistaken, in the first case, the price didn't depend on the quantity, it was just a discount. Moving smoothly to food. By the way, many people worry that they will gain weight in America. Not at all! I can't recommend my diet, as on workdays I often ate twice a day (since I almost never took anything with me to work), but combined with physically demanding work, I lost about 10 kg this summer. I ate quite budget-friendly: grains, pasta, sausages, potatoes; when I had money, I included meat in my diet. I recommend a pack of 12 chicken legs, especially on sale x). Except for breakfast, I almost splurged: I made a kind of variation of overnight oats, consisting of the porridge itself, yogurt, and a banana. It came out to about 1-2$ per breakfast. Oh, yes, sometimes laziness might get to you, and you'll go buy ready-made semi-finished products. I mainly did this with 1$ pizza, but I didn't overdo it. I also tried buying noodles from Dollar Tree but... I've never had such a strong allergy as then... Walmart is a model of a good supermarket, but getting there by public transport is a bit expensive But
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