Our ING Direct soccer team had to play against Bank of America on Saturday evening. On the road towards the game I realized that I am actually a little Americanized, because it was more then an hour to drive which is long for a 50-minute soccer game, but I thought it wasn’t that weird. Unfortunately, we lost, basically due to our chaotic strategy… I still have to get used to the ‘American Football’ strategy (run towards the ball, no matter what), the mandatory shin protectors for indoor (where sliding is prohibited) and the indoor field which is round, like a Ice Hockey Field).
While driving home, I was on a road of which I thought the speed limit was way too low... until I crashed into a huge water pool – so big you could sail in it. This was a good test for my new car, only two wheel covers were damaged. After the car was done recovering from his swim, I realized that it’s kind of strange how bad the road maintenance is in this country. It is the richest country in the world, and almost everyone has a car (I have seen how difficult it is to live without a car here!), but one of the first thing you will notice when you arrive in this country is the bad road maintenance – holes everywhere. It differs from state to state (like I said: the US consists of 50 countries, but the 11 states I have driven trough barely had any good roads. Last week I was in a traffic jam towards work (which is an exception) which was caused by remainders of a car accident … but the cops and involved cars were long gone. Some parts were moved to the crash barrier (under which the entire bumper) but many parts just lay on the road. I understand that it must be difficult because the country is extremely big and on some point ‘empty’, but lives are at stake… however, this keeps the taxes down. And I’ll try to stick to the speed limits!
The next road is well maintained:
