First thing I noticed was the sunlight. The sun was still up high and it was 8:00 pm. I’ve been living so long in an equatorial country like the Philippines, and observing the effect of the 23o angle of the axis of rotation of the earth was pretty cool. It is summer time and during these months of the year, the northern hemisphere is receiving a lot of sunlight, and the southern hemisphere should be winter time. In extreme polar regions, up north it is daytime everyday and down south, it is nighttime everyday.
Mama and Papa gave me a warm welcome. Uncle Totoy and Auntie was there and they were cool tool. As we hit the road, the roads were still clean, nearly white. Comparing it to the roads in the Philippines, if they reach one year or more, they start to get dirty, nearly black. Due to combustion exhaust probably. All roads were fast flowing and very wide. So there was no traffic as the traffic you experience in the Philippines. Flyovers are seldom since the volume of vehicles is in correct proportion with the road size, having nearly no traffic at all. I learned that there are also diesel vehicles but are seldom since gasoline stations with diesoline is also seldom. And the major cause of smoke belching in the Philippines is diesel engines not in tip-top shape.
Even aboard the plane, California seemed to have mountainous areas as well as planar areas. And on the road, you will always pass by a hill or two. Inhabited land grows certain shrubs and are a bit far apart, even grass is far apart and they look dry. Unlike in the Philippines, land with nothing is filled with the tall grass Talahib. Plants and trees were also hard to recognize what specie they were.
My global roaming Smart phone got a AT&T Wireless signal and as we kept moving, it occasionally changes to Cingular. Yahoo Messenger was still working well with my roaming phone. Each text message I sent back to the Philippines cost me P15, even for balance inquiry!
One probably reason why the all streets seemed clean is I noticed the soil, it looks sandy and sand is not that soluble in water to you don’t get much mud as you get in the Philippines. The mountainous area I saw over the plane really looks rock hard and topsoil is usually formed by erosion on higher areas that move soil down below. But the mountains here look like they do not have much soil to erode.
Although flies, mosquitoes, spiders and cockroaches seem a lot more seldom here, I’ve seen a few. Flies here are a bit gray with raisin-backs. In the Philippines, although I also see these flies there too, flies in the Philippines are generally smooth and black backs. I haven’t noticed the mosquitoes that much and when I saw one, Mama was trying to kill it right away. I saw a gray walking spider and was wondering what it was doing in the house since I didn’t notice much mosquitoes nor flies that it could eat. The cockroaches I’ve noticed are mostly small and I can’t see their wings and has transparent skin. Maybe I have yet to see the full grown cockroaches and notice the difference. But for sure the flies are different since flies in the Philippines start to die in air conditioned rooms.
Well that’s all for today, other observations on some other post. Got to go back to work.