5 Favorite Things About The US

Hello and welcome back to “Stories from the West” series. I’m doing this project with Dixie and every month we are sharing 1 post about lives in our respective new countries; me in the US, Dixie in Sweden. Can’t believe that this is the 12th post on this series already! Anyway, this month’s topic is about favorite things in our respective countries. Enjoy and don’t forget to read Dixie’s post too! 🙂

Now that I have been living in the US for almost two years, I can say that I made the right choice moving here – although the journey has not been easy, but I did discover a couple of favorite things along the way.

The Nature

The US is beautiful and I love how I can easily be out in nature only with a short drive from my house. The system takes good care of the nature here and they make it easy for us to visit. We have national parks in the US and they are managed carefully, some required an admission fee and some don’t. So far I have only been to three national parks here (Sequoia, Zion, and Joshua Tree) but all of them are breathtakingly beautiful and well managed. My favorite so far is Sequoia National Park, it’s an easy drive from Los Angeles and perfect for a weekend getaway.

The Entertainment

Well, what can I say about the entertainment here in the US? I guess everybody knows that the US is the capital of entertainment and I live right in the middle of it, in Los Angeles. Living in LA has been great to satisfy my crave of entertainment – there’s always something for everyone, everyday! During the first few months here, I was shocked to see the entertainment calendar – how it was filled by concerts of artists I’m familiar with almost every night! You know how I love concerts and if possible, I would go out every night and watch each one of them haha. So far I have ticked some items off my bucket list in terms of “must-see concerts”… including Justin Timberlake my childhood crush 😀

The Fact that It’s So Easy to Get Food From All Around The World ….

…especially Asian food. Having lived in the UK previously, I remember how hard it was for me to get proper Asian food. Indonesian food? just forget it, I think there’s only 1 Indonesian restaurant in London and nothing at all in Bournemouth, where I lived. Here in greater Los Angeles there are a couple of Indonesian restaurants including a food court with only Indonesian Food stalls! and there’s also 3 Indonesian restaurants nearby UCLA where I go to school… can you imagine, three?! I even had this moment where I got off school and went to one of the restaurants to eat soto mie, as if I was in college in Indonesia hahaha. But anyway, it’s super easy to get international food here, including the ones that I was not familiar with before.

The Theme Parks

I live 20 minutes away from Disneyland California, about an hour from Universal Studios Hollywood, and 1,5 hours from Legoland. Need I say more? hehehehe. I love theme parks so I have and I love the abundance of theme parks in the US. I guess theme parks is a big industry here and they go all out, giving customers a different level of experience with every visit. For example, I just went to Universal Studios horror nights last month and it was so entertaining!

The Holidays

Americans love their holidays. There’s a holiday for every season, but we are now approaching my favorite one – year end holiday! November is the month of Thanksgiving, a holiday very much similar to Lebaran in Indonesia, where everybody would gather with their families to have a meal – lots of them! Anyway when it comes to celebrating the holiday season, people here like to go all out. Decorations, food, gatherings, all so festive and celebratory. Oh, can I ask what’s your favorite holiday? mine is Christmas! Well, you know why, right? 😛

So that’s 5 of my favorite things in the US. There are more, but let’s stick to five for now. Now I’d love to hear your favorite things from the country you are living in. Please share it in the comment section below 🙂