英会話に関する情報を提供しています。

★新鮮な捕れたてエビのチャーハン


　 Finally, I arrived at Susan's house in North Carolina! After a warm welcome, I had a lovely dinner, then a shower, and then I slept in a beautiful bedroom, which Susan used to use.

　 All these may seem like just ordinary day-to-day activities to you, but they weren't. Not a bit!

Firstly, I was so impressed with the fried rice and shrimp that Susan's mother cooked. I was wolfing down my food, and Susan's parents were amazed at how a small girl like me (only 155 centimeters tall) could eat so much. But the food on the plane hadn't been particularly tasty, and I didn't know how to ask the flight attendant for more servings in English.
　 ""I love shrimp!'' I said, making an excuse for eating so much. Susan's mother explained that Susan's father had caught them that morning. ""For real? Is he a fisherman?'' I asked. He was, in fact, a high-school teacher, but during the summer vacation, he regularly went to the sea to catch shrimp. During my stay, I went on his boat with him twice! (Not that I helped him catch the shrimp though ...)
When I had finished eating, Susan's mother showed me to a shower. Their house is only one story, but there were so many bedrooms and showers. I had one all to myself. But I had no idea why the shower was inside the bathtub. I stood there for a while, confused, not knowing what to do. In Japan, at least back then, the shower was always outside the bathtub.
　
★ベッドもテレビも洗濯機もとにかくデカイ
　 Next, I went to Susan's room, and was so impressed by the size of her queen-size bed that I was tempted to jump on it like it was a trampoline.

　 Susan's parents took me to many places. Everywhere we'd go, they would repeat with amazement, ""How did you get here all alone?'' What they meant, perhaps, is not how I managed to come to the States alone so young, but how I managed to fly all the way from Japan with so little English.

For the whole two weeks, I was thrilled by the grandness of everything: the landscape, the beaches, the grocery shops, etc. I thought to myself: ""This is America!''

Even the house was full of surprises: There were more than 50 channels on TV; the size of the laundry machine was twice as big as the one at home, and plus, they don't hang their laundry out to dry, but dry them in driers with sheets of a paper-like substance that make the clothes smell nice. When we ate out after Sunday church services, the portions served were three times larger than in Japan.

All those things that were ordinary to Americans blew me away completely and the two weeks at Susan's went flying passed.