"WHEN are you going to write about America?" asked the man at the Christmas reception in the Irish Embassy. I thought I had been doing that since I came here blast May.
"No, no. I don't mean the politics and all that," the man said impatiently. "I mean how you find America. Write it before the effect wears off."
So what's America like? Of course, it's different, but how different? The size of the place is staggering. Ireland is about the size of West Virginia, and Texas would swallow that up many times.
Americans are obsessed about weather, but I now see that is because they are all the time in cars and planes. Petrol at a pound a gallon is a big incentive to jump in and drive off somewhere.
Like driving to shopping malls or the Giant or Safeway food stores with sheaves of coupons which give discounts from selected items. Old ladies spend hours hunting down these items to save cents.
Shopping is made so easy even if you haven't any money. Credit cards are used even to buy $10 worth of stamps at the post office. I'm one of the few people still using cash.
I have been turned down three times for a credit card, although hardly a day goes by without invitations to join Visa coming through the letter box. My application goes off to a "customer reporting agency" for a consumer credit report and "regretfully", based on this report, First USA Bank says, "we were not able to approve your request."
The trouble is I have "an insufficient revolving bank trade history". If it is any consolation, an official with the World Bank here who had a letter of recommendation from the bank's director was also turned down for a year before he got his credit card.
American food is mainly "fat-free", according to labels even on chocolate bars, so you should have no trouble staying fit and trim. Wrong. The food is very fattening, and you see the evidence all around you.
There are thin people but they spend a lot of time on treadmills and with devices to "flatten the abs". The other day I saw on TV a dog losing weight on a treadmill in the gym where its owner goes.
Young Americans walk around all the time holding cans and drink cartons. I thought this was a summer phenomenon, but it's still happening.
Americans are extremely polite and don't use bad language. The first time I heard the F word since coming he re was at the Michael Collins film. I felt my American neighbours sitting next to me stiffen.
Volunteering is a way of life here. A lot of local organisations and even prestigious museums like the Smithsonian are so underfunded that they depend on unpaid volunteers to keep going. The annual appeal of the local fire and ambulance service has come in. It is staffed by volunteers and now needs $300,000 for a new fire engine. The local police have asked for volunteers to do some of their paperwork at the station.
In Ireland you get used to Government services running nearly everything out of taxes. Here people don't want federal government interference and run many services their own way.
In the city of Washington, many services are run-down because the council is broke. Some of the potholes are unbelievable until you land in one. And this on streets within sight of the White House.
The advertising is relentless. The amount of paper coming through to middle-class Washington homes is frightening, but then there is a weekly kerbside collection of waste paper and bottles.
They even come and collect your leaves. With all the trees here, disposal of leaves becomes important in the Fall. Raking the yard is good exercise when you haven't a treadmill.
What we call "gardens" the Americans call "yards". Verandas they call "decks". They use words I had never heard of, like "roil", in headlines
You have to get out of the habit of using "lift" and say "elevator", and "restroom" in public places. Tights are "pantyhose" here.
And so on it goes - the subtle and not so subtle cultural differences.
I am still learning.