> You're driving along Sacramento, having passed the line that said "Welcome to Sacramento, elevation something big" hundreds of miles ago. You're not quite sure what the fascination is with elevation, or even at what point they measure it. Maryam is seated in front of you, and she thinks it's City Hall. You're inclined to agree, because it seems more likely than McDonalds.

For most cities, I would guess that either City Hall or the airport seems likely. Why the airport? It just seems to make sense to me that elevation would be measured at the same place the weather would be measured.

> You pass a sign pointing the direction to J Street. Odd. J Street is a very boring name. Maybe it's an abbreviation, you think. You're wrong. P Street looms, quickly followed by Q. A little later you pass X.
>
> You make a note to talk about it in a Forum post, but don't quite realise that you haven't got anything to talk about. When writing it up a few hours later, you reach the end and realise that it's just a formless blob of cultural difference (which you typoed cidderence) which won't raise much of an eyebrow.

In northern Portland, the helpful names are generally more interesting. They start at Ankeny, which is one street south of Burnside. The next street north is a street beginning with "C" (can't remember its name). See a pattern?

> "You know on your little island, do you have hospitals?"
> "Do you have modern medicine too?"
> "Do you get bands? You know, like music?"

Heh. There are people who don't know of any British bands?

> More cultural differences. I've noticed that Americans tend to issue directions as orders, while normal people give them as information. Example,
>
> "Go to the traffic lights and turn left, then it's the second right and it's on the right." - British
> "You go to the traffic lights and turn left, then you take the second right and it's on the right." - New Zealanderish (ta, BG)
> "You're going to go up the the stop sign and make a left, then you're going to take the second right and you're going to stop on the right." - American
>
> It strikes me as odd. BG suggested that it might actually be really friendly, as if reinforcing the inherent correctness of the driver, who really knows which way to go and is just relying on you to positively assert their decisions.

Lucky "Personally, I (an American) usually give directions in the way you described as British..." Wizard