I'd always imagined that the United States would look somewhat... different. A little more gritty than real life, a little more colour saturated, a litle more exciting. Kind of like living in an episode of the Banana Splits or the Beastie Boys video for "Sabotage". I thought it'd be jiving on the street corner with a gang in no time, yelling out "Fo' sho' Mofo!" and popping a cap in someones ass, or at the very least being asked to appear on LOST to make up for all the rubbish Australian accents they've had so far...
Its not really like that though, real life in America is very much like real life in Australia. Okay, theres a few obvious differences. For starters, the cars are WAY cooler over here. Where we have Magna's, Commodores and Falcons they have Mustangs, Chargers, Magnums, Flambangoes and Lincoln Town Cars . Those last ones are perhaps my favourite - not because they're amazingly cool or anything, but they're the car of coice for United States police forces... watching them cruise around Waikiki really WAS for a few short moments like being on the set of the Blues Brothers or Die Hard. American Cop cars LOOK like they mean business - even when the drivers are cruising past, 
one arm out the window and the other holding a donut - these are cop cars you dont want to mess with. They install fear with a single "WHOOP" at any and all hours of the day and everyone watches their step when they're around, and whoo boy - if they catch you driving a Flambango...
As for Waikiki - now that we're leaving I can say I liked it. Its like a great big happy version of Surfers Paridise that's about the same size and also about as happy. Lots of food, lots of shops and lots of boob jobs (not that I noticed, Lib just happened to mention it in passing... ahem). I feel that when we come back we'll need to explore other sides to the island, there must be more to it than just walking around smelling burgers and tanning oil and trying not to notice the boob jobs the whole time.
