It's the little differences

Everything that had lemon in it in the States has been replaced here by lime. Nestea, detergent, lemon-aid! And most people here think that lemons are limes, because there's no lemons here (in spanish, lime is called limon.)
I have no idea why it should need it, but a lot of people squirt ketchup on their pizza. Why not put some eazy-cheese on it too, and croutons! That spells Yum.
They love mayonaise here. You'd think that mayonaise instead of butter on corn-on-the-cob would be nasty as sin... but after they roll it in crumbled cheese and put a little pica on it, it's fucking tasty as sin.

Everything here is guarded by riot-police types, not just banks but supermarkets, malls, english schools (mine), random sidewalk corners, dog poop, perhaps even shrubbery. And they have a crazy aresenal. sawed-off shotguns, snub nosed sub-machine guns and automatic rifles. What the hell good is a shotgun in a crowded supermarket? You might keep the criminals from swooping your loot, but you're gonna kill all your staff and customers in the process. Dick Cheney, anyone? I'd actually be surprised if any of these kids actually knew how to fire their toys. They aren't even standing on-guard most of the time! Half the time they're aimlessly pointing it, finger on the trigger, like a closed umbrella on a sunny day, and the other half they're leaning the butt on their hip and pointing the business end in the general direction of everyone. I wouldn't be surprised to see them scratching their noses with the end that you really don't want to do that with, would even welcome it. Once Gaby and I were taking a sharp corner on the sidewalk and she came nearly point-blank with this cops's hand cannon. If he had decided to sneeze in that exact moment... well I guess she wouldn't have been much of a talker after that . People like that should have their arms ripped off.

Instead of having a variety of everything in each shopping district, having electronics, clothes, tools, furniture, all together each trade having a shop or maybe two, the custom here has been to have all the vendors for a particular trade together in one place. For example all the places that sell sports equiptment are in one location and all the places that sell... say, computers they all have their own block too. So if you want to buy a toilet you'll be able to find that same toilet from umpteen different retailers all at once and you can get the best deal. They place more importance on value than on convenience, I like that. They also have the typical malls that sell everything together and Wal-Mart and yadayadyada, but that's all foreign influence. I happen to live near what seems to be the wedding dress district (I've seem more wedding dresses than Liz Taylor could try on.) Yikes.