Things I have learnt...

We're fifteen months in and the things that seemed strange and exotic and alien when we arrived here, now seem everyday and normal. Ladies and Gents, this is Cambridge.

Bureaucracy
The advertisements claim that America runs on Dunkin Donuts. This is a lie. America runs on paperwork. The dance of bureaucracy is an essential part of the etiquette of New England society: efficiency and effectiveness are secondary to politeness and paperwork.

Eating and drinking:
Grilled food is barbecued  braised food is grilled, an entree is a main course, and pudding is sloppy because everything else is dessert. Candy is sweeties, cookies are biscuits, biscuits are savory scones, and - errr - scones are something else. You buy your meat and veg in the supermarket, your wine in the liquor store, and everything else in a drug store or TJ Maxx. Coffee is an industry to itself: even the local corner store will have at least 5 types of fresh roasted beans and a machine which lets you grind your beans according to your personal preference.

And a word of caution: following Prohibition, the Massachusetts bureaucrats (forefathers, I am sure, of our own administrators) decided that alcohol content should not be listed on the packaging of alcoholic drinks. Beer ranges in strength from 4.5% to 9%. There is no culture of binge-drinking, no headlines on how the French are better at drinking than us, and no culture of not drinking and driving. Deaths from sclerosis of the liver or bingeing on a Saturday night are rare, deaths from drunken driving are just another column in the local news.

Education:
Children climb aboard the big yellow Thomas school  buses from the age of 5. Education is called schooling and there are a huge amount of schools out there. Children attend elementary school from 5-11, then graduate and go to middle school (which is now called Upper School because the administrators decided that this sounded better). At 14 they graduate, and go to high school. Most children graduate from high school at 18 and then go to school (which is just called 'school', to distinguish it presumably from the other variants of school although we would call it university in England). After 4 years of general study at (university) school, the students decide to specialize in a certain field and begin 'grad school'. It seems, therefore, that the youth of America don't need to decide what they want to be until they are at least in their mid-twenties (which is fine by me, as I'm nearly forty and still not quite sure).

And throughout one's schooling there remain plenty of opportunities to change one's mind over what one wants to be. The pediatric surgeon who nearly treated Maya had completed a PhD in Philosophy 2 years previously. He had then decided to go into Medicine because, in his words, it had good prospects. As parents, we felt that the prospect of Maya having two fully functioning legs was more important than the prospect of thinking about having two legs, so we decided to go with a more experienced surgeon. You can make choices like that when you are buying your surgeon.

American children seem to have lots of fun at school. They learn to salute the flag, play basketball, make music, read books, and - in Maya's case - work out a solution for peace in Syria. There are no national standards, no national curricula, and teachers are trusted to be professionals (and have to work for at least five years after qualifying before attaining their 'professional licence' - similar to a realtor really).

Emergency services:
Fireman are sacred, cops are right, and ambulances are privately run. In case of emergency, you call 911 and in a matter of minutes, a fire engine, a cop car and a private ambulance or two will squeal to a halt (the first ambulance on the scene will get the fare). The firemen (always men, though I'm not sure why) are there to assess the situation, the cops are there to make sure that everyone does what the firemen tell them, and the ambulance will sit you down and ask you which hospital you would like to go to, because the fare you will be charged is dependent upon the mileage. If you have a child with you, the cop and the fireman will probably give you a teddy bear. The teddy bear is free.

Cops carry guns and have a massive amount of authority (a fact towards which members of the National Rifle Association openly aspire).

Environment:
Houses are made from wood, schools are built from breezeblocks, sidewalks are brick. Every street in Cambridge is lined with trees and electricity wires. Local children are taught to never touch fallen wires or branches. Some states have problems with poisonous snakes or crocodiles. In New England, we have problems with electricity.

Recycling is something new. On a Sunday, people put out any things that they don't want any more but which they think might be useful to other people. Depending on who you talk to, this is called 'recycling', 'charity' or 'skip-dipping' and is a tradition of the area. On Monday morning, a few local characters rifle through the recycling bins that have been put out by the kerbs. They will take the bottles to the local supermarket and trade them in for a few cents a piece. This is a tradition of the area. Later in the afternoon, a man and a woman with physiques that you might use to advertise the positive benefits of steroid abuse race their private dustcart along the neighboring roads (imagine a cross between Benny Hill and Action Man). They empty the bins and take the recycling to be recycled elsewhere. This is new and looked upon with suspicion.

Most houses are poorly insulated, it is seen as impractical to cut one's engine because one's car is parked, advertisements boast about new eco-cars which can get as much as 18 mpg, and global warming is accepted as the 'new normal': many people are pleased that they don't need to jet out to Florida anymore to see the winter sun.

Society:
Taxes are low, philanthropy is big. My telephone rings each evening with calls from overseas agencies which strive to persuade me to support local charities.

Spelling:
In an attempt to simplify the English language (which isn't, in itself, a necessarily bad thing), complex spellings have been abandoned, most word endings have been dropped, and there is a commitment to phonics which would make a Welshman proud.

Sport:
Hockey is played on ice; football is played with shoulder pads; church is an outing but baseball is sacred. In New England, sport is a family affair which always begins with a rousing chorus of the national anthem and is filled with Redbones barbecue, live bands, and cheerleaders. It doesn't matter if you don't really know what is going on as most sports have few rules. There is nothing like cricket.

Transport:
There is a widely held belief that one is only safe in a car.

While it is a legal requirement to stop at cross walks, most drivers find that speeding towards pedestrians means that they get out of one's way. I have been harangued by drivers for putting my children at risk because I have been walking.

There are cycle lanes in Cambridge but they rarely meet up with one another. Car drivers sometimes move out when they pass a cycle, but normally don't. I have been harangued by drivers for putting my children at risk because I have been cycling.

There is a complicated arrangement of buses and an assortment of private subway companies which operate different colored subway lines around the area. Recently, the driver of one of the subway lines accelerated rather than decelerated as he came into the subway station and thirty-seven people had to go to hospital. I have harangued myself for putting my children at risk because of travelling by public transport.

Wherever you live in the city, however, you will see very large trucks squeezing down very small roads. It's just a question of respect, politeness and bloody minded determination. They teach different laws of physics in the schools of America.