The difference between Texas and Iowa

Well since Texas and Iowa are part of the same country there probably shouldn't be a whole lot of difference.  We haven't been here a long time...only a few months but for all of us the biggest issue here in Texas is the driving.  I have never seen such awful drivers.  Iowans are cautious drivers and are very aware of the laws of the road and they are followed.  Texas, not so much.  Honestly, if I don't see an ambulance and police car at an accident at least once a day I would think something was wrong. 

Can you imagine what that's like for a mother of two 16 year olds driving?  Although my kids have both recognized that the drivers here are pretty much awful it still worries me. 

Mostly the driving issues are that they just do stupid things.  There are rules to the road, people!  You cannot make a two way stop into a four way stop.  It just doesn't work that way. 

We also are realizing that we more like the minority in Texas.  Everyone seems to be of Hispanic descent.  You don't need to speak English in Houston.  It kind of makes me feel like I'm in another country.  Some billboards are in Spanish only where everything else is at least in English/Spanish.  Even announcements on the intercoms in the stores are often times in English and then Spanish. 

The grocery stores here in Houston carry a large array of Hispanic foods that you would find common place in Mexico.  In Iowa you certainly cannot buy banana leaves in bulk at the local grocery store.   Also in Iowa when you went to a Mexican restuarant you almost always got your food in flour tortillas but I don't think flour tortillas are traditional in all Mexican foods because most of the Mexican food we eat here seems to be in corn tortillas.  I don't like corn tortillas by the way.

We are quite thrilled to learn that Dr Pepper is common like Coke here.  Ordering Dr Pepper at a restuarant in Iowa was hit and miss.  Here, it's always served.  Makes the Fairchild girls very happy.

Then there are the shopping carts.  They are carts, ok?  Shopping carts!  No, not in Texas.  They are buggies.  That drives me crazy.  It's a stupid word.

I'm sure there are more differences that we have not realized yet.  Just more to discover I guess!