Monday, April 30, 2012

You must be married

I rented a car once in the US in my name. I was with my partner and I asked if we both needed to show our licences to drive the car. "Are you married?", I was asked. This sounded a rather personal question to an Australian. However, for married couples, the partner did not need to show their licence!

There are not many situations where de facto relationships are treated differently to marriage in Australia. This is not the case in the US.

In fact the term "de facto" is not used in the States at all. (As I type this, my American spell checker underlines those words in red as misspelled words!)

Insurance forms, car rentals, hotel bookings, etc, all assume that if you are together you will be married. You won't see terms like "partner".

When a couple puts in a joint tax return, they put it in as "Married, filling jointly". Quite different from Australia, where "partner" is used (e.g. on the Family Tax Benefit website) to cover both married and de facto couples. The ATO uses "spouse", but defines it to include de factos.

A bigger effect is getting a Visa. Australians can get an employee sponsored E3 visa to live and work in the States. This is better than the H1B visa given to other foreigners because your husband or wife is allowed get an E3D visa and work in any occupation. But if your are de facto, they can't get an E3D. You have to actually have a marriage certificate.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Currency

For a capitalist nation American has a strange relationship with its currency. They have notes and coins that are rarely used. And if you give them anything over a twenty, they'll treat you like a criminal.

I know the 50 cent coin and the $2 note exist, but I've never seen one. What sort of strange conspiracy makes that work? Shop keepers don't get them from the bank, so never give them out as change, so no one ever has one. The same goes for the $1 coin, although I have got some from vending machines occasionally. Meanwhile, my wallet fills with $1 notes.

Schools teach children how to add and give change using pictures of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies - but half dollars, not so much.

And it's not just the small denominations. I once tried to pay a $10 admission fee with a $50 note. The attendant was most put out. She looked at it and huffed and puffed. I think I was meant to react somehow, but I was just surprised by her antics. I mean, her till was full of $10 and $20 notes. It's not like she didn't have any change. She scratched it and held it up to the light before begrudgingly giving me four $10 notes as change.

This is not a once off. Whenever you try and pay with a fifty it will get scratched, because we all know that counterfeiters use ink that just rubs off.

So don't be surprised if you withdraw $500 from an ATM and get a handful of $20 notes. Anything bigger and you'd only have to go inside the bank to change it for notes you could spend.

Traffic Lights

The US has far fewer traffic lights than we have in Australia. OK, not fewer overall, but fewer at each intersection.

In Australia there are always traffic lights facing you on both sides of the intersection. When they are red, you stop the car pretty much level with the lights. This is not the case in the US, and can be quite dangerous for newcomers.

In the US often the only traffic lights are on the far side of the intersection. This can take some getting used to, particularly at night. If you stop level with these lights you end up going through the middle of the intersection and stopping just before you leave it. This is incredibly dangerous and not recommended.

So what should you look for? There are usually pedestrian crossing lines on the road before you enter the intersection. Keep a look out for those and you'll be right.