I thought I smelled Cinnabon..

Every now and then I have these weird "cultural collision" moments - when my home culture and my "adopted home" culture just collide and it leaves me feeling a little off balance.

Sometimes I am almost positive I hear someone speaking English, even when the only folks around me are clearly not English speakers. Like I'll hear something that sounds JUST like, "see you later today". But then I look in the direction of the voices and see two older Asian women sitting on the curb chatting away in nearly unintelligible Chinese. Who knows what they are saying, but it clearly isn''t "see you later today".

I hear my name occasionally too. Which is even funnier if you know that my name is really hard for Chinese people to say. So, if people who are intentionally trying to pronounce my name can't get it right, what are the chances that I would be walking down the street and hear someone holler, "Laura"... ? Still, when I hear something that sounds like my name, I turn my head and look to see who is calling me.....

It's not just language that "collides" either. I was out this morning, walking down the street and minding my own business when I got a wonderful whiff of Cinnabon... you know what I'm talking about? That store in the mall that sells cinnamon rolls? Nevermind that Cinnabon has not "gone international" and opened a retail store in my town. In fact, I would say the chances of that happening fit squarely into the "slim to none" category. But, for the briefest instant I really thought, "hmm, I didn't know they had a Cinnabon here" - then my brain snapped back into reality and I realized that Cinnabon WASN'T here. And it never would be.

Which brings me to my last thought on this topic: There is this one park in town with a PERFECT location for a Panera. In fact, one day I was ALMOST POSTIVE that I saw the Panera logo on the side of the building :)