I may carry the same passport, but when it comes to the mundane aspects of East Coast living, my two decades plus of California culture have branded me a true outsider.

I was the one wearing sweaters all summer. I was the one in Wegmans desperately looking for Best Foods mayonnaise. I was the one driving up and down Erie looking for Carl’s Jr. I was the one who held up the tollbooth line not understanding the E-Z Pass lane. And most recently, I was and still am the one touching the snow and making snowballs every time there is a hint of powder.

Yes, that’s me — the crazy Californian, even though I never associated with the stereotype until I set foot in Syracuse.

Before I left Los Angeles, everyone overemphasized how cold I would be, recommending Columbia jackets and silk underwear. Thus, I packed five suitcases of sweaters and landed in Syracuse in June, with rivers of sweat coming out pores I never knew existed.

Humidity.

Sure, in California, especially in “The Valley” (yes, there really is a “valley”) where I worked, summer temperatures were often more than 100 degrees. But it was dry heat. The moisture here caused me to “glisten” so much that strangers actually asked if I was OK.

Then autumn came. I had read about seasons in books, but never experienced them. I quickly grew obsessed with fall foliage, driving around Onondaga Lake with no destination, simply to look at leaves.

Along with the weather came the whole fall spirit, with cornstalks and pumpkins. When I told my mom I bought a gallon of apple cider, she was shocked. To us, apple cider only came in powder form.

Throughout summer and fall, I had already inundated my friends with annoying questions about snow life. They warned me that after Halloween, snow was fair game. Sure enough, on Nov. 1, I stood outside on my cell phone, calling every one I could and screaming, “Ice is falling from the sky!”

I had seen snow before, but never in such large flakes like cotton balls floating through the air.

Soon my friends faced even more annoying questions. What’s a flurry? How do I prepare my car for snow? What kind of boots do I need?

Question after question has pegged me the true weather outsider. But climate is not the only reason people keep telling me I act like a foreigner.

Food has been another culprit. My familiar Best Foods mayo is called Hellman’s on the East Coast, and Dreyer’s Ice Cream is Edy’s. Same packaging, same product, different name, just to confuse a poor California girl.

Popular fast food establishments are not only missing, but so are their pop culture infusing commercials like Carl’s Jr.’s Six Dollar Burger for $3.95 and Jack in the Box’s antennae balls on almost every car, as well as the popular songs of its boy band, the Meaty Cheesy Boys.

On the roads, I still struggle to not call the highways “freeways,” to drive in the right lane when I am not passing, to look for my exit by number instead of name and to wait patiently at the stoplights without sensors to turn the light green when no one is going the other way.

I came to the East Coast to experience a different culture, but I never expected such everyday things as food, weather and roads to be my greatest sources of shock.

Perhaps it is a good thing, indicating that the bigger things that do matter are the same coast to coast.

Rachel Chang is a graduate student in the magazine, newspaper and online journalism program. E-mail her at rschang@syr.edu.

Published on December 3, 2002 at 12:00 pm