This Week in America - When Things That Felt Strange Start to Feel Normal

What feels “normal” when you live in another country… isn’t always what you expect.

In this week’s episode of This Week in America, I found myself in two very different situations — standing beneath a Saturn V rocket that took people to the Moon… and sitting in a safe room at midnight during a tornado warning.

And somehow… both felt like just another part of the week.

That’s the shift you don’t really see coming when you move overseas.
Not the big differences — but the small, gradual ones.
The way unfamiliar things become familiar… and familiar things start to feel distant.

From extreme Tennessee weather swings…
to unexpected language overlaps like “reckon”…
to walking through American space history in Huntsville…
to spotting Australian lamb in a Costco aisle…

This episode is a quiet reflection on what changes… what stays the same…
 and how living between two countries reshapes your sense of normal.

There’s also a bit of sport, a bit of Buc-ee’s, and a reminder that some parts of home never really leave you — they just show up differently.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

You better take cover. This week had two very different moments. One where we were standing underneath a rocket that took people to the moon. And another where we were sitting downstairs close to midnight waiting out a tornado warning. And both of them felt completely normal in the moment. I don't think that's something I would have expected when I first moved here. That something like that would just become part of the week. When you first arrive somewhere new, everything stands out. The way people speak, the way things are done, the way everyday interactions happen, you notice all of it. You're constantly comparing it to what you're used to. And in those early months, you feel very aware that you're somewhere different. But over time, that awareness softens. And it's not all at once, it's just gradually. You stop questioning as much. Things that once felt unusual start to feel expected. And you don't really notice that shift happening. It just sort of creeps up on you. Until you get a week like I just had, where a few moments line up. And then you step back for a sec and you see it again from the outside. We had our first tornado warning of the season the other night, and it came through late, around midnight. There's something about that time of night that really changes everything. The house is quiet, the day's already finished, everyone's settled, kids are asleep. And then suddenly you're waking them up. That's not in a panic, but not casually either. There's a tone to it. You keep your voice steady. You don't over-explain. You just say, Alright, guys, let's head downstairs. We've done it plenty of times before. They know where to go, they know what to do. And that's probably the part that would have surprised me most years ago. Just how quickly something like that becomes familiar. We went down into the safe room, got everyone settled, turned on the live coverage, and that's another thing. You don't just hear about it, you watch it in real time. You see the storm moving across the map, you hear the updates, you listen for names of places and streets, areas nearby. You can actually track where the funnel is, and you're just waiting. Not panicking, but you're not relaxed either. You're just very aware of what's going on. Now the other night, even the cat came down with us. Blueie, he was walking between the girls, stopping near him, moving around the room, kind of like he was checking on everyone, making sure everyone was okay. In that moment, everything kind of slows down a bit. Now it didn't last long, and they usually don't. They move really fast. Got everyone back upstairs, back into bed, and within half an hour or so, the house was quiet again. Lights off, back to normal. Just another part of life here. What made it even stranger this time was that just two days before it, I was outside in shorts. Just a normal warm day in the south. Nothing unusual. Sunday, warm weather. Then Sunday night, tornado warning, cold front moving in, and Monday, snow and ice. And it's not even treated as particularly dramatic. It's just the weather. Tennessee doesn't really ease you into anything. It just changes its mind. People here, well, you just adjust. There's no big reaction to it. You check the forecast, you plan around it, and you carry on. Someone mentioned in the comments recently that the word reckon is used a lot around here, in this part of America, in the South. And that made me pause a bit. Because it's such a normal word back home. It's one of those words that you don't even think about. I reckon. It just comes out naturally. But then to hear it here in a completely different part of the world, used in a similar way, it's one of those small moments where something lines up unexpectedly. Now it's when you realize not everything is as different as it first seemed. There are these quiet overlaps, shared language, shared ways of expressing things. And then there are other moments, like the other night, where you realize just how different things can be. So we drove down to Huntsville, Alabama recently and took the girls down to the NASA Space Museum, and you walk in, and there it is. A Saturn V rocket. It's hard to explain the scale of this thing until you're standing underneath it. It just keeps going, section after section, stage after stage, and you realize this is what took people to the moon. This enormous, almost impossible looking thing was built, assembled, and launched by people. And there are families just walking around it, kids running past, people stopping for photos. And it's not treated like something distant or untouchable. It's just there, part of where you are. Now I've been to Mission Control in Houston, Cape Canaveral in Florida, and now to Huntsville, where they built the rocket that led to that one small step for man. Living here, you don't just learn about history, you sort of live around it. It exists in real places. Places you can drive to, places you can walk through. And over time, even something like that just becomes part of your surroundings. And for those keeping track, yes, there was a Bucky's on the way home, which of course we stopped at. Teriaki Jerky, once again. We stopped at Costco the other day as well, and I realized something had flipped. As we used to go to Costco in Canberra all the time, and we get excited about American products, things that we didn't normally see, different brands, different packaging, cases of Bubweiser. It felt new, but now we're in Tennessee, and it's the Aussie lamb that really stands out. That's the thing that catches my eye and feels familiar. It's kind of a strange feeling standing in an American warehouse and recognizing something from home as a thing that feels different. Australia played Japan in the final of the Women's Asian Cup a few weeks ago. It was a 6 a.m. start here in Nashville. And I remember trying to work out how to watch it, which turned out to be a bit more complicated than I expected. Subscriptions, different platforms, trying to figure out where it's actually available. And back home, it'd just be on. You wouldn't really think about it. It would just be part of the day. I was up for it. I always like seeing the Tans walk out. Hearing the anthem, there's something about that moment that just makes you feel Australian. And I could talk about those moments for hours, games that I remember watching where everything shifted in a few moments. Aloisi's penalty against Uruguay, Cahill's goal against Japan in Kaiserslautern, and those moments stay with you. And what I've realized living over here is they don't go away. They just feel a bit more personal, a bit quieter, I guess a bit more yours. I've noticed something else over time too, that people that I tend to connect with here often aren't from here either. Different countries, different backgrounds. There's a shared understanding. People who've had to adjust, people who've had to learn a place rather than just grow up inside it. And maybe that's the part of it too. Living here changes a lot of things. What feels normal, what stands out, even what feels familiar. But every now and then something happens, and you realize that part of you hasn't really gone anywhere. It just shows up a bit differently now. That was this week in America. You better take cover.