Everything is backwards.

There is ALWAYS something about this country that boggles my mind. Here are a few of the latest:

The temperature is reported in Celsius. Distance is measured in kilometers. Height is measured in meters. And weight is measured in...pounds.

In the United States (which I must call it because I got corrected for referring to it as America...as someone pointed out, I currently live in America...Central America), we would write the number two thousand five hundred as... 2,500. In El Salvador, it is written 2.500. In the United States, we would write two dollars and fifty cents as $2.50. Here, it is written $2,50.

Every Wednesday night, the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" is on TV. The top prize awarded on said show is...$200,000.

Many items are sold on the street (bread, tortillas, vegetables). Most frequently, I buy bread from a vendor. For $0.25, I can buy eight small rolls, six slightly larger rolls, or two big rolls. When the vendor asks how many I want, I usually say one...sometimes two. One you ask? One roll? No, one quarter. Or, two quarters. Some people might ask for three quarters worth. Never would a person say 25 cents or 50 cents. The amount is always referred to by the number of quarters.

Ok...here's a tricky one. See if you can follow...
Everyone has two last names. If I had been born Salvadoran, I would have been Jessica Lee Adams Habben. The father's last name is followed by the mother's last name (with the exception of Hugo who is Velasco Zepeda but should have been Zepeda Velasco...his dad wrote the birth certificate wrong...but Hugo much prefers how is name is because he relates more to his mom's family than his dad's). When I got married, I would have dropped my mother's last name and added my husband's father's name...thus Jessica Lee Adams Velasco (which is actually his mother's name but in the place where his father's should be...get it?). When we have children, they will also have two last names...their father's name followed by their mother's. So, my children will be First name Middle name Velasco Adams (the opposite of me). Our son will always be Velasco Adams. Our daughter will someday be Velasco Husband's name. When we got married, I thought I would be addressed by both last names...similar to my aunt, Lana Adams-Herr. Or, at the very least, I thought I would use my husband's name...similar to Laurel Brown Clement who mostly goes by Clement. But nooooooo. Here, everyone goes by their first last name. I am Jessica Adams. In formal situations (at the doctor's office, on a birthday invitation), I am Jessica Lee Adams.

Go figure.