'We have come across fat, lazy, gun-totin', moronic right-wing Bush voters, but not as often as we might have expected.'

Continuing from last month - the second five most surprising things about moving to the USA.

We have now been in America for almost exactly a year. In some ways it has lived up to its expectations.

So, in order to round off our first year in the United States of America, here are the final five of the top ten surprises that awaited our arrival.

6. Dangerous Freeways

I remember reading once in the "Guardian Weekly" queries column, a question from a woman who wanted to know why every car journey she took in the UK was held up by innumerable sets of roadworks, and yet during the long car journeys she had taken in California she had not had to stop for road maintenance once.

I am now in a position to answer that question. The State of California does not noticeably maintain its freeways. The road surfaces are poor, the road signs are frequently obscured by tree branches, and the road markings are faded.

They are also poorly designed - often no hard shoulder, badly signposted junctions and narrow lanes. We mentally ran through every developed country (and some undeveloped countries) we have ever driven in, and could not think of anywhere else where the motorways are so poor. It's frequently noted that LA is the city where the "Car is King" - but you wouldn't believe it to look at the roads.

I can only assume that it's because average Californian looks upon driving as a God-given right, and therefore doesn't see why he/she should pay more than the bare minimum of road tax for the privilege.

7. Credit history

It is incredibly hard to do anything of a financial nature here - rent an apartment, buy a car - if you have no credit history.

Given that my husband and I both have good credit ratings with a credit-card company that is also widely known in both the UK and the US, you'd have thought that would be no problem - but no, it seems that it is completely impossible for credit rating information to be made available from one country to another. Common sense says that it must be achievable - but we have not yet found a way.

8. Americans treat their clergy more kindly

One of the clergy at our Church trained and did his curacy and first appointment in the UK, as I did. He then found himself so burnt out that he took a career break, and has only recently taken up a new ministerial position - now in the US.

Like me, he found ministry in the UK exhausting and ultimately disheartening. He says that now he is back in the US, he is treated with more courtesy and more respect, people are more prepared to work with him as part of a team (rather than expecting him to do it all) - and he is paid an awful lot more.

Is it perhaps the case that English clergy (C of E, anyway) are taken for granted as members of the establishment, whereas American clergy are valued for what and who they are?

9. Hiking

Who would have thought that there are fantastic wilderness hiking areas within spitting distance of LA? A short drive from our apartment takes us into the mountains, and less than half a mile along the trail from the parking lot one has left the world behind - as in the UK, the vast majority of people never venture more than half a mile away from their cars.

We've also been hiking in Sequoia National Park in California, and in Washington State, around Mt St Helen's. The paths have always been well (but not over) maintained, and the commitment to preservation of animal species and natural habitats has been obvious.

Only once, on these trails, have we come across Americans behaving as you might expect from the American couch-potato stereotype I grew up with . We were leisurely walking along an easy and popular two mile trail along a river to a waterfall one day. As we neared the falls, we kept running into overweight, sweating Americans on their way back again, telling us "don't (puff) worry (pant), not (huff) far (gasp) now".

10. Lack of stereotypes

IIn fact, though, America has not in general lived up to the stereotypes that the media propels at us.

We have come across fat, lazy, gun-totin', moronic right-wing Bush voters, but not as often as we might have expected. Rather, it has been remarkably easy to make intelligent, tolerant, liberal friends. But then we do live in a large, cosmopolitan city, and our friends are mostly connected with the university my husband works at, or with the very liberal church we attend.

Perhaps our experiences would be different if we lived in Hicksville, Alabama.

Helen Angove is an Anglican priest from the UK, who moved to California in July 2003.

• Read the first 5 from Helen's list
• Read other Emails from America