He pays in local money and then heads to - not the bank, actually, for one thing they'll need time to work and for another he wants a phone charger and toiletries and a backpack. And a change of clothes.

Walmart has all those things.

Success! And then on to bank business - retrieving some more of his money and then replacing foreign bills for the other one. And... he doesn't have a credit card and probably isn't staying here long enough to want one even if there turn out not to be any hoops he can't clear just because of being foreign and homeless... will any bank sell him a prepaid card so he can see about paying for... do they have AirBnB here? Is naming things "air" when they aren't made of air allowed?

You can buy those prepaid cards at, like, the pharmacy, but sure, you can also get them at the bank. AirBnB exists; the etymology does not involve the company itself or the rental properties it lists, themselves, being made of air.

Wonderful. Time to book a week someplace cheap with lots of character where he'll meet people and have enough fridge and freezer space to be remotely efficient about food. Shouldn't be hard because he actively prefers to just rent a single room; entire apartments where you never see anyone else are lonely.

This room is next to the laundry room. I will only use the laundry machines during the night if my kid throws up on his sheets or something else of that magnitude happens but I can't guarantee that won't happen.

You can try to keep the cats out of the room but you will fail.

No smoking, no alcohol, no weed, no pets, no guests, no music, no TV, no sex, no one who sleeps with a noisy CPAP machine

ADU with kitchenette but the shower doesn't work. You can use mine in the main house and I will kick back 5% if you're hot and don't bother with wearing a towel or robe or anything on the way in and out. Just looking, no fooling around.

All of the rooms in this house are rented separately, professionally cleaned between stays, and well soundproofed! We cannot guarantee whether there will or will not be any occupants of other rooms at any given time in advance of your booking.

He can't figure out how to interpret these. Of course the rooms should be well-soundproofed and professionally cleaned, but it sounds very... impersonal and professional... but he's not sure if they're trying to seem that way, or any way, or if that's not a thing they can do. Likewise it's not really clear how much he should treat the person who wants to ogle guests (...does this person state a gender preference?) as being... the way that someone who would say that in the real America would be.

It's a kind of vertiginous feeling. Not that he wants to play complicated games with subtext but that - it's like dissecting people, instead of like letting them show him what they like about themselves.

...Maybe he doesn't want to bump elbows with other people after all. Seeing them on their way to the kitchen or the bathroom, hearing any chance remarks they can't avoid making, actually doesn't feel appealing anymore.

So maybe the ADU.

The ADU is available for a reasonable price even without the 5% discount.

Yay. He shows up at a reasonable time to check in, with his warhammer inside his backpack because Americans are weird about weapons.

"Hey there," says the landlord. "Here's a key to the ADU. Kindly confirm you're not going to copy it. Try a couple times if it doesn't unlock immediately, it's sticky sometimes. I'm Calvin."

"I'm pretty unlikely to copy it unless you tell me something's happened to your spare or I have reason to suspect you of being a serial killer using the space for serial killer business when you're not renting it out."

"I'm not a serial killer. Glad we could clear that up!"

That... is actually really good evidence that he isn’t a serial killer. That’s weird.

"Yes. It’s great to be able to clear up that kind of thing so easily. I have no intention of copying your key, thank you."

"Great! Have a nice stay."

Thor tries the key and takes stock of the place and looks up the location and open hours of city hall.

City hall is open from eight to five on weekdays and it is over there.

The next weekday Thor goes to city hall.

"Hi, this is city hall," says the receptionist. "You're alone so I assume you're not getting married."

"I'm married already! I'm from another Earth and I have the ability to influence the weather. I was wondering if the city government would pay me to do that."

"Huh. Probably not, I don't think we have any budget allocated for it. I guess in the winter if we were getting really hammered we could save on plow guys if you made it ease up but it's not winter right now."

"Fair enough. Know of anywhere with a drought right now?"

"California."

"Thank you." He’ll leave, in that case, and go for a walk around town, and see if he can email the government of California about their drought problem.

He can but they don't have amazing turnaround time.

Well, walking or hitchhiking to California isn't going to be fast, either.

He's already booked this AirBnB for a while, though, so he's not going to get started on that yet. For now... is there anywhere looking to hire someone for a couple of days? Or anywhere that could actually use a couple days of volunteering?