I never understood the need to display multiple US flags in your yard. We get it, you live in america. You love America. We get that too. Are you afraid someone will think you no longer wish to be American if you took your flags down?
It took me (an American) going to Ireland and Northern Ireland to realize how odd the excessive flag waving is. Still odd, but those two have the US beat.
"Those two" have a few reasons to want to wave their flags.
But the Republic and Northern island need to fly those flags so you know where you are and whether it's been taken over.
Okay, maybe not, but when I was in America for a few years we decided the ridiculous fixation was so people knew that they hadn't been taken over ... again.
Currently live in the Republic of Ireland and I have no idea what you're talking about? Were you here on Saint Patrick's Day? There's a significant amount of Palestinian flags in windows here for pretty obvious reasons but other than that I don't think I've seen a flag since, again, Paddy's day.
I think for some it's a mix of patriotism and having poor taste in decor. I know people who also have American flag swim shorts, sunglasses, etc. Also, it's not exclusive to America. My British side of the family (especially the ones who've met the former Queen) have a weird amount of UK flag decor too, ranging from clock faces, throw pillows, and even an armchair covered in a giant union jack.
As long as it's the UK flag, and not the English flag, I'll give them a pass. Stay clear from anyone in an England flag, drunk or sober, football or naught.
Honestly I assume most people with an American flag in their yard are racist trump fans these days
I grew up in a home where we just never thought about wearing, or not wearing, shoes in the house. Like, we obviously didn't track mud all over the place if our shoes were that dirty, but if we were wearing our shoes inside, nobody said anything or cared, it was just whatever. Married a Kenyan who put her foot down and was like, "Are you crazy?" It's apparently a big thing elsewhere in the world. In Kenya alot of roads aren't paved, things get dusty, and it's just common sense that you don't walk all over the house with dirty shoes, so I get it from that perspective.
Yeah that’s a huge part of it. Few Americans (me included) frequently walk outdoors on anything but sidewalks or paved roads in their normal day to day travels. When I go hiking I take those shoes off before I get back into the car, but my daily driver boat shoes which rarely touch actual dirt? I don’t have a problem leaving those on in most places, my house included. Same I imagine for Americans where their job is construction or something where your shoes are dirtied, take the work shoes off when you get home, but it’s fine to wear more casual shoes
Edit: what a strange thing to get downvoted about
Double edit: I guess the first downvotes were just from people who very much don’t like shoes in the house under any circumstances. That's ok. If I come to your house my shoes will come off. If you come to mine, feel free to leave them on if they aren't muddy.
As an American, it drives me crazy. Then there’s those heathens who lay on the bed with shoes on!
American of asian descent, absolutely ludicrous! It would perhaps be more forgiviable if all of the floors were furnished in hardwood and tile, but they'll wear shoes even on carpet! Immediately after entering one of these heathen's houses, I long for the soft, lucious, kempt, carpets of my own abode, compared to the repuslive, stiff, flat and even crunchy carpets of my white friends. Frankly it offends me, deeply. I must slap my friends silly before entering my home to remove their filthy clogs.
Only place I've live where this is taboo is Chicagoland. And that's to be expected with the muddy snow.
Here in the South we usually don't have carpets, no reason to take our shoes off.
Thinking that there is no reason to take your shoes off is the most American thing in the world. There is poop, pee, puke, pollen, pollution, parvo and prions out there, among other things.
In Japan the entryway of a house is usually a step lower than the rest of the house. It is considered part of the outside, where the shoes stay, as well as all of the dirty things from the outside that are on the shoes. And symbolically, your troubles from the outside world are not brought into the house either. It's a major faux pas to wear your shoes in the house past this step and bring all that shit inside. Interesting contrast
yep, living in San Francisco made me a shoes off indoors guy, for every p you listed*
That is always a weird one for my brain to work around.
Do I just live in a weird bubble? I live in the US and I am rarely at someone’s house who doesn’t remove their shoes nowadays. I certainly grew up wearing shoes at home, but that’s changed significantly over the past 20 years or so.
American flags everywhere. Like EVERYWHERE. I get a bit of national pride but holy crap, every other house in the street is flying a flag, clothing has flag patterns, bumper sticker American flag, it's everywhere. And no, it wasn't even close to July 4.
It's like Americans are afraid they might forget what country they're in if they aren't in sight of a flag at all times.
Examine photos of of Germany after 30 Jan 1933, you will see plenty of similarities.
I called this out after my first trip to the US, and then I came back to the UK just in time for the coronation weekend. Hahaha we definitely outdid them a bit in terms of flags which shut me right up.
Especially working for an American employer for some reason, we went all out with a work do in the UK, union flags galore.
The difference is all our flags went away again straight after the coronation.
That's pretty standard for country celebrations I'd bet - around Australia Day we have plenty of people flying flags, but the day after it's back to normal
Yeah every time I see an american flag, I'm like yeah, I know where I'm at. I saw a Greece flag under the American flag at a house and I thought to myself, it would've looked much nicer with just the Greece flag.
But then people would be confused and think Greece was invading.
Adjectives. You can't just have a thing. It has to have an adjective. For example: Milk. I wanted to buy milk. I get to the milk section, and there's no such thing. There's x milk and y milk and about a dozen other variants. Where is the basic milk (it turns out, I wanted "4% milk") in this damned place?
Fresh produce. In fairness you've gotten loads better on this one after subsequent visits, but beyond some basic staples like potatoes, carrots, corn etc it was really limiting what fruit and vegetables you could get in the supermarket. Also: baby carrots are weird.
Your cheese is radioactive yellow. Cheese is not supposed to be that colour - but you seem expect it to be for some reason, so your producers add yellow colouring to their cheese.
Your eggs are weird. I'm not sure what yous guys do to to them, but it's like you blast away half the shell and are left with a porous super-white textured inner shell. They need to be refrigerated and last a fraction of the time they'd last if you just left them alone and sold them as they are laid.
Your bread tastes weird. Maybe it's sugar or preservatives in it, I don't know. Bread is meant to have a really short ingredients list like flour, water, salt yeast and maybe a touch of oil and sugar. Take a look at the ingredients on your bread and it's 5 lines long.
Portions! Your food portions are ludicrous. I'd much rather pay half the price for half as much food as they offer on the menu.
Money. You have this weird unconscious pecking order thing in your culture where you value people more based on their bank balance. You show a weird unconscious level of respect to someone who is rich. And similarly, unconsciously look down on someone poorer than you. Not in a mean way - just as a "I'm better than this person" way that is hard to quantify. You are aware at some level roughly how rich everyone you deal with is. I see this trait far less in people under 20. I hope there's a cultural shift on this one, because money on its own is a weird way to measure someone's worth.
Your police are run by the local counties. I think your schools also? I know you have state and federal police also, but most places only have police and schools at those levels.
I'll mostly stay clear of health, because you know your health system is weird. But I will say that it's weird that very few of your hospitals are run by government. They're mostly run for profit. Health is meant to be a government service.
Outside a few cities, you barely have public transport of any sort. LA is a mega metropolis, and it's train network is a joke for that level of population - something like 100 stations for 18 million people?
You have no idea what's going on. Most of you couldn't name the UK Prime Minister (this one has been hard to keep track of, in fairness), the German Chancellor or any of the G20 leaders aside from USA and maybe Canada/China. You don't know about geopolitics beyond whatever you guys are doing. Your world news is literally stuff USA is involved in.
I'll finish on a weird one: you guys are lovely. This may because I'm white and have an exotic accent to you guys, but almost everyone I've ever encountered from the USA in or out of the country has been wonderful. You don't seem to think of your fellow countrymen you meet as 'good' by default. There's a lot less connection and respect to each other than other nations I've been to.
it turns out, I wanted "4% milk"
As a lifelong American, I don't think we have 4% milk (reliably). Growing up we had Skim, 2% and Whole. Looking it up Whole is defined as 3.5%
I did look up a local store online and I was able to find it, but not universally at every store.
You're right, of course - I heard the same stuff referred to as "whole milk". But the only thing you're correcting about the wider point is the appropriate adjective. Which I find very funny. 😀
It's interesting that you picked this one out. I thought the money one in particular was going to be a controversial take.
3,5% milk is also the standard milk here in central europe and it says so on the packaging. People call it simply "milk", but it clearly says 3,5% milk on the branding.
is the appropriate adjective
I just found it interesting that the thing you were looking for, most Americans wouldn't have heard of. It makes me wonder why America has at least 3 milks.
If we ignore the 3.5% v 4% distinction and assume what we call Whole Milk, you just call Milk; what do you call Skim Milk? Or 2% Milk? And if you don't have them, why do we?
As for the money question, I was curious to see if other non-Americans felt the same. I agree that there is a subset of people who believe that. That subset may be quite large, but I'm not sure how it's perceived from an outsiders perspective. If you ask me, I don't think it's common, but I imagine some loud folks may make it appear that way. But I also acknowledge I'm an American in America, so maybe I don't notice it.
There's a health food craze in the US that stemmed out of rampant body shaming. Which might be largely because of American portion sizes. And they think that nutritional fat makes you fat. It doesn't. Excessive calories make you fat. And even that has caveats, but it's the best rule of thumb.
When did we start splitting milk? I know part of it is to make cream and high fat stuff while repurposing the skimmed off grass water. ::Googles:: WWII as a means of selling the byproduct of butter. Okay. Then in the 50s physicians started calling it health food despite the fact that the fat is used in your body during the digestion of many fat soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K, and thus skim milk is pretty close to the opposite of health food.
And the money thing is kind of rampant. It's a big reason why things with larger price tags, like Rolex watches, are thought to more impressive by Americans than equivalent or better watches. Rolexes do have a very high quality, but then the mark up on top makes it strictly something I do not respect, and others do not share that opinion with me. Same for a lot of things.
In Australia and New Zealand: we have skim milk, and call 2% milk "Hi-Lo" - sometimes I see it branded "lite milk".
Then there's regular milk. It has 4% fat, but you need to read the fine print on the side of the bottle to learn that. I've heard it called "full cream milk", but usually in a cafe setting when ordering coffee.
My brother in the USA had something called half-and-half in his fridge. I think that one was 8%? You guys would know better than I. We don't have whatever it is.
Half-and-half is supposed to be "half milk, half cream" and is used primarily in coffee instead of heavy cream.
Yes, many many milks, we can't agree on what is best. Personally I like a quality almond milk, for its nutrients & no sugars and huge bonus it's shelf stable. Great for emergencies.
I think the dearth of fresh produce is related to Americans not doing a lot of cooking. Most Americans have a simpler diet, and the stores need to concentrate on a number of things they know will sell. Baby carrots are actually awesome, you're going to appreciate this -- IIRC baby carrots are an innovative way to reduce food waste, sell crop. A farmer had ugly, misshapen, perhaps slightly molded or otherwise undesirable carrots. But most of it was good! So they cut off the bad parts & whittle it down to a nice, uniform, attractive shape & size. Baby carrots were born! Kids like them, they're 'snackable'...idk, I like them & I like the green effort.
Yes, food dyes are thrown into everything. RFK recently did a little rant about the yellow dye, some coal runoff chemical. He's absolutely right, it's not cool. I always say you go back 200 years & some people were starving, food of any kind was great. Now we throw red dye into ketchup solely because the ketchup isn't red enough. Disgusting.
Natural eggs have some waxy layer on it, a protective layer. So your eggs look dirtier but are actually healthier, can withstand low/no refrigeration. IIRC. Our eggs have that layer removed, they're required by law to be 'washed'. Yes, I also think it's bullshit.
It is definitely the sugar & preservatives.
As our bellies have grown, so has everything else. If you find old houses with old cabinets & old plates, you'll find the dinner plates are much smaller than we have today! We have been programmed to consume. Search 'dinner plates have gotten bigger' and read for yourself.
Yes, our police forces get down to counties. Towns. Idk, I would say that this should provide a more personal & immediate presence. Also in the American spirit, keeping these matters fractured & separate (but also working together, and deferring to increasing levels of authority as needed) allows for the most freedom. You don't like how things are run in this town? Well move to another one. Same with the states. I see people moving towns because they want a better school for their kids. It allows for choice.
Yeah, pretty much. TBF, though, our brains can only process so much. And what can we do about the European stuff, anyway?? We've got our jobs, maybe our families, our homes, 334M fucking people of our own with various beliefs scattered across 50 diverse states, heavy taxation without representation (hint, hint), our own problems...then somebody comes up to you..."Did you hear what happened in Fuckistan this morning? 🥺"NO! 😂🙃
Thankfully, with the internet, we can look into any world events we want to & educate ourselves that way. I do, I am politically more involved than most. But no, I cannot name current ministers, chancellors, presidents... I hear their position & that's enough for me. Not my monkeys, not my circus, you handle yours & I'll handle mine.
12 . Thanks! I think at heart we're very cordial people generally speaking. But onto that second, contradictory part: I absolutely agree. I live in a generally good area, but I also see a lot of...other...people. There's a saying, people were a lot more polite & considerate when duelling was legal. Looking around, I think things have become far too 'civilized', the people too soft & dumb, our food as you've pointed out is poisoned, mental & physical illnesses abound, the people haven't seen real hard times, there is no clear & present danger to unite & fight so they make up stupid things to get offended by & fight each other, they're protected from the natural consequences of their actions...I see it. Often. This & more culminates in disrespect & disconnects. Unlike other nations, partly because of our freedoms & partially because our legal system lacks balls, we tolerate a lot of bullshit behavior. As they say, if you tolerate something, expect more of it.
In fairness for number 11, many Americans can't even name their own government officials, expecting to know about other countries is a tall order.
We’re not neighbors with 43 countries, so we don’t have as much immediate exposure to everything going on around those countries. For one, because it’s not going on around us, like it is for you. That said, I thought I had you with the Prime Minister comment. Of course it’s Boris Johnson. Doh! It seems you’ve had 4 prime ministers in 2 years? What’s going on with that? Like I said, we don’t really get exposure to what is happening over there, so unless we specifically go looking for it, I guess we’re out of the loop. We know what’s going on in Mexico and Canada though.
Money. You have this weird unconscious pecking order thing in your culture where you value people more based on their bank balance. You show a weird unconscious level of respect to someone who is rich. And similarly, unconsciously look down on someone poorer than you. Not in a mean way - just as a “I’m better than this person” way that is hard to quantify. You are aware at some level roughly how rich everyone you deal with is. I see this trait far less in people under 20. I hope there’s a cultural shift on this one, because money on its own is a weird way to measure someone’s worth.
Others have written on this far more eloquently than I have, and so I will use their words to help explain this.
‘It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but might as well be.’ It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: ‘if you’re so smart why ain’t you rich?’ There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.
Kin Hubbard
Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.
Family eating at shooters (and the whole hooters/twin peaks concept)
Need to take the car for a 500m trip because there is no sidewalk and a highway to cross
The car thing really blew my mind. My hotel was 400m from the office but 1.6km by car. Colleagues were waiting for a taxi while I walked. I had to cut over a couple of car parks and a bit of grass (zero sidewalks) and was there in a few minutes while they turned up 15min later since they were waiting for a taxi.
The worst part, they all jumped in cars to go 300m down the road for lunch. Yeah, I walked. With looking for a parking space then walking from the space to the restaurant, they got there after me.
I adore Americans; they’ve been nothing except kind and generous to me in every part of the country I’ve visited but damn, the money they’re wasting alone just starting their engines and the wear and tear on the vehicles blows my fucking mind. Build some sidewalks, guys!
Many of us would like this, but it's dangerous or even illegal to get to some places by walking in large parts of America. And zoning laws make it really difficult to change.
Being overly fake nice because you want a tip. Tbh I'd be more inclined to tip you if you left me alone and stopped talking to me.
The whole tipping thing in USA is weird. Everyone wants a tip, it's entirely random (as a non-American) how much tip to give. Just pay your staff a wage they can actually live on ffs.
As an American I agree it's fucking weird. Tips should be for exceptional service and not an obligation.
There's actually a loose set of rules to it. Im not sure where the specific numbers came from, but 22% of the bill as a tip is considered "excellent service", 18% or so is considered "mid" or "acceptable" service, and anything below that is a sliding scale of how bad you think they did. 0% is either you being rude and/or saying "i dont believe in tips", but giving a $0.01 tip is basically saying "fuck you, you piece of shit," (because fishing out a penny or writing it in takes more effort than opting out).
Those numbers used to be 12, 15 and 18. They've increased, but I'm not sure why, since they're percentages. They keep up with increased food prices automatically. Not sure why tip growth has outpaced food prices.
Yeah but how do you consult those rules? How often are they updated? How do you get notified of updates?
The fact that there are no answers to these questions and therefore everyone is working with mismatching rule sets makes the whole thing useless. You can be totally well meaning and still piss off a server because somehow you don’t know what the currently acceptable magic number is.
I recently visited the states for the first time in a decade and didn’t find out until afterwards that 15% is now considered by some people to be “low”. Sorry everyone who I tipped, I shafted you without realizing it. 🤷♂️
We don't even get this memo. I thought it was still 15, 18, and 20. And I'm wholey against mandatory tipping, but always do so because I don't want the underpaid staff to starve. I have enough friends in food service who can barely pay their rent with multiple roommates.
It's not the healthcare that bothered me most, although it did.
It's the cognitive dissonance around the unavailability of healthcare in order to avoid anxiety over the fact that a traffic accident can bankrupt you with no relief. Ignoring the risk takes some serious mental gymnastics and basic math failure to get there, but when brought up in this environment - where a TV show about a teacher who has to cook and sell meth to get hospital money is actually a plausible plot where no one actually examines the mercenary care at all and the main character just pays it - it's just a part of their existence.
Not understanding that few other people live like this - cubans don't live like this - is absurd.
When I watch "alone", it's so depressing at the end when they ask them what they'll do with the money they won. And they say "pay for my wife's cancer treatment". Like omg America
Oh we realize, but it's difficult to stop once it's been ingrained in the culture. Not only that, employers took advantage of that and therefore tipped employees have a much lower minimum wage.
Technically they have the same minimum wage. If they don't get back up to minimum wage in tips, the employer is legally required to make up the difference. The issue is most people don't know this, and so employers get away not doing it. This is one of the many forms of wage theft, the most common form of theft in the US.
And minimum wage isn't a liveable wage in most of the US now. Well, unless you split rent amongst 4 working people in a single bedroom apartment. That's only an exaggeration in some of the US.
The fear of naked (intact) female bodies, i.e. censoring of even the slightest nudity, when at the same time, it’s totally fine to have minors play computer games where they can dissect other humans in great bloody detail.
Oh, and chocolate that tastes like somebody barfed into it during manufacturing.
The chocolate thing is because American chocolate manufacturers use butyric acid to preserve the milk. Basically, using fresh milk in chocolate is expensive, because you need to get it shipped directly and be located near enough to the dairy farm. So they intentionally spoil the milk in a controlled manner. This allows them to preserve the milk (as opposed to having it spoil naturally and go completely rancid,) which allows them a much more relaxed manufacturing process. This controlled spoiling method produces butyric acid in the milk.
The issue is that butyric acid tastes like vomit. Americans are used to the sour taste and don’t even really recognize that it’s not what chocolate is supposed to taste like. To them, that sour note is just part of chocolate. But Europeans come to America (and are used to fresh milk in their chocolate), and they are horribly disgusted when they taste American chocolate for the first time. Because Europeans aren’t used to having that sour note in their chocolate.
This is also why so many Americans fawn over foreign chocolate. It is seen as more luxurious, but most Americans can’t really place why it tastes so much better. The reason is the lack of butyric acid.
Sex is bad but graphic footage akin to war carnage is just superhero stuff totally appropriate for kids /s
Other chocolate I've tried from other countries through import stores definitely tend to beat our chocolate. Definitely gotta agree to a degree with that one.
it’s totally fine to have minors play computer games where they can dissect other humans in great bloody detail.
funny that you didn't mention porn. I feel like that would probably be more relevant, although conservatives are trying to ban it now, so there's that.
Signs telling you not to bring guns into shopping centers.
In some states, these signs don't even mean that a person can't carry a concealed weapon into the shopping center. In my state, for instance, assuming you are otherwise able to legally carry a gun (meaning you took a class and aren't a felon), the list of areas where you can't legally carry a gun is very limited: Federal buildings, courthouses, etc. If a business has a sign posted stating "no guns allowed," you can still legally carry your weapon in that business. If an employee sees that you're armed, they can ask you to leave, and you're trespassing if you refuse, but nothing legally stops you from carrying a gun into the establishment in the first place.
As a disclaimer, I'm not arguing this one way or another. I have a license to carry a concealed handgun, in fact. Just sharing information.
Yeah I'm sure minimum wage clerks are going to totally feel comfortable asking the armed person (someone who believes they need to arm themselves to enter a shopping center) to please leave.
Does this give you any increased sense of security as a non-american?
the opposite for me
The sign actually would give me an increased sense of security yeah.
Obviously a lunatic out to do a mass shooting would disregard the sign but your average gun wielder might be offended and take their business elsewhere – and statistically that's the one who's more likely to shoot me. That's my logic as a Norwegian who's lived there for just a year anyway.
I’m from Alberta Canada. I’ve worked up North in camp jobs, and have been working in the trades with the rowdiest people our country has to offer.
Every time I’ve been to the states I’m shocked at how aggressive a large portion of your population is willing to talk to people. Every time I’ve gone there I’ve had at least one negative aggressive interaction with one of your citizens. I’m a large man with a beard and tattooes up to my neck, I’m a pretty intimidating looking dude paired with the Canadian politeness we’re known for. I do not understand how this keeps happening. And I see you guys do it to eachother too! It’s fucking wild.
Just kidding, but yeah, we suck as a people. But I'll be friendly to ya when you land in my neighborhood.
It should be pointed out that MOST Americans I met were not like that. But it’s a large enough amount that it’s always been a noticeable difference from home.
As an American I think it’s largely that we generally suck at dealing with negative emotions. For many that means bottling it up and being kind anyways, but we have the assholes and you learn to walk away, or clap back, or whatever works for you and they just get angrier at being dismissed. They aren’t mad at you, they just suck and we’re bad at helping people not suck, especially since they tend to love guns
based on knowledge of the US : many things that other places take for granted or fight to preserve, you guys struggle to obtain.
based on my trip : fucking nothing, I visited new york and stayed at a run down, pre paid hotel. I ate food from stores or carry out. I can't exactly critique the healthcare system, tipping culture, driving culture when I had access to a fairly modern public transport system, didn't need medical assistance and didn't need to tip 50 people just to eat one thing.
EDIT: it's like asking tourists in antalya at the beach what they think of turkey, they're fucking tourists, they aren't affected by the dictator and his bullshit
I was just in Göcek and Ankara and I had some wildly interesting interactions with locals when they asked me how I liked Turkey.
"I like it, very beautiful country, lovely people, great food."
"So you'd move here?"
"Uh... perhaps not"
"So you don't like Turkey"
👀
lol
those fuckers have some nerve asking you that shit, when we have so much brain drain that most high streets are basically completely catering to elderly people with hearing aid and similar stores on each one, because all the working age people leave to live abroad.
No shit rich foreigners don't want to move to turkey.
source : part of the brain drain for both turkey and the UK. fuck them countries.
My girlfriend and her sister are also in the brain drain. Definitely a sad state of affairs, so many of her friends and friends family's have been either political prisoners, or had ongoing court cases, etc.
I've been trying to learn Turkish so we can move her family over here too and I can actually chat with them, but I fear they'll need to work on their English so they can get around.
many of her friends and friends family’s have been either political prisoners, or had ongoing court cases, etc.
wow. I'm assuming the people asking you "wanna move to Turkey?" aren't aware of this.
Best of luck to your gf's family , gurbet recognise gurbet.
Teşekkürler!
I hope where you are now is more stable.
I only stopped there for transit on a flight to Mexico. Just before boarding my flight I was told that I need a visa for the US, which is extremely weird because normally airports have transit zones where you don't need any visa. But apparently the US is special, so you actually have to enter the country before going right back into the airport. This nonsense made me miss my flight.
Also I remember in the airport there was a security guard doing nothing but shouting nonstop that it's not allowed to carry water. Why not simply put up a sign?
Americans don't read.
We read, just not posted signs without a skull on it or something cool like that.
If it is important they would put it on a hat.
I'd also say sign fatigue (plus general fatigue) is a thing. When you go to an airport security line there's like these giant signboards stood up like the 200 Commandments, each with a mix of pictures and walls of text of for things you're not allowed to bring on a plane. Or some things you can check and not carry on or you can carry on and not check. And you're also expected to know all of that while you are in transit, stressed, and maybe also sleep deprived.
Too many signs to properly pay attention to them all.
W.r.t. water bottles, I think it's because people don't look at or think about the signs that are often posted. A loud person yelling specifically at you is much more likely to make someone stop and ask themselves if they have a water bottle.
I'm definitely not defending it, but that's my take on the matter. The whole water bottle thing is just security theater anyways.
Just before boarding my flight I was told that I need a visa for the US [...] This nonsense made me miss my flight.
I WOULD HAVE FUCKING LEFT IF YOU'D LET ME ASSHOLE
Not like that, they didn't let me board my flight from Europe to Texas. Even though I had a connecting flight to Mexico few hours later. Why can't they have a visa free transit zone like every other country in the world?
So they can rob noncitizens using asset forfeiture laws. Never travel in or through the US if you need to transport large sums of money or valuables.
Actually, the better advice is never travel in or through the US.
I wish that were an option for me.
A couple of times I've travelled Air NZ route that goes London-Auckland via LAX. The plane has to stop to refuel I guess. All the passengers are forced to queue up to be fingerprinted and have their eyeballs scanned, while a security guard walks up and down screaming "STAY IN THE LINE!" Then they're herded into a lounge barely big enough to hold everyone (first class passengers have their own little pen next to the toilets). Apologetic air crew distribute apples, crisps and bottles of water. For hours. Through a glass wall is a view of the rest of the airport: shops, cafes, bars, space to stroll. But hey, at least you get to not miss your flight, and the US is safe from Kiwi tourists.
I don't know if they still do this, I avoid the route.
did london via LAX as well. This was my only experience of the US:
Arrive LAX and do the whole enter the US customs, the agent asks if anyone has had access to my baggage to which I answered "everyone here with security access". The shit head was not impressed and let me know.
Your urban planning. Your cities are unwalkable, the scenery makes me depressed af, everything is scaled up for cars, even restaurants are for cars, the highways are huge, all I can see is tar. I don't know how you can live like that.
To be fair, the national parks are really beautiful. But you need a car to even reach these parks, then drive into a massive parking lot -- really depressing.
Shoes. Indoors, in your own house, on your furniture?!
That is divisive even within the country.
I was raised in small town Ohio and taking your shoes off, especially in a strangers home (occasionally not in your own because of practicalities like going back and forth to unload the car), was considered part of common etiquette along with not wearing hats indoors.
Both of those things really depend on your family though as I've definitely met people that just don't care.
I don't like walking on my carpeted areas in my shoes, but I don't mind walking in the laminate in shoes. Easier to clean imo.
First thing I (another Canadian) noticed when we switched from the car to a shuttle to the airport (crossed the border by car to take a flight to Florida) was that there were multiple people on that shuttle that were at least as big as the most obese person I'd ever seen in person up to that point.
Even though our cultures overlap quite a bit, there's something different in that aspect.
You need to visit a Walmart and good luck trying to forget.
The obesity epidemic really depends on where you are. I don’t see any fat people where I live now, but they were absolutely everywhere in the city I lived in before.
This was in Detroit. It wasn't as noticable in Florida, or on separate trips to California. Like I'm sure I saw some pretty obese people in those locations (as I do in various places in Canada), but it wasn't to the point where my mind made specific note of it for me to remember over a decade later.
Central California has tons of fat people, especially at places like Walmart. They all seem to congregate there. But then places like Huntington Beach, San Diego, and San Francisco, have almost no fat people. I think the better the socioeconomic situation is, and the more accessible walking is, the less likely people are to be overweight in an area.
Yeah, I was in SF and then LA and spent the free days of the LA trip hiking Hollywood Hills and visiting six flags, which probably skews more towards people fit enough to hike or fit in rollercoaster seats.
I also visited a market near the hotel that had prices low enough that my assumption at the time was it had to be mostly stolen and got a great duffel bag for like a quarter of what I'd expect to pay for that back home.
Amusement parks tend to bring some pretty hefty people off the couches. The Hollywood Hills are usually pretty healthy. What did you think of SF and L.A.? SF used to be my favorite city in the world. That was twenty years ago though. I’ve heard that it is in serious decline now. Some parts of Hollywood can be cool to visit, but L.A. in general is completely overwhelming to me. I want to get the fuck out after 2-3 days. To be fair to L.A., I have the same reaction to NYC. I think they’re really neat and amazing for a day or two and then I just want to escape and get away from the oppressive concrete jungle.
Your public toilets are not private. There should never be a gap around the door. The height should be above what any reasonable person would grow to, and the lower height of the door should hide the person's feet on the toilet unless you crouch down. It's weird and very off putting to use one
They say it's to prevent crime. Same as a lot of the awful things we come to expect. I'm willing to bet it doesn't do anything noticeable with respect to crime.
It's to prevent the expectation of privacy. We've all been trained to accept that we are being spied on, even when we shit.
Going to a Wal-Mart in a small-ish town and counting 38 CCTV cameras across the outside front of the building. Ours, in a city with 28× the population, has only 6.
Inside that same Wal-Mart, going into a checkout line without first checking out the customers, and the very next guy ahead of us was an open carry: a semi-auto (AR-15 like looking weapon) slung over his shoulders, a handgun in a holster on his waist, and a lump on his right ankle above his boots. And two knives on his belt. Dude looked like he was ready for some urban warfare.
The sheer amount of infrastructure decay. Sure, even Canadian towns that haven’t seen economic good times look run down and dilapidated, but American towns really kick that up a notch. Most small-town buildings look like they haven’t seen a makeover since the Carter administration.
Unusually authentic Mexican food. Up here 90% of Mexican places are run by white dudes who make semi-authentic “fusion” dishes that are mainly just spicy. Cross the border and less than 15 minutes in, there is one family-run chain (Rancho Chico, Rancho Grande) with super-cheap 100% authentic foods run and staffed solely by Mexicans. And like, holy shit, that’s good food.
The sheer number of people who support and vote for a party who will do absolutely nothing for them, and will enact policies that will drive them even further into poverty and destitution just so their Parasite-Class campaign donors can get even more obscenely wealthy. Conservative voters are just weird, man.
a semi-auto (AR-15 like looking weapon) slung over his shoulders, a handgun in a holster on his waist, and a lump on his right ankle above his boots. And two knives on his belt. Dude looked like he was ready for some urban warfare.
Ironically, the lump might have been what gets him into trouble. If he’s concealing a firearm without a permit, it can land him with some pretty hefty penalties. And if he has a permit but is printing (meaning the concealed weapon is visible through his clothes, like a lump) then it can also land him with some penalties.
It’s dependent on where you were, as each state has their own concealed carry laws. But in general, you’re not allowed to conceal a firearm without a permit. And if you do have a permit, you’re not allowed to have that concealed firearm be visible (even indirectly, like printing.)
Plus if you’re open carrying, Walmart internally bans them anyways. They’re a private business, and have the authority to dictate what people are or are not allowed to do while in their stores. The company has a blanket policy against open carrying, and (assuming they’re not barred from doing so by state law) the dude should have been told to leave his guns outside (like in his car) or be trespassed.
Dude, thank you for saying that about the Mexican food. I've been saying this online for a while and it's not well understood how good it is all the way across the US, even in small towns. Now, there are regional differences, as you would expect, but it's only a bit worse than Mexico and way better than just about anywhere else in the world
Americans don't play about Mexican food. We want it high quality, high quantity, and we'll support it
Unusually authentic Mexican food. Up here 90% of Mexican places are run by white dudes who make semi-authentic “fusion” dishes that are mainly just spicy. Cross the border and less than 15 minutes in, there is one family-run chain (Rancho Chico, Rancho Grande) with super-cheap 100% authentic foods run and staffed solely by Mexicans. And like, holy shit, that’s good food.
A friend's boyfriend is a Mexican citizen working on immigrating and he explained it to me once that for non-citizens it's far easier to start a business than to get a job, so many immigrants end up starting shops or restaurants related to their culture as they slowly work their way through the immigration process. This has led to absolutely amazing Mexican and Latin American cuisine in every corner of the country as well as lots of brilliant ethnic stores specializing in hard to get items for people from that culture. I live in a small town of about 12k and have 1 Mexican store, 1 Mexican ice cream shop and 3 Mexican restaurants! In rural Wisconsin!
it's far easier to start a business than to get a job
Also why so many Koreans run donut shops or nail salons, and why 7-11’s are almost universally franchised by Indians. They’re all relatively easy businesses to start, can be run out of any strip mall near a neighborhood, and all have the potential to hire and train your family members. And if your cousin owns a donut shop (and you’ve worked there enough to know how it works,) you can go open your own across town. Because if you come in on a work visa, your ability to stay in the country is held hostage by your employer. But if you start your own business, that’s not an issue.
Depends on which kind you're talking about. Cinnamon raisin breads and similar are sweet because they're basically deserts (desserts?).
Standard sandwich loaf is sweet because your weak foreign palate cannot handle the background level of high fructose corn syrup in all American food. It gives us the strength and vitality to enforce pax Americana, build our secret space colonies, and invent all new world technology.
2 S's for dessert - you always want a second helping. How I always remember that one :p
As an American, yeah that’s what gets me. I just don’t understand it and I hate it
German, only having been there once some years ago, so no idea if it still is that way:
Not knowing what I will have to pay in the grocery store until the cashier tells me what to pay. Here the price on the shelf is THE price. I might have a voucher that reduces the price in the end, but nothing is ever added only subtracted, all prices on the shelf are easily comparable, because no matter the weight of one package there is also given the price of 1kg or 100 g for everything.
No kids on playing grounds without parents standing around. No kids just playing on the side walk (often there is no side walk anyway), no kids walking to school. It made me aware of how much freedom kids have in Germany, how independent even 6 y.o. are in Germany compared to kids in the US. They walk to to school alone or use public transport alone, they buy groceries alone, they visit friends by foot or public transport, three y.o. already having a bike and cycling besides their parents to kindergarden...
On the other hand seeing so many very young people having a job, like a really hard job for many hours besides school. It broke my heart, they should be free to be young and having all the time, working comes fast enough and goes on forever. Also I saw very old people doing jobs that should be able to retire because you could see them being in pain and barely able to function, definitely not a "choice" for them.
The amount of medication, especially pain medication, people take in the US compared to Germany and how much of it is freely available while it is needing a subscription from a doctor here. Every time I was feeling unwell I was offered pills that I found to be numbingly strong and switching my brain off? Hard to explain. I found them scary, but was told that they take them on a daily basis and they are harmless ... nope.
The children thing varies with region, and had become more pronounced in recent years.
When I was a kid I walked to the bus stop, played outside with a lot of freedom, etc. The rule for most kids was to go home when the street lights came on, and there was usually a border you weren't allowed to cross - for me it was a road with a lot of speeders and crazy drivers.
What year were you there perhaps? I walked about a mile to school from 5 years old up with only the supervision of my 2 year older brother.
I was born in 89' so this has likely changed to being more protective. Media preaches fear.
Groceries shocked me that they had taxes on them when I moved out of Florida. Florida is price on shelf for groceries. Tennessee is price plus sales tax, which is 9-10% where I live. Kind of crazy.
We were never in the house as kids though, about an hour a week of "screen time". Mostly playing basketball and running around doing whatever.
I went into a Walgreens in Chicago, and waited in line behind two other people. There was a cashier free but the person in front of the line was waiting to be called. The guy behind the person in front politely said,
“ma’am, the cashier is free”
‘I’m waiting to be called” was the response.
So the guy behind her just walked past her, and she pushed him and said,
“Careful buddy, you’ll get shot for doing something like that”
I was taken aback at how quickly a simple discourtesy escalated to shooting someone. It just blew my mind that shooting someone over queue jumping was verbalised, and seemingly normal to each other.
That's not gun culture per se, but gang culture. Gun "culture" in the US is something that trends far more right wing in general, and tends to be mostly white, mostly (nominally) christian.
I can't speak to other cities, but the south side and west side of Chicago (esp. around Garfield Park, Douglas Park, and all of Austin) have a serious gang problem. If you aren't willing and able to engage in violence at the slightest perceived provocation, then you tend to be victimized. The net result is that someone that jumps a line can end up getting a beat down, or killed. (And, BTW, the gang problem is a result of a century of institutionalized racism, combined with a few decades when CPD was exceptionally effective at jailing gang leaders; instead of just two or three major gangs in Chicago, you have hundreds of small ones, all constantly fighting over tiny patches of turf.)
I get what you mean, but this was in the central loop, in a business district, between a white woman in her 50’s and a black man in his 30’s. Very much gun culture by your definition.
Gang culture I can somewhat understand, but this was just wild to me.
Not saying it’s right or wrong… not my circus. But at a chemist?
The toilets/restrooms at restaurants (or at least many fastfood restaurants?) are often shared and used by both employees and customers. It grossed me out a bit a bit at first, especially as they are, in my experience, quite often pretty filthy. So all the nastiness customers drag in could potentially be picked up by employees.
I've been to BKs and Wendys' where I left the establishment as soon as I entered, just because the whole place looked and smelled like somewhere you shouldn't eat. I suppose these were more often than not in pretty rural areas..
While on the toilet topic, I've found public restrooms at e.g. gas stations and shopping malls to often be, uh, less than inviting. I think I've seen more overflowing toilets on a 4 week vacation in the US than I've seen in 40 years over here, in northwest Europe.
To be fair, I've driven east/west at least 10 times over the years, so I've been to a lot of public restrooms and the bad experiences tend to stay with you for longer than the good ones.
America uses a sub standard s-bend to keep plumbers in a job.
Sugar in everything
That's not sugar, buddy, that's 100% American grown High Fructose Corn Syrup!
As an American, my top realization was... everywhere else in the world yall use electric kettles - Americans frequently only have a stove top kettle like it's the fucking eighteenth century.
Honest truth is that people in the US don't need to use kettles as much, so for a lot of households it's just a question of why buy an extra appliance when the cheap $10 kettle from Target or a small saucepan will do for the few times a year a kettle becomes convenient.
You ever eat instant ramen? You enjoy boiling things? Do you drink tea multiple times a year?
The kettle is worth it.
That's the thing, the answer for a lot of people in the US is no.
After coffee, the most common need for boiled water in US households is probably for pasta, and a kettle's not really the tool for either of those.
People that do eat a lot of instant ramen or drink a lot of tea in the US are more likely to have electric kettles (as some people I know do) but most don't eat ramen often enough and tea just isn't as big here.
Ramen is most commonly sold in sealed plastic bags in America. We just cook it in a pot like any other pasta. Lots of people I know don't own any kind of kettle. If they need to boil water a pot or the microwave both work just fine.
Personally, I like tea, but I also have an induction cooktop, so I just have a kettle for that. It's great. All the advantages of an electric kettle without having to put an electrical appliance by my sink.
Many things. To say some...Billboards with lawyers advertising for things like demands after accidents. Like dozens one after another on the road.
So much sugar in everything. Last time I was there had to throw to the bin a yogurt. Was so sweet It was awful. Prices of "fresh" food.
Tips for everything. Going to a restaurant and have to tip like 20% of the bill, or even more, is crazy.
Wáter consumtion. Like big golf camps completely green in the middle of a desert (Vegas). When asked about It, people there just answered "no problem, we have the Hoover Dam for that".
Lack of public transport outside four or five big cities. And that just walking on the streets in some places is very strange fot the people living there. I was asked ten years ago in Palo Alto if I was Russian because I was not driving, just walking on the street!!
All-green money is weird, about as weird for us as ours is for you. Once I knocked over some products in a store and then picked them up. The staff acted like that was saintly, so I guess other people just make a mess and move on? Drive through liquor stores are weird, and seem like an invitation to drink and drive. Paying at a hospital is weird just in concept, although thank god I've never had to deal with it down there.
Uhh, other than that it's been pretty similar in the places I've been. Etiquette around "sorry" is famously different, but aside from giving me away as Canadian it has little impact.
Edit, to add a couple positive things: Amazing Mexican food and barbecue not only exists but are ubiquitous. Coding jobs pay good money.
Everyone has an air conditioner, although Canada might be the weird one there.
In Australia it's customary to thank the staff members attending your table. So when they top up your water, or lay out cutlery for the next course, or clear plates, you say 'thanks/thank you'. Same for people clearing glasses in bars. It's like a millisecond pause in your conversation to thank the staff member; it's basically cell memory, you don't think about it. They may or may not acknowledge it with a smile or 'you're welcome/no worries'. . It's just a basic manners thing.
I and my partner were doing it in the states and it was clearly unnerving the staff. Lots of puzzled looks or 'thats ok hun' like they had to reassure me that it was part of the service.
Do people just ignore staff there? Is paying a tip at the end the only acknowledgment that they exist?
The brown paper-bag thing with alcohol in public. I mean, everybody and their dog knows what's in there, right?
And the fact that people ask if you need help if you decide to NOT take the car but instead walk the 5 minutes to somewhere.
As someone that sold liquor for a while, if the bag is dropped and the bottle shatters, the brown paper holds up a bit better when you're cleaning that shit up compared to the thin plastic that rips when you breathe on it,
Everyone does know. I can't speak for all states/counties/cities/etc, but the brown bag thing is mostly a legal grey area for allowing folks to drink in public. Most of the time drinking isn't legal to just do while walking around and can be given fines by cops. However this can be problematic for additional resources being redirected from more important crimes. So as long as the cops don't see a label or the whole bottle/can, then they can ignore it as "it could be anything."
For example, in the summer people in my state like to go tubing down sections of rivers. While tubing you can have coolers and stuff, however open drinking of beer or other such drinks isn't legal. So if cops were to be watching the river and clearly see the labels it can mean that they order you to get out and hand them over and/or be fined. But everyone makes sure to put their cans/bottles in foam cozies, and therefore it is a low-key unofficial understanding that as long as you aren't smashed and/or causing lots of problems everything is good. The same also applies to other places like lakes and the beach (at least in my state). But if you are super drunk and/or being an asshole, then the cops will use that as probable cause to actually search the bag/cozies and all that.
I suppose these are cliche topics but as a non-american non-tourist the first thing that has stood out to me is that the highs are so incredibly high, and the lows are so incredibly low. Being a Canadian, it's not like we don't also have income disparity...but the gap is not as insane. The rich in the US have yachts that are 100's of millions of dollars, and the poor literally carry their kids on their backs while selling fruit on the side of the highway. You can see both in the same day.
Also I don't think Americans truly understand that you can get weeks of hospital care in Canada and not even receive a bill. Like a month in a private hospital room and i paid for a phone bill, a wifi bill, and some parking fees. In the US if you even so much as flash your eyelashes at a doctor you get a bill for hundreds of dollars.
The statement for my wife's first month-long hospital stint was upwards of $957k.
While I agree with the essence of what you are saying. I want to say, if you have insurance the "bill" might be hundreds, but my share might only be 20 usd, if anything at all. If my "bill" was thousands, I might see my share be a couple hundred usd at most. It is possible for it to be far less then a couple hundred.
The other thing people don't mention is, if I honestly can't pay my share. I can walk into the billing office at the clinic /hospital and explain I honestly can't afford my share. The hospital will bill the insurance what they can, then look for extra funding. Most hospitals have a charity fund. It is based on my income. If I am broke and make crap wages, my share might be reduced to 0 usd.
Should we have a better system? Yes, but many times there are real options out there.
As a Canadian it's insane to me to have a bill at all after going through some sort of health ordeal the last thing you need is a big scary bill with something to do.
if I honestly can't pay my share. I can walk into the billing office at the clinic /hospital and explain I honestly can't afford my share. The hospital will bill the insurance what they can, then look for extra funding. Most hospitals have a charity fund. It is based on my income. If I am broke and make crap wages, my share might be reduced to 0 usd.
So the ask here is for someone who already need to work every waking moment, and then just lost a bunch of hours being hurt/sick, to then spend their time explaining multiple times to the billing dept that they cant afford it (this is degrading) and then their bill MIGHT be reduced but it also MIGHT go to collections and which further goes to damage the individual by hurting their credit. just seems like a burden on the poor.
But yeah i mean its a difference in systems. I think about how canada builds it into taxes - everyone pays in at a rate consistent with their income levels and benefits similarly - but the US way is donations. And I hope that works too. It seems to work from what i've seen so far. but it seems like a round about way to get it done.
I basically agree with what you are saying, just to clarify, it isn't asking multiple times or explaining multiple times. The one time I had to ask for help, I talked to one person. They looked and said, don't worry about the bill.
But yeah we do need a better system.
I appreciate having your first hand insight and appreciate the convo
User fees invoke a chilling effect on care usage, especially preventative care.
And when you're seen as a cash cow and as a patient, there can be a conflict of interest.
Edit: as a commenter pointed out, it's actually closer to 9g/100g, bringing it to soda levels of sugar ಠ_ಠ
Wonder Bread is just gross junk food. Also, if you consult the label again, it's worse than that. The 5g added sugar is for 57g of bread, so it's nearly 10% sugar by mass.
There are good brands here. I usually get Dave's Killer Bread. It still has some added sugar, but there are varieties with fairly small amounts.
Calling yourself Americans, after the entire dual continent. There are two continents and many other countries in the Americas, you know... [I know you know. And, what are you supposed to call yourselves, 'USAians'? 'Americans' makes more sense and is easier to roll off the tongue. But it's weird.]
Holding the door open for me. Smiling at me on the street. Those are sure signs of a swindler, but it's the norm in the USA. [I am not suggesting USA folks are swindlers, only that those actions are what swindlers in much of the world use. USA people are generally super nice and a genuine pleasure to be around.]
Turning right on red light. Red means stop. It's weird and confusing.
Edit: I added a third thing.
Edit2 in []
We are far from the only people that refer to us as Americans.
Very true. I added context as you commented. I'm not putting you down for it. It's the term that makes most sense. It's just weird. Not wrong or dumb or stupid or anything else insulting. It's just a weird term to use, even though it's the one that makes most sense. I honestly meant no disrespect or offense. I actually like USA and its people (I mean, there are crazies everywhere, but they don't define the rest of you). I genuinely apologize if I offended you. Seriously, mate, I meant no offense at all.
Edit: clarity
No problems at all, I just see this opinion a lot and think its weird when people think we're the only ones that say it, when it seems pretty common for other nationalities to do it too.
With regards to right on red. It (legally at least) requires that you must first stop at the light. So if you are turning right the idea is that you are supposed to first check for active traffic and treat it as if it is a stop sign. If someone ahead of you is waiting to turn right and then goes. Then you are supposed to pull up and then stop again before turning. Though in practice a lot of people will at best treat it more like a yield sign and just roll through without stopping. In super low traffic times or places where traffic is a non-issue (like a rural road where as you pull up to the light you can clearly see open roads without anyone) then this isn't really an issue aside from learning bad habits. Though heavy traffic places are much more of an issue.
Fast food portion sizes. It's out of control. Drinking 1 liter of soda for lunch shouldn't be normalized. BTW most people are super friendly and nice, in Michigan at least.
Oh, and why is all the cheese orange ?
The bad cheese is orange, the good cheese is yellow or white. More seriously, the orange cheese melts at lower temperatures and doesn't separate after melting. It can be good for grilled sandwiches and I'm told you can add small amounts to cheese sauces to prevent them from separating when stored in the fridge without impacting the flavor.
Because a slight orange hue is a mark of good cheese, so fluorescent orange must be even better, right?
At this point it's just tradition, and people in anglo North America don't realise it's not naturally that colour.
Michigan isn't as well known for cheese as Wisconsin, Vermont, or New York, but we make incredibly good cheeses that are white, yellow, and some even have red or blue flecks in them. Apparently somewhere in the US, (maybe Ohio or Pennsylvania?) actually makes a more "traditional" Parmesan than most of what Italy exports. Apparently it's creamier, and not so hard. There are seriously entire cheese shops in larger cities where over 50% of the cheese in the store was made in the US.
I found a lot of things weird, but I did go to Florida like 8 times so it’s to be expected and maybe some of these are exclusive to that state.
I found it weird that alcohol seemed to be sold only in liquor stores. But you can buy a machine gun in Walmart.
The food. Don’t get me wrong it’s nice and all but the quantity. Take sizzlers, you go in order your main meal then get an endless buffet for free. Like I couldn’t eat my steak when it arrived as I was full from the buffet.
syrup all over breakfast items and people bigger than id ever seen were gorging and then taking a box home too.
enthusiasm: grown ass adults whooping and hollering as we were queuing for rides. I’m a man child myself but it was startling.
Jaywalking. Wtf
To throw out some positives. Everyone I met was lovely and nothing like the nut jobs we get to see online. People were polite, friendly and accommodating.
Beautiful nature and national parks.
You definitely cannot buy a machine gun in Walmart...
I found it weird that alcohol seemed to be sold only in liquor stores. But you can buy a machine gun in Walmart.
That might be a Florida thing(?) Definitely not an Ohio thing.
The food. Don’t get me wrong it’s nice and all but the quantity. Take sizzlers, you go in order your main meal then get an endless buffet for free. Like I couldn’t eat my steak when it arrived as I was full from the buffet.
Yeah buffets aren't all that common... But they're probably more common here (especially in touristy spots) than other countries.
syrup all over breakfast items and people bigger than id ever seen were gorging and then taking a box home too.
enthusiasm: grown ass adults whooping and hollering as we were queuing for rides. I’m a man child myself but it was startling.
Fair.
Jaywalking. Wtf
Yeah... Especially in touristy spots and very urban spots some people don't care. I'm assuming you've witnessed Florida man that cuts across 6 lanes of busy traffic.
I think the average American normally only jaywalks if the street is pretty much empty and they don't feel like waiting 3 minutes for the light to change.
I think there may be a misunderstanding. The concept of jaywalking is nuts to me, and many Europeans. The USA has made it illegal to… walk? In the Netherlands, we don’t even have a word for this. It’s just walking. Traffic participation while not in a car.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a documentary. Ignore the cartoons. Oil companies bought up and paved over our trolleys in the 1920s and invented jaywalking to prioritize cars. It was a way to punish and imprison poor people, and likely, considering the rest of the history of this country, was predominantly enforced on people of color
Most of these vary by state, save for enthusiasm, jaywalking, and the national parks, which are universal, haha. My Canadian bf is amused by how excited I get to go biking/skiing/other outdoor activities :)
Sizes for clothes, drinks and fries are all bigger than in Brazil. A medium size shirt in the US is easily as big as a large in Brazil. For drinks I would usually groan every time I forgot to buy a small drink since I literally can't drink a medium soda in the US in less than an hour and I hate wasting food.
Well I've just read every comment on this thread and I'm relieved to realize that our recitation of our National Pledge of Allegience at every opportunity is in-fact seen as totally normal.
I can't tell you how much humor I found in this response to that comment. 😁
It is not, but it's also hard to notice as a tourist. I've learnt that from here
I only really saw that in grade school. And it was a Red Scare thing. Super culty, but so is all the McCarthy stuff.
Do you ?
At a point I was travelling a lot to the US, the only time I heard the national anthem was before a Rodeo in Texas, and I never saw someone reciting the "pledge of allegience
Mostly in schools, so not something a traveller is likely to see
Seems to have deliberately taken the opposite path of anything British:
Drive on the wrong side of the road
The light and power switches are upside down
Weights & measures. Imperial? Ha!
Screw your English dictionary. Ima put z's everywhere, drop the letter u and randomly pronounce words like buoy so you think there's an animal in the water over there
It kinda makes me laugh to think about it as just anti-British 🤣
we invented the modern car, y’all are driving on the wrong side of the road
a switch is a switch, if you don’t like the direction it goes, just flip it over and put the cover back on, half the switches in my house go one way, and the other go the opposite way, some of them are even sideways.
y’all sank the ship that had the US copy of the metric standard on it, and also invented the imperial system in the first place.
if you look at the entomology, the US largely uses the original English pronunciation of things, it’s the British who have slowly changed their pronunciation over the centuries. We did have a guy who intentionally changed a bunch of the spelling, you are right about that.
y’all
I'm not British. I just inherited mostly their system.
TBH, i laugh about both.
Eg the english language is a joke. Laugh? Larf? Laff?.
Canadian, so it's not all that different, but why. can. I. buy. liquor. in. a. PHARMACY?
Don't know if this is just a California thing, but it was weird as fuck. What's even weirder, in light of this, is they didn't go whole hog and sell cigarettes too. 'Cause helf.
Side story: Went into a Dollar General and bought a can of Sapporo. Ok, not so weird, it's functionally a super basic grocery store with a bunch of other cheap goods. Guy at the counter said, "Oh yeah, they make this beer in some place very far away". Looked at the can - I'm pretty sure he meant Japan, not Guelph, ON Canada.
He wasn't wrong but I did chuckle.
i like that there's this post where it's weird to be able to buy liquor in a pharmacy (canadian in california) and another where it's weird to only be able to buy liquor in a liquor store (brit in florida)
Liquor laws vary wildly throughout the US. The one good thing about Ohio is drive through liquor stores.
In some states you can buy booze pretty much anywhere. I moved out of the country for awhile and when I went back home I stopped into an ice cream shop slash convenience store, and when I was surprised to see the 6 coolers of beer along the back wall I realized I'd been gone a long time.
Electric kettles (or hot water jugs depending on where you are) are just not a thing there. Apparently it has something to do with your 110v AC system. They don't boil as fast, and so never really took off. Just a little factoid that blew my mind, considering how commonplace they are everywhere else.
It's not that much slower. Our 20a outlets give 2,400w, while yours gove 3000w. And, it's still faster than a stovetop kettle. Its more that we don't make hot tea very regularly, while drip coffee was the dominant hot drink for so long.
We aren't big tea drinkers, so we only need hot water for food preparation.
The coffee machines make their hot water for coffee. If you don't use a coffee machine to make coffee, you might use an electric kettle or the microwave if you are derrainged.
They do exist here, just not very common. But in my family at least, every person has one in their kitchen. We are big tea drinkers though. I use mine a lot to heat broth for Ramen.
I got this electric kettle and it heats up really quick. It shows the exact temperature on a screen too.
LOL, we has 2 and have never used them. One is at camp, where we have a gennie, and we sold the other at the flea market.
The only hot drinks we make are coffe and we have 3 machines for that. If we need hot water to cook, we heat it on the stove top. I just can't see why we would want one. Am I missing out?
They're faster than the stovetop by a lot over here, so if you're boiling a lot of water multiple times a day (for tea, coffee, ramen, and whatever else) they're super convenient.
If you're not making many hot drinks (or have better machines for that) I'm not sure how much use they are.
As for cooking, I know for myself, when I make something like rice, I boil the water in kettle first, and it definitely saves me a couple minutes. A few minutes doesn't sound like much, but it all adds up. Another commenter says that they're actually not that much slower over there, so it might be worth timing one compared to stove top?
They're significantly faster than boiling water on the stove here in the US too.
I have an electric kettle because I'm a tea drinker. Not gonna lie though, it did take a while before I realized I could just generally boil water in the thing. One day, looking directly at the kettle while I filled a pot with water, the dusty light bulb in my head finally lit up. 😅
Sugar in hot drinks by default. Asking for coffee-no-sugar seems to trigger incredulity. At least this was my experience in the South. New York is another country altogether, no eyebrows raised there.
Hmm? That seems odd to me. As a Southerner myself, I know more people who drink their coffee black, straight (No milk, no sweeteners) than I do people who put stuff in their coffee.
I've lived in the U.S. my whole life and I've never gotten automatically-sweet coffee unless I order something like a flavored coffee drink.
The god damn warning labels on absolutely fucking everything. Bro, I just wanna eat at a restaurant without wondering why the menu has a god damn "at your own risk" label... Also can't go 1 step in a water park without seeing a life guard, they're fucking everywhere. Not to mention on the rare occasion they aren't there, you just can't do shit. Land of the free my ass, feels like the optimal way to do anything is to always have a lawyer by side.
The menu one is specifically so restaurants don't get sued when they accidentally serve you raw products or food you're allergic to.
I suppose that makes us litigious, which is pretty weird and sad.
I'm Canadian. I went to a concert in Michigan (Third Eye Blind) and half the crowd had some article of clothing with the American flag on it. Not really that weird, but it's more than I'm used to seeing Canadians sporting Canadian flag clothing.
We do love our flag, especially post 9/11. Michigan is definitely a place where you would see more American flags than average. If you were in San Francisco, you would see far less.
In Belgium mostly the only time you'll see anyone with the flag on some piece of clothing is at some international (sports) event.
How annoying waiters are. I don't need small talk and I don't need you asking if everything's okay every five minutes. Just let me eat in peace!
The exact opposite experience if you're non white. I'm light skinned and get normal service. I go out with certain friends and suddenly we're getting ignored and waiting longer than people that came in way after us. We just end up ordering pickup or avoiding certain places all together.
School shootings
Kids safety trainings for school shootings
Guns everywhere
Two party political system
Rampant racism
Prison slavery
Everything about its police force
Unaffordable medical system combined with absolute shit medical insurance
I can go on for a while
Extreme focus on sports, wearing sportswear (both men and women do this), always “exercising”, mentioning calories on a menu card (a Caesar salad contains 1200 calories!).
I think this is a good thing. I would like to keep track of the calories I consume. (Do I? Nah, I just eat whatever looks healthy)
White socks and how Americans eat with their knife and fork.
How do Americans eat with their knifes and forks?
Edit:
Apparently my fellow Americans put the knife down after cutting and switch the fork to the hand that was holding the knife. I'm not sure I've ever noticed this.
I always use my right(dominant) hand to cut with but then I just use the fork in my left to eat the food with. I know I'm an odd duck but I'm baffled by the utensil boogaloo that seems to be going on. Now I'm going to have to watch people around me eat. I'll report back in a few weeks.
Holding the fork vertically with downward pressure in the left fist while cutting with the knife. Then putting down the knife, swapping the fork to the right hand for eating. Bonus points for biting the forks.
It's the most distracting thing in all American media. I like to yell "yanks eating weird!" And point at the screen. Once you see it you can't unsee it.
I don't think I've ever actively noticed that. And I have the feeling I'm going to regret now knowing this
I've never been there, but apparently you guys don't have blackberries, and have grape jam?
Edit: what you don't have is blackcurrants, not blackberries.
We absolutely have blackberries. In my neck of the woods, there's apparently 2 species of blackberries, one of which is highly invasive. I was going for walks about a month ago, specifically routed to pass by as many wild blackberries as possible, and they were very delicious!
We definitely have blackberries. We don't really have blackcurrants though, may be thinking of that?
Yep, currants took a hit because they were a vector for a pine tree infection that rocked our logging industry and led to a ban on currant growing like a hundred years ago. Currants aren't banned at the national level anymore.
And even through that, we have had creme de cassis as a liqueur that a decently built out bar would have.
everything is chlorinated. i get painful rash if i ingest chlorinated water, so basically everything was undrinkable. this was also true for soft drinks the time i visited Vegas, so my options for hydration were extremely limited.
A problem with this question is that the US is such a big and diverse place, that you could have this same question posed to Americans only, asking about their experience visiting other parts of the US.
Every shopping trip you get (single use) plastic bags, every food item is packaged individually. Even your plates are often times made from plastic, as is the cutlery (sometimes).
All those plastic cups in every restaurant - it's disgusting.
It's insanity.
Also: general waste is labeled "landfill" in some places.
TSA, but I guess you know that this is not normal?
Also the constant humming of ACs in New York drove me crazy.
I never understood the need to display multiple US flags in your yard. We get it, you live in america. You love America. We get that too. Are you afraid someone will think you no longer wish to be American if you took your flags down?
It took me (an American) going to Ireland and Northern Ireland to realize how odd the excessive flag waving is. Still odd, but those two have the US beat.
"Those two" have a few reasons to want to wave their flags.
But the Republic and Northern island need to fly those flags so you know where you are and whether it's been taken over.
Okay, maybe not, but when I was in America for a few years we decided the ridiculous fixation was so people knew that they hadn't been taken over ... again.
Currently live in the Republic of Ireland and I have no idea what you're talking about? Were you here on Saint Patrick's Day? There's a significant amount of Palestinian flags in windows here for pretty obvious reasons but other than that I don't think I've seen a flag since, again, Paddy's day.
No, leave them up so I know to avoid you.
I think for some it's a mix of patriotism and having poor taste in decor. I know people who also have American flag swim shorts, sunglasses, etc. Also, it's not exclusive to America. My British side of the family (especially the ones who've met the former Queen) have a weird amount of UK flag decor too, ranging from clock faces, throw pillows, and even an armchair covered in a giant union jack.
As long as it's the UK flag, and not the English flag, I'll give them a pass. Stay clear from anyone in an England flag, drunk or sober, football or naught.
Honestly I assume most people with an American flag in their yard are racist trump fans these days
You know what's a funny one? Flag pins. Every politician in America, take a look, they will ALL be wearing a little American Flag pin, always.
I have to assume other politicians in other countries don't always wear a pin of their country.
Shoes in the house
I grew up in a home where we just never thought about wearing, or not wearing, shoes in the house. Like, we obviously didn't track mud all over the place if our shoes were that dirty, but if we were wearing our shoes inside, nobody said anything or cared, it was just whatever. Married a Kenyan who put her foot down and was like, "Are you crazy?" It's apparently a big thing elsewhere in the world. In Kenya alot of roads aren't paved, things get dusty, and it's just common sense that you don't walk all over the house with dirty shoes, so I get it from that perspective.
Yeah that’s a huge part of it. Few Americans (me included) frequently walk outdoors on anything but sidewalks or paved roads in their normal day to day travels. When I go hiking I take those shoes off before I get back into the car, but my daily driver boat shoes which rarely touch actual dirt? I don’t have a problem leaving those on in most places, my house included. Same I imagine for Americans where their job is construction or something where your shoes are dirtied, take the work shoes off when you get home, but it’s fine to wear more casual shoes
Edit: what a strange thing to get downvoted about
Double edit: I guess the first downvotes were just from people who very much don’t like shoes in the house under any circumstances. That's ok. If I come to your house my shoes will come off. If you come to mine, feel free to leave them on if they aren't muddy.
As an American, it drives me crazy. Then there’s those heathens who lay on the bed with shoes on!
American of asian descent, absolutely ludicrous! It would perhaps be more forgiviable if all of the floors were furnished in hardwood and tile, but they'll wear shoes even on carpet! Immediately after entering one of these heathen's houses, I long for the soft, lucious, kempt, carpets of my own abode, compared to the repuslive, stiff, flat and even crunchy carpets of my white friends. Frankly it offends me, deeply. I must slap my friends silly before entering my home to remove their filthy clogs.
As an American this is gross to me too
Only place I've live where this is taboo is Chicagoland. And that's to be expected with the muddy snow.
Here in the South we usually don't have carpets, no reason to take our shoes off.
Thinking that there is no reason to take your shoes off is the most American thing in the world. There is poop, pee, puke, pollen, pollution, parvo and prions out there, among other things.
In Japan the entryway of a house is usually a step lower than the rest of the house. It is considered part of the outside, where the shoes stay, as well as all of the dirty things from the outside that are on the shoes. And symbolically, your troubles from the outside world are not brought into the house either. It's a major faux pas to wear your shoes in the house past this step and bring all that shit inside. Interesting contrast
yep, living in San Francisco made me a shoes off indoors guy, for every p you listed*
*except for prions. mmmm, delicious prions
Ever walked into a public toilet? Well, that piss is now all over your floor at home.
As is spit from the street. Remnant dog poo, bird poo, etc etc.
Take your shoes off. Please.
It's not carpets that I take my shoes off for - it's so I don't track public bathroom and outside street debris into my house.
Oh man YES
That is always a weird one for my brain to work around.
Do I just live in a weird bubble? I live in the US and I am rarely at someone’s house who doesn’t remove their shoes nowadays. I certainly grew up wearing shoes at home, but that’s changed significantly over the past 20 years or so.
American flags everywhere. Like EVERYWHERE. I get a bit of national pride but holy crap, every other house in the street is flying a flag, clothing has flag patterns, bumper sticker American flag, it's everywhere. And no, it wasn't even close to July 4.
It's like Americans are afraid they might forget what country they're in if they aren't in sight of a flag at all times.
Low effort patriotism
Fragile nationality
Examine photos of of Germany after 30 Jan 1933, you will see plenty of similarities.
I called this out after my first trip to the US, and then I came back to the UK just in time for the coronation weekend. Hahaha we definitely outdid them a bit in terms of flags which shut me right up. Especially working for an American employer for some reason, we went all out with a work do in the UK, union flags galore.
The difference is all our flags went away again straight after the coronation.
That's pretty standard for country celebrations I'd bet - around Australia Day we have plenty of people flying flags, but the day after it's back to normal
Yeah every time I see an american flag, I'm like yeah, I know where I'm at. I saw a Greece flag under the American flag at a house and I thought to myself, it would've looked much nicer with just the Greece flag.
But then people would be confused and think Greece was invading.
On the rare occasion you see a Union flag in Britain I usually say “oh my god we’re in Britain!”
I'll try to avoid stuff you know is weird.
As a lifelong American, I don't think we have 4% milk (reliably). Growing up we had Skim, 2% and Whole. Looking it up Whole is defined as 3.5%
I did look up a local store online and I was able to find it, but not universally at every store.
Whole milk also often called "Vitamin D Milk"
You're right, of course - I heard the same stuff referred to as "whole milk". But the only thing you're correcting about the wider point is the appropriate adjective. Which I find very funny. 😀
It's interesting that you picked this one out. I thought the money one in particular was going to be a controversial take.
3,5% milk is also the standard milk here in central europe and it says so on the packaging. People call it simply "milk", but it clearly says 3,5% milk on the branding.
I just found it interesting that the thing you were looking for, most Americans wouldn't have heard of. It makes me wonder why America has at least 3 milks.
If we ignore the 3.5% v 4% distinction and assume what we call Whole Milk, you just call Milk; what do you call Skim Milk? Or 2% Milk? And if you don't have them, why do we?
As for the money question, I was curious to see if other non-Americans felt the same. I agree that there is a subset of people who believe that. That subset may be quite large, but I'm not sure how it's perceived from an outsiders perspective. If you ask me, I don't think it's common, but I imagine some loud folks may make it appear that way. But I also acknowledge I'm an American in America, so maybe I don't notice it.
There's a health food craze in the US that stemmed out of rampant body shaming. Which might be largely because of American portion sizes. And they think that nutritional fat makes you fat. It doesn't. Excessive calories make you fat. And even that has caveats, but it's the best rule of thumb.
When did we start splitting milk? I know part of it is to make cream and high fat stuff while repurposing the skimmed off grass water. ::Googles:: WWII as a means of selling the byproduct of butter. Okay. Then in the 50s physicians started calling it health food despite the fact that the fat is used in your body during the digestion of many fat soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K, and thus skim milk is pretty close to the opposite of health food.
And the money thing is kind of rampant. It's a big reason why things with larger price tags, like Rolex watches, are thought to more impressive by Americans than equivalent or better watches. Rolexes do have a very high quality, but then the mark up on top makes it strictly something I do not respect, and others do not share that opinion with me. Same for a lot of things.
In Australia and New Zealand: we have skim milk, and call 2% milk "Hi-Lo" - sometimes I see it branded "lite milk". Then there's regular milk. It has 4% fat, but you need to read the fine print on the side of the bottle to learn that. I've heard it called "full cream milk", but usually in a cafe setting when ordering coffee.
My brother in the USA had something called half-and-half in his fridge. I think that one was 8%? You guys would know better than I. We don't have whatever it is.
Half-and-half is supposed to be "half milk, half cream" and is used primarily in coffee instead of heavy cream.
We had 1% as well where I grew up.
I'll try to address some of this, as I'm able. 🙂
Yes, many many milks, we can't agree on what is best. Personally I like a quality almond milk, for its nutrients & no sugars and huge bonus it's shelf stable. Great for emergencies.
I think the dearth of fresh produce is related to Americans not doing a lot of cooking. Most Americans have a simpler diet, and the stores need to concentrate on a number of things they know will sell. Baby carrots are actually awesome, you're going to appreciate this -- IIRC baby carrots are an innovative way to reduce food waste, sell crop. A farmer had ugly, misshapen, perhaps slightly molded or otherwise undesirable carrots. But most of it was good! So they cut off the bad parts & whittle it down to a nice, uniform, attractive shape & size. Baby carrots were born! Kids like them, they're 'snackable'...idk, I like them & I like the green effort.
Yes, food dyes are thrown into everything. RFK recently did a little rant about the yellow dye, some coal runoff chemical. He's absolutely right, it's not cool. I always say you go back 200 years & some people were starving, food of any kind was great. Now we throw red dye into ketchup solely because the ketchup isn't red enough. Disgusting.
Natural eggs have some waxy layer on it, a protective layer. So your eggs look dirtier but are actually healthier, can withstand low/no refrigeration. IIRC. Our eggs have that layer removed, they're required by law to be 'washed'. Yes, I also think it's bullshit.
It is definitely the sugar & preservatives.
As our bellies have grown, so has everything else. If you find old houses with old cabinets & old plates, you'll find the dinner plates are much smaller than we have today! We have been programmed to consume. Search 'dinner plates have gotten bigger' and read for yourself.
Yes, our police forces get down to counties. Towns. Idk, I would say that this should provide a more personal & immediate presence. Also in the American spirit, keeping these matters fractured & separate (but also working together, and deferring to increasing levels of authority as needed) allows for the most freedom. You don't like how things are run in this town? Well move to another one. Same with the states. I see people moving towns because they want a better school for their kids. It allows for choice.
Yeah, pretty much. TBF, though, our brains can only process so much. And what can we do about the European stuff, anyway?? We've got our jobs, maybe our families, our homes, 334M fucking people of our own with various beliefs scattered across 50 diverse states, heavy taxation without representation (hint, hint), our own problems...then somebody comes up to you..."Did you hear what happened in Fuckistan this morning? 🥺" NO! 😂🙃
Thankfully, with the internet, we can look into any world events we want to & educate ourselves that way. I do, I am politically more involved than most. But no, I cannot name current ministers, chancellors, presidents... I hear their position & that's enough for me. Not my monkeys, not my circus, you handle yours & I'll handle mine.
12 . Thanks! I think at heart we're very cordial people generally speaking. But onto that second, contradictory part: I absolutely agree. I live in a generally good area, but I also see a lot of...other...people. There's a saying, people were a lot more polite & considerate when duelling was legal. Looking around, I think things have become far too 'civilized', the people too soft & dumb, our food as you've pointed out is poisoned, mental & physical illnesses abound, the people haven't seen real hard times, there is no clear & present danger to unite & fight so they make up stupid things to get offended by & fight each other, they're protected from the natural consequences of their actions...I see it. Often. This & more culminates in disrespect & disconnects. Unlike other nations, partly because of our freedoms & partially because our legal system lacks balls, we tolerate a lot of bullshit behavior. As they say, if you tolerate something, expect more of it.
In fairness for number 11, many Americans can't even name their own government officials, expecting to know about other countries is a tall order.
We’re not neighbors with 43 countries, so we don’t have as much immediate exposure to everything going on around those countries. For one, because it’s not going on around us, like it is for you. That said, I thought I had you with the Prime Minister comment. Of course it’s Boris Johnson. Doh! It seems you’ve had 4 prime ministers in 2 years? What’s going on with that? Like I said, we don’t really get exposure to what is happening over there, so unless we specifically go looking for it, I guess we’re out of the loop. We know what’s going on in Mexico and Canada though.
Others have written on this far more eloquently than I have, and so I will use their words to help explain this.
‘It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but might as well be.’ It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: ‘if you’re so smart why ain’t you rich?’ There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.
Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.
Family eating at shooters (and the whole hooters/twin peaks concept)
Need to take the car for a 500m trip because there is no sidewalk and a highway to cross
The car thing really blew my mind. My hotel was 400m from the office but 1.6km by car. Colleagues were waiting for a taxi while I walked. I had to cut over a couple of car parks and a bit of grass (zero sidewalks) and was there in a few minutes while they turned up 15min later since they were waiting for a taxi.
The worst part, they all jumped in cars to go 300m down the road for lunch. Yeah, I walked. With looking for a parking space then walking from the space to the restaurant, they got there after me.
I adore Americans; they’ve been nothing except kind and generous to me in every part of the country I’ve visited but damn, the money they’re wasting alone just starting their engines and the wear and tear on the vehicles blows my fucking mind. Build some sidewalks, guys!
Many of us would like this, but it's dangerous or even illegal to get to some places by walking in large parts of America. And zoning laws make it really difficult to change.
It's illegal to walk to Costco
It's illegal to cross the street some places
Being overly fake nice because you want a tip. Tbh I'd be more inclined to tip you if you left me alone and stopped talking to me.
The whole tipping thing in USA is weird. Everyone wants a tip, it's entirely random (as a non-American) how much tip to give. Just pay your staff a wage they can actually live on ffs.
As an American I agree it's fucking weird. Tips should be for exceptional service and not an obligation.
There's actually a loose set of rules to it. Im not sure where the specific numbers came from, but 22% of the bill as a tip is considered "excellent service", 18% or so is considered "mid" or "acceptable" service, and anything below that is a sliding scale of how bad you think they did. 0% is either you being rude and/or saying "i dont believe in tips", but giving a $0.01 tip is basically saying "fuck you, you piece of shit," (because fishing out a penny or writing it in takes more effort than opting out).
Those numbers used to be 12, 15 and 18. They've increased, but I'm not sure why, since they're percentages. They keep up with increased food prices automatically. Not sure why tip growth has outpaced food prices.
Yeah but how do you consult those rules? How often are they updated? How do you get notified of updates?
The fact that there are no answers to these questions and therefore everyone is working with mismatching rule sets makes the whole thing useless. You can be totally well meaning and still piss off a server because somehow you don’t know what the currently acceptable magic number is.
I recently visited the states for the first time in a decade and didn’t find out until afterwards that 15% is now considered by some people to be “low”. Sorry everyone who I tipped, I shafted you without realizing it. 🤷♂️
We don't even get this memo. I thought it was still 15, 18, and 20. And I'm wholey against mandatory tipping, but always do so because I don't want the underpaid staff to starve. I have enough friends in food service who can barely pay their rent with multiple roommates.
It's not the healthcare that bothered me most, although it did.
It's the cognitive dissonance around the unavailability of healthcare in order to avoid anxiety over the fact that a traffic accident can bankrupt you with no relief. Ignoring the risk takes some serious mental gymnastics and basic math failure to get there, but when brought up in this environment - where a TV show about a teacher who has to cook and sell meth to get hospital money is actually a plausible plot where no one actually examines the mercenary care at all and the main character just pays it - it's just a part of their existence.
Not understanding that few other people live like this - cubans don't live like this - is absurd.
When I watch "alone", it's so depressing at the end when they ask them what they'll do with the money they won. And they say "pay for my wife's cancer treatment". Like omg America
Yeah, as an American it's disturbing and makes it hard to believe we can change things. You've described it very well.
Maybe that explains the amount of mental health issues in the population?
Tipping
Oh we realize, but it's difficult to stop once it's been ingrained in the culture. Not only that, employers took advantage of that and therefore tipped employees have a much lower minimum wage.
Technically they have the same minimum wage. If they don't get back up to minimum wage in tips, the employer is legally required to make up the difference. The issue is most people don't know this, and so employers get away not doing it. This is one of the many forms of wage theft, the most common form of theft in the US.
And minimum wage isn't a liveable wage in most of the US now. Well, unless you split rent amongst 4 working people in a single bedroom apartment. That's only an exaggeration in some of the US.
The fear of naked (intact) female bodies, i.e. censoring of even the slightest nudity, when at the same time, it’s totally fine to have minors play computer games where they can dissect other humans in great bloody detail.
Oh, and chocolate that tastes like somebody barfed into it during manufacturing.
The chocolate thing is because American chocolate manufacturers use butyric acid to preserve the milk. Basically, using fresh milk in chocolate is expensive, because you need to get it shipped directly and be located near enough to the dairy farm. So they intentionally spoil the milk in a controlled manner. This allows them to preserve the milk (as opposed to having it spoil naturally and go completely rancid,) which allows them a much more relaxed manufacturing process. This controlled spoiling method produces butyric acid in the milk.
The issue is that butyric acid tastes like vomit. Americans are used to the sour taste and don’t even really recognize that it’s not what chocolate is supposed to taste like. To them, that sour note is just part of chocolate. But Europeans come to America (and are used to fresh milk in their chocolate), and they are horribly disgusted when they taste American chocolate for the first time. Because Europeans aren’t used to having that sour note in their chocolate.
This is also why so many Americans fawn over foreign chocolate. It is seen as more luxurious, but most Americans can’t really place why it tastes so much better. The reason is the lack of butyric acid.
Butyric acid!
Also Smarties! These are Smarties everywhere else in the world apart from the US as far as I can tell.
Sex is bad but graphic footage akin to war carnage is just superhero stuff totally appropriate for kids /s
Other chocolate I've tried from other countries through import stores definitely tend to beat our chocolate. Definitely gotta agree to a degree with that one.
funny that you didn't mention porn. I feel like that would probably be more relevant, although conservatives are trying to ban it now, so there's that.
Signs telling you not to bring guns into shopping centers.
In some states, these signs don't even mean that a person can't carry a concealed weapon into the shopping center. In my state, for instance, assuming you are otherwise able to legally carry a gun (meaning you took a class and aren't a felon), the list of areas where you can't legally carry a gun is very limited: Federal buildings, courthouses, etc. If a business has a sign posted stating "no guns allowed," you can still legally carry your weapon in that business. If an employee sees that you're armed, they can ask you to leave, and you're trespassing if you refuse, but nothing legally stops you from carrying a gun into the establishment in the first place.
As a disclaimer, I'm not arguing this one way or another. I have a license to carry a concealed handgun, in fact. Just sharing information.
Yeah I'm sure minimum wage clerks are going to totally feel comfortable asking the armed person (someone who believes they need to arm themselves to enter a shopping center) to please leave.
Does this give you any increased sense of security as a non-american?
the opposite for me
The sign actually would give me an increased sense of security yeah.
Obviously a lunatic out to do a mass shooting would disregard the sign but your average gun wielder might be offended and take their business elsewhere – and statistically that's the one who's more likely to shoot me. That's my logic as a Norwegian who's lived there for just a year anyway.
Never seen this where I live. Not every state is a complete shit hole thankfully
I’m from Alberta Canada. I’ve worked up North in camp jobs, and have been working in the trades with the rowdiest people our country has to offer.
Every time I’ve been to the states I’m shocked at how aggressive a large portion of your population is willing to talk to people. Every time I’ve gone there I’ve had at least one negative aggressive interaction with one of your citizens. I’m a large man with a beard and tattooes up to my neck, I’m a pretty intimidating looking dude paired with the Canadian politeness we’re known for. I do not understand how this keeps happening. And I see you guys do it to eachother too! It’s fucking wild.
Who the fuck is this asshole?
Hahahahahahaha nailed it bud
Go fuck yourself. /s
Just kidding, but yeah, we suck as a people. But I'll be friendly to ya when you land in my neighborhood.
It should be pointed out that MOST Americans I met were not like that. But it’s a large enough amount that it’s always been a noticeable difference from home.
As an American I think it’s largely that we generally suck at dealing with negative emotions. For many that means bottling it up and being kind anyways, but we have the assholes and you learn to walk away, or clap back, or whatever works for you and they just get angrier at being dismissed. They aren’t mad at you, they just suck and we’re bad at helping people not suck, especially since they tend to love guns
based on knowledge of the US : many things that other places take for granted or fight to preserve, you guys struggle to obtain.
based on my trip : fucking nothing, I visited new york and stayed at a run down, pre paid hotel. I ate food from stores or carry out. I can't exactly critique the healthcare system, tipping culture, driving culture when I had access to a fairly modern public transport system, didn't need medical assistance and didn't need to tip 50 people just to eat one thing.
EDIT: it's like asking tourists in antalya at the beach what they think of turkey, they're fucking tourists, they aren't affected by the dictator and his bullshit
I was just in Göcek and Ankara and I had some wildly interesting interactions with locals when they asked me how I liked Turkey.
"I like it, very beautiful country, lovely people, great food."
"So you'd move here?"
"Uh... perhaps not"
"So you don't like Turkey"
👀
lol
those fuckers have some nerve asking you that shit, when we have so much brain drain that most high streets are basically completely catering to elderly people with hearing aid and similar stores on each one, because all the working age people leave to live abroad.
No shit rich foreigners don't want to move to turkey.
source : part of the brain drain for both turkey and the UK. fuck them countries.
My girlfriend and her sister are also in the brain drain. Definitely a sad state of affairs, so many of her friends and friends family's have been either political prisoners, or had ongoing court cases, etc.
I've been trying to learn Turkish so we can move her family over here too and I can actually chat with them, but I fear they'll need to work on their English so they can get around.
wow. I'm assuming the people asking you "wanna move to Turkey?" aren't aware of this.
Best of luck to your gf's family , gurbet recognise gurbet.
Teşekkürler!
I hope where you are now is more stable.
I only stopped there for transit on a flight to Mexico. Just before boarding my flight I was told that I need a visa for the US, which is extremely weird because normally airports have transit zones where you don't need any visa. But apparently the US is special, so you actually have to enter the country before going right back into the airport. This nonsense made me miss my flight.
Also I remember in the airport there was a security guard doing nothing but shouting nonstop that it's not allowed to carry water. Why not simply put up a sign?
Americans don't read.
We read, just not posted signs without a skull on it or something cool like that.
If it is important they would put it on a hat.
I'd also say sign fatigue (plus general fatigue) is a thing. When you go to an airport security line there's like these giant signboards stood up like the 200 Commandments, each with a mix of pictures and walls of text of for things you're not allowed to bring on a plane. Or some things you can check and not carry on or you can carry on and not check. And you're also expected to know all of that while you are in transit, stressed, and maybe also sleep deprived.
Too many signs to properly pay attention to them all.
Am American, don’t know what this says
We weren't elected to read.
W.r.t. water bottles, I think it's because people don't look at or think about the signs that are often posted. A loud person yelling specifically at you is much more likely to make someone stop and ask themselves if they have a water bottle.
I'm definitely not defending it, but that's my take on the matter. The whole water bottle thing is just security theater anyways.
Not like that, they didn't let me board my flight from Europe to Texas. Even though I had a connecting flight to Mexico few hours later. Why can't they have a visa free transit zone like every other country in the world?
So they can rob noncitizens using asset forfeiture laws. Never travel in or through the US if you need to transport large sums of money or valuables.
Actually, the better advice is never travel in or through the US. I wish that were an option for me.
A couple of times I've travelled Air NZ route that goes London-Auckland via LAX. The plane has to stop to refuel I guess. All the passengers are forced to queue up to be fingerprinted and have their eyeballs scanned, while a security guard walks up and down screaming "STAY IN THE LINE!" Then they're herded into a lounge barely big enough to hold everyone (first class passengers have their own little pen next to the toilets). Apologetic air crew distribute apples, crisps and bottles of water. For hours. Through a glass wall is a view of the rest of the airport: shops, cafes, bars, space to stroll. But hey, at least you get to not miss your flight, and the US is safe from Kiwi tourists.
I don't know if they still do this, I avoid the route.
did london via LAX as well. This was my only experience of the US:
Arrive LAX and do the whole enter the US customs, the agent asks if anyone has had access to my baggage to which I answered "everyone here with security access". The shit head was not impressed and let me know.
Because fuck you, that's why.
Also, freedoms or something, I dunno.
America in a nutshell.
Your urban planning. Your cities are unwalkable, the scenery makes me depressed af, everything is scaled up for cars, even restaurants are for cars, the highways are huge, all I can see is tar. I don't know how you can live like that.
To be fair, the national parks are really beautiful. But you need a car to even reach these parks, then drive into a massive parking lot -- really depressing.
We don't, we develop mental health issues and our bodies get crippled in the process too.
Shoes. Indoors, in your own house, on your furniture?!
That is divisive even within the country.
I was raised in small town Ohio and taking your shoes off, especially in a strangers home (occasionally not in your own because of practicalities like going back and forth to unload the car), was considered part of common etiquette along with not wearing hats indoors.
Both of those things really depend on your family though as I've definitely met people that just don't care.
I don't like walking on my carpeted areas in my shoes, but I don't mind walking in the laminate in shoes. Easier to clean imo.
Yeah as someone living in Canada that seems wild to me. I can't imagine they still do that in places with snow, that would be madness.
How can you guys get any work done around the house if you're constantly swapping shoes?
Pffft
Just go barefoot everywhere
Going out in public in your pajamas.
How difficult it is to find fresh produce in small shops (food deserts)
How much fat is in all the meat.
How old and badly maintained many of the roads and bridges are (I am from Africa, so that says something)
The levels of national arrogance.
First thing I (another Canadian) noticed when we switched from the car to a shuttle to the airport (crossed the border by car to take a flight to Florida) was that there were multiple people on that shuttle that were at least as big as the most obese person I'd ever seen in person up to that point.
Even though our cultures overlap quite a bit, there's something different in that aspect.
You need to visit a Walmart and good luck trying to forget.
The obesity epidemic really depends on where you are. I don’t see any fat people where I live now, but they were absolutely everywhere in the city I lived in before.
This was in Detroit. It wasn't as noticable in Florida, or on separate trips to California. Like I'm sure I saw some pretty obese people in those locations (as I do in various places in Canada), but it wasn't to the point where my mind made specific note of it for me to remember over a decade later.
Central California has tons of fat people, especially at places like Walmart. They all seem to congregate there. But then places like Huntington Beach, San Diego, and San Francisco, have almost no fat people. I think the better the socioeconomic situation is, and the more accessible walking is, the less likely people are to be overweight in an area.
Yeah, I was in SF and then LA and spent the free days of the LA trip hiking Hollywood Hills and visiting six flags, which probably skews more towards people fit enough to hike or fit in rollercoaster seats.
I also visited a market near the hotel that had prices low enough that my assumption at the time was it had to be mostly stolen and got a great duffel bag for like a quarter of what I'd expect to pay for that back home.
Amusement parks tend to bring some pretty hefty people off the couches. The Hollywood Hills are usually pretty healthy. What did you think of SF and L.A.? SF used to be my favorite city in the world. That was twenty years ago though. I’ve heard that it is in serious decline now. Some parts of Hollywood can be cool to visit, but L.A. in general is completely overwhelming to me. I want to get the fuck out after 2-3 days. To be fair to L.A., I have the same reaction to NYC. I think they’re really neat and amazing for a day or two and then I just want to escape and get away from the oppressive concrete jungle.
Your public toilets are not private. There should never be a gap around the door. The height should be above what any reasonable person would grow to, and the lower height of the door should hide the person's feet on the toilet unless you crouch down. It's weird and very off putting to use one
They say it's to prevent crime. Same as a lot of the awful things we come to expect. I'm willing to bet it doesn't do anything noticeable with respect to crime.
It's to prevent the expectation of privacy. We've all been trained to accept that we are being spied on, even when we shit.
I, too, commit most of my crimes from inside of a public toilet.
Hahaha. I think when they say crimes, I think they mean doing drugs and having sex. So largely nothing actually harmful unless the person passes out.
Yeah, I went to Germany ... we need to fix this. It could be so much better, we should copy the German's and use full doors.
The amount of sugar in any food of yours! It's incredibly sickening and I'm not sure how you deal with that.
That's the neat thing: our pancreases do! Until they don't...
I've started noticing that now that I cook 100% of the food I eat. No more processed anything, no more prepackaged anything, no more eating out.
Mostly because of money and my location, but I'm better off for it.
Canadian here, British Columbia.
Going to a Wal-Mart in a small-ish town and counting 38 CCTV cameras across the outside front of the building. Ours, in a city with 28× the population, has only 6.
Inside that same Wal-Mart, going into a checkout line without first checking out the customers, and the very next guy ahead of us was an open carry: a semi-auto (AR-15 like looking weapon) slung over his shoulders, a handgun in a holster on his waist, and a lump on his right ankle above his boots. And two knives on his belt. Dude looked like he was ready for some urban warfare.
The sheer amount of infrastructure decay. Sure, even Canadian towns that haven’t seen economic good times look run down and dilapidated, but American towns really kick that up a notch. Most small-town buildings look like they haven’t seen a makeover since the Carter administration.
Unusually authentic Mexican food. Up here 90% of Mexican places are run by white dudes who make semi-authentic “fusion” dishes that are mainly just spicy. Cross the border and less than 15 minutes in, there is one family-run chain (Rancho Chico, Rancho Grande) with super-cheap 100% authentic foods run and staffed solely by Mexicans. And like, holy shit, that’s good food.
The sheer number of people who support and vote for a party who will do absolutely nothing for them, and will enact policies that will drive them even further into poverty and destitution just so their Parasite-Class campaign donors can get even more obscenely wealthy. Conservative voters are just weird, man.
Ironically, the lump might have been what gets him into trouble. If he’s concealing a firearm without a permit, it can land him with some pretty hefty penalties. And if he has a permit but is printing (meaning the concealed weapon is visible through his clothes, like a lump) then it can also land him with some penalties.
It’s dependent on where you were, as each state has their own concealed carry laws. But in general, you’re not allowed to conceal a firearm without a permit. And if you do have a permit, you’re not allowed to have that concealed firearm be visible (even indirectly, like printing.)
Plus if you’re open carrying, Walmart internally bans them anyways. They’re a private business, and have the authority to dictate what people are or are not allowed to do while in their stores. The company has a blanket policy against open carrying, and (assuming they’re not barred from doing so by state law) the dude should have been told to leave his guns outside (like in his car) or be trespassed.
Dude, thank you for saying that about the Mexican food. I've been saying this online for a while and it's not well understood how good it is all the way across the US, even in small towns. Now, there are regional differences, as you would expect, but it's only a bit worse than Mexico and way better than just about anywhere else in the world
Americans don't play about Mexican food. We want it high quality, high quantity, and we'll support it
A friend's boyfriend is a Mexican citizen working on immigrating and he explained it to me once that for non-citizens it's far easier to start a business than to get a job, so many immigrants end up starting shops or restaurants related to their culture as they slowly work their way through the immigration process. This has led to absolutely amazing Mexican and Latin American cuisine in every corner of the country as well as lots of brilliant ethnic stores specializing in hard to get items for people from that culture. I live in a small town of about 12k and have 1 Mexican store, 1 Mexican ice cream shop and 3 Mexican restaurants! In rural Wisconsin!
Also why so many Koreans run donut shops or nail salons, and why 7-11’s are almost universally franchised by Indians. They’re all relatively easy businesses to start, can be run out of any strip mall near a neighborhood, and all have the potential to hire and train your family members. And if your cousin owns a donut shop (and you’ve worked there enough to know how it works,) you can go open your own across town. Because if you come in on a work visa, your ability to stay in the country is held hostage by your employer. But if you start your own business, that’s not an issue.
Sweet bread.
OMG. It's bread. Why is it sweet?
Depends on which kind you're talking about. Cinnamon raisin breads and similar are sweet because they're basically deserts (desserts?).
Standard sandwich loaf is sweet because your weak foreign palate cannot handle the background level of high fructose corn syrup in all American food. It gives us the strength and vitality to enforce pax Americana, build our secret space colonies, and invent all new world technology.
2 S's for dessert - you always want a second helping. How I always remember that one :p
As an American, yeah that’s what gets me. I just don’t understand it and I hate it
German, only having been there once some years ago, so no idea if it still is that way:
Not knowing what I will have to pay in the grocery store until the cashier tells me what to pay. Here the price on the shelf is THE price. I might have a voucher that reduces the price in the end, but nothing is ever added only subtracted, all prices on the shelf are easily comparable, because no matter the weight of one package there is also given the price of 1kg or 100 g for everything.
No kids on playing grounds without parents standing around. No kids just playing on the side walk (often there is no side walk anyway), no kids walking to school. It made me aware of how much freedom kids have in Germany, how independent even 6 y.o. are in Germany compared to kids in the US. They walk to to school alone or use public transport alone, they buy groceries alone, they visit friends by foot or public transport, three y.o. already having a bike and cycling besides their parents to kindergarden...
On the other hand seeing so many very young people having a job, like a really hard job for many hours besides school. It broke my heart, they should be free to be young and having all the time, working comes fast enough and goes on forever. Also I saw very old people doing jobs that should be able to retire because you could see them being in pain and barely able to function, definitely not a "choice" for them.
The amount of medication, especially pain medication, people take in the US compared to Germany and how much of it is freely available while it is needing a subscription from a doctor here. Every time I was feeling unwell I was offered pills that I found to be numbingly strong and switching my brain off? Hard to explain. I found them scary, but was told that they take them on a daily basis and they are harmless ... nope.
The children thing varies with region, and had become more pronounced in recent years.
When I was a kid I walked to the bus stop, played outside with a lot of freedom, etc. The rule for most kids was to go home when the street lights came on, and there was usually a border you weren't allowed to cross - for me it was a road with a lot of speeders and crazy drivers.
What year were you there perhaps? I walked about a mile to school from 5 years old up with only the supervision of my 2 year older brother. I was born in 89' so this has likely changed to being more protective. Media preaches fear.
Groceries shocked me that they had taxes on them when I moved out of Florida. Florida is price on shelf for groceries. Tennessee is price plus sales tax, which is 9-10% where I live. Kind of crazy.
We were never in the house as kids though, about an hour a week of "screen time". Mostly playing basketball and running around doing whatever.
Juxtaposition of pearl-clutching Puritanism w/ a 21 drinking age against beer available in a 7-11.
Pick a fucking lane
Sorry to be honest, but this is my view...
Voting between two parties, and then getting whatever the "electors" pick. All the while, thinking they live under the biggest democracy of the world.
Having all sorts of inhuman behaviors, like robbing childs from immigrants.
Child marriage.
Having lots of weapons in the country but all wars outside.
Mmm.. What else? Ah, prisoners are slaves.
The firearm culture, and how normalised it is.
I went into a Walgreens in Chicago, and waited in line behind two other people. There was a cashier free but the person in front of the line was waiting to be called. The guy behind the person in front politely said, “ma’am, the cashier is free” ‘I’m waiting to be called” was the response.
So the guy behind her just walked past her, and she pushed him and said, “Careful buddy, you’ll get shot for doing something like that”
I was taken aback at how quickly a simple discourtesy escalated to shooting someone. It just blew my mind that shooting someone over queue jumping was verbalised, and seemingly normal to each other.
That's not gun culture per se, but gang culture. Gun "culture" in the US is something that trends far more right wing in general, and tends to be mostly white, mostly (nominally) christian.
I can't speak to other cities, but the south side and west side of Chicago (esp. around Garfield Park, Douglas Park, and all of Austin) have a serious gang problem. If you aren't willing and able to engage in violence at the slightest perceived provocation, then you tend to be victimized. The net result is that someone that jumps a line can end up getting a beat down, or killed. (And, BTW, the gang problem is a result of a century of institutionalized racism, combined with a few decades when CPD was exceptionally effective at jailing gang leaders; instead of just two or three major gangs in Chicago, you have hundreds of small ones, all constantly fighting over tiny patches of turf.)
I get what you mean, but this was in the central loop, in a business district, between a white woman in her 50’s and a black man in his 30’s. Very much gun culture by your definition.
Gang culture I can somewhat understand, but this was just wild to me.
Not saying it’s right or wrong… not my circus. But at a chemist?
Thats mostly just Chicago to be real
I've never seen an interaction like that and I've lived in this country 40 years
Sounds like someone was just being hyperbolic?
Where I'm from, the hyperbole would go "You'll get punched."
Yeah, that is definitely not normal. Never heard anyone say anything like that (western US)
The toilets/restrooms at restaurants (or at least many fastfood restaurants?) are often shared and used by both employees and customers. It grossed me out a bit a bit at first, especially as they are, in my experience, quite often pretty filthy. So all the nastiness customers drag in could potentially be picked up by employees.
I've been to BKs and Wendys' where I left the establishment as soon as I entered, just because the whole place looked and smelled like somewhere you shouldn't eat. I suppose these were more often than not in pretty rural areas..
While on the toilet topic, I've found public restrooms at e.g. gas stations and shopping malls to often be, uh, less than inviting. I think I've seen more overflowing toilets on a 4 week vacation in the US than I've seen in 40 years over here, in northwest Europe.
To be fair, I've driven east/west at least 10 times over the years, so I've been to a lot of public restrooms and the bad experiences tend to stay with you for longer than the good ones.
America uses a sub standard s-bend to keep plumbers in a job.
Sugar in everything
That's not sugar, buddy, that's 100% American grown High Fructose Corn Syrup!
As an American, my top realization was... everywhere else in the world yall use electric kettles - Americans frequently only have a stove top kettle like it's the fucking eighteenth century.
Honest truth is that people in the US don't need to use kettles as much, so for a lot of households it's just a question of why buy an extra appliance when the cheap $10 kettle from Target or a small saucepan will do for the few times a year a kettle becomes convenient.
You ever eat instant ramen? You enjoy boiling things? Do you drink tea multiple times a year?
The kettle is worth it.
That's the thing, the answer for a lot of people in the US is no.
After coffee, the most common need for boiled water in US households is probably for pasta, and a kettle's not really the tool for either of those.
People that do eat a lot of instant ramen or drink a lot of tea in the US are more likely to have electric kettles (as some people I know do) but most don't eat ramen often enough and tea just isn't as big here.
Ramen is most commonly sold in sealed plastic bags in America. We just cook it in a pot like any other pasta. Lots of people I know don't own any kind of kettle. If they need to boil water a pot or the microwave both work just fine.
Personally, I like tea, but I also have an induction cooktop, so I just have a kettle for that. It's great. All the advantages of an electric kettle without having to put an electrical appliance by my sink.
But my electric kettle only cost me $10
Also: Microwave. Apparently, lots of people heat their water in the microwave. (See pinned comment here.)
I will admit as a kid when I wanted tea I used to just fill a mug with water and stick it in the microwave for a minute.
+1 for the account name being on topic
I thought this one was also to do with their power being on a lower voltage so Kettles take longer?
But it's still super weird. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Many things. To say some...Billboards with lawyers advertising for things like demands after accidents. Like dozens one after another on the road.
So much sugar in everything. Last time I was there had to throw to the bin a yogurt. Was so sweet It was awful. Prices of "fresh" food.
Tips for everything. Going to a restaurant and have to tip like 20% of the bill, or even more, is crazy.
Wáter consumtion. Like big golf camps completely green in the middle of a desert (Vegas). When asked about It, people there just answered "no problem, we have the Hoover Dam for that".
Lack of public transport outside four or five big cities. And that just walking on the streets in some places is very strange fot the people living there. I was asked ten years ago in Palo Alto if I was Russian because I was not driving, just walking on the street!!
Another Canadian.
All-green money is weird, about as weird for us as ours is for you. Once I knocked over some products in a store and then picked them up. The staff acted like that was saintly, so I guess other people just make a mess and move on? Drive through liquor stores are weird, and seem like an invitation to drink and drive. Paying at a hospital is weird just in concept, although thank god I've never had to deal with it down there.
Uhh, other than that it's been pretty similar in the places I've been. Etiquette around "sorry" is famously different, but aside from giving me away as Canadian it has little impact.
Edit, to add a couple positive things: Amazing Mexican food and barbecue not only exists but are ubiquitous. Coding jobs pay good money.
Everyone has an air conditioner, although Canada might be the weird one there.
In Australia it's customary to thank the staff members attending your table. So when they top up your water, or lay out cutlery for the next course, or clear plates, you say 'thanks/thank you'. Same for people clearing glasses in bars. It's like a millisecond pause in your conversation to thank the staff member; it's basically cell memory, you don't think about it. They may or may not acknowledge it with a smile or 'you're welcome/no worries'. . It's just a basic manners thing.
I and my partner were doing it in the states and it was clearly unnerving the staff. Lots of puzzled looks or 'thats ok hun' like they had to reassure me that it was part of the service.
Do people just ignore staff there? Is paying a tip at the end the only acknowledgment that they exist?
The brown paper-bag thing with alcohol in public. I mean, everybody and their dog knows what's in there, right?
And the fact that people ask if you need help if you decide to NOT take the car but instead walk the 5 minutes to somewhere.
As someone that sold liquor for a while, if the bag is dropped and the bottle shatters, the brown paper holds up a bit better when you're cleaning that shit up compared to the thin plastic that rips when you breathe on it,
Everyone does know. I can't speak for all states/counties/cities/etc, but the brown bag thing is mostly a legal grey area for allowing folks to drink in public. Most of the time drinking isn't legal to just do while walking around and can be given fines by cops. However this can be problematic for additional resources being redirected from more important crimes. So as long as the cops don't see a label or the whole bottle/can, then they can ignore it as "it could be anything."
For example, in the summer people in my state like to go tubing down sections of rivers. While tubing you can have coolers and stuff, however open drinking of beer or other such drinks isn't legal. So if cops were to be watching the river and clearly see the labels it can mean that they order you to get out and hand them over and/or be fined. But everyone makes sure to put their cans/bottles in foam cozies, and therefore it is a low-key unofficial understanding that as long as you aren't smashed and/or causing lots of problems everything is good. The same also applies to other places like lakes and the beach (at least in my state). But if you are super drunk and/or being an asshole, then the cops will use that as probable cause to actually search the bag/cozies and all that.
I cannot even begin to imagine not having the Freedom©®™ to crack open a bottle of wine for a picnic
That's insane
A church and a MC Donald every 250 meters The sheer size of everything
All of the ads for Medication on TV
The intense income disparity.
Healthcare bills.
I suppose these are cliche topics but as a non-american non-tourist the first thing that has stood out to me is that the highs are so incredibly high, and the lows are so incredibly low. Being a Canadian, it's not like we don't also have income disparity...but the gap is not as insane. The rich in the US have yachts that are 100's of millions of dollars, and the poor literally carry their kids on their backs while selling fruit on the side of the highway. You can see both in the same day.
Also I don't think Americans truly understand that you can get weeks of hospital care in Canada and not even receive a bill. Like a month in a private hospital room and i paid for a phone bill, a wifi bill, and some parking fees. In the US if you even so much as flash your eyelashes at a doctor you get a bill for hundreds of dollars.
The statement for my wife's first month-long hospital stint was upwards of $957k.
While I agree with the essence of what you are saying. I want to say, if you have insurance the "bill" might be hundreds, but my share might only be 20 usd, if anything at all. If my "bill" was thousands, I might see my share be a couple hundred usd at most. It is possible for it to be far less then a couple hundred.
The other thing people don't mention is, if I honestly can't pay my share. I can walk into the billing office at the clinic /hospital and explain I honestly can't afford my share. The hospital will bill the insurance what they can, then look for extra funding. Most hospitals have a charity fund. It is based on my income. If I am broke and make crap wages, my share might be reduced to 0 usd.
Should we have a better system? Yes, but many times there are real options out there.
As a Canadian it's insane to me to have a bill at all after going through some sort of health ordeal the last thing you need is a big scary bill with something to do.
So the ask here is for someone who already need to work every waking moment, and then just lost a bunch of hours being hurt/sick, to then spend their time explaining multiple times to the billing dept that they cant afford it (this is degrading) and then their bill MIGHT be reduced but it also MIGHT go to collections and which further goes to damage the individual by hurting their credit. just seems like a burden on the poor.
But yeah i mean its a difference in systems. I think about how canada builds it into taxes - everyone pays in at a rate consistent with their income levels and benefits similarly - but the US way is donations. And I hope that works too. It seems to work from what i've seen so far. but it seems like a round about way to get it done.
I basically agree with what you are saying, just to clarify, it isn't asking multiple times or explaining multiple times. The one time I had to ask for help, I talked to one person. They looked and said, don't worry about the bill.
But yeah we do need a better system.
I appreciate having your first hand insight and appreciate the convo
User fees invoke a chilling effect on care usage, especially preventative care.
And when you're seen as a cash cow and as a patient, there can be a conflict of interest.
Your bread is sweet. Like, all of it. And not just like, pleasantly so like a French brioche, but almost candy-like. Wonder Bread is one of the worst offenders, coming in at 5g added sugars per 100g: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Wonder-Bread-Classic-White-Sandwich-Bread-Sliced-White-Bread-20-oz/37858875?classType=REGULAR&athbdg=L1600
Edit: as a commenter pointed out, it's actually closer to 9g/100g, bringing it to soda levels of sugar ಠ_ಠ
Wonder Bread is just gross junk food. Also, if you consult the label again, it's worse than that. The 5g added sugar is for 57g of bread, so it's nearly 10% sugar by mass.
There are good brands here. I usually get Dave's Killer Bread. It still has some added sugar, but there are varieties with fairly small amounts.
To name a few:
Calling yourself Americans, after the entire dual continent. There are two continents and many other countries in the Americas, you know... [I know you know. And, what are you supposed to call yourselves, 'USAians'? 'Americans' makes more sense and is easier to roll off the tongue. But it's weird.]
Holding the door open for me. Smiling at me on the street. Those are sure signs of a swindler, but it's the norm in the USA. [I am not suggesting USA folks are swindlers, only that those actions are what swindlers in much of the world use. USA people are generally super nice and a genuine pleasure to be around.]
Turning right on red light. Red means stop. It's weird and confusing.
Edit: I added a third thing.
Edit2 in []
We are far from the only people that refer to us as Americans.
Very true. I added context as you commented. I'm not putting you down for it. It's the term that makes most sense. It's just weird. Not wrong or dumb or stupid or anything else insulting. It's just a weird term to use, even though it's the one that makes most sense. I honestly meant no disrespect or offense. I actually like USA and its people (I mean, there are crazies everywhere, but they don't define the rest of you). I genuinely apologize if I offended you. Seriously, mate, I meant no offense at all.
Edit: clarity
No problems at all, I just see this opinion a lot and think its weird when people think we're the only ones that say it, when it seems pretty common for other nationalities to do it too.
You can even turn left on a red if it's from or into a one-way street. I think that is state specific though
With regards to right on red. It (legally at least) requires that you must first stop at the light. So if you are turning right the idea is that you are supposed to first check for active traffic and treat it as if it is a stop sign. If someone ahead of you is waiting to turn right and then goes. Then you are supposed to pull up and then stop again before turning. Though in practice a lot of people will at best treat it more like a yield sign and just roll through without stopping. In super low traffic times or places where traffic is a non-issue (like a rural road where as you pull up to the light you can clearly see open roads without anyone) then this isn't really an issue aside from learning bad habits. Though heavy traffic places are much more of an issue.
Fast food portion sizes. It's out of control. Drinking 1 liter of soda for lunch shouldn't be normalized. BTW most people are super friendly and nice, in Michigan at least.
Oh, and why is all the cheese orange ?
The bad cheese is orange, the good cheese is yellow or white. More seriously, the orange cheese melts at lower temperatures and doesn't separate after melting. It can be good for grilled sandwiches and I'm told you can add small amounts to cheese sauces to prevent them from separating when stored in the fridge without impacting the flavor.
Because a slight orange hue is a mark of good cheese, so fluorescent orange must be even better, right?
At this point it's just tradition, and people in anglo North America don't realise it's not naturally that colour.
Michigan isn't as well known for cheese as Wisconsin, Vermont, or New York, but we make incredibly good cheeses that are white, yellow, and some even have red or blue flecks in them. Apparently somewhere in the US, (maybe Ohio or Pennsylvania?) actually makes a more "traditional" Parmesan than most of what Italy exports. Apparently it's creamier, and not so hard. There are seriously entire cheese shops in larger cities where over 50% of the cheese in the store was made in the US.
British.
I found a lot of things weird, but I did go to Florida like 8 times so it’s to be expected and maybe some of these are exclusive to that state.
To throw out some positives. Everyone I met was lovely and nothing like the nut jobs we get to see online. People were polite, friendly and accommodating.
Beautiful nature and national parks.
You definitely cannot buy a machine gun in Walmart...
That might be a Florida thing(?) Definitely not an Ohio thing.
Yeah buffets aren't all that common... But they're probably more common here (especially in touristy spots) than other countries.
Fair.
Yeah... Especially in touristy spots and very urban spots some people don't care. I'm assuming you've witnessed Florida man that cuts across 6 lanes of busy traffic.
I think the average American normally only jaywalks if the street is pretty much empty and they don't feel like waiting 3 minutes for the light to change.
I think there may be a misunderstanding. The concept of jaywalking is nuts to me, and many Europeans. The USA has made it illegal to… walk? In the Netherlands, we don’t even have a word for this. It’s just walking. Traffic participation while not in a car.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a documentary. Ignore the cartoons. Oil companies bought up and paved over our trolleys in the 1920s and invented jaywalking to prioritize cars. It was a way to punish and imprison poor people, and likely, considering the rest of the history of this country, was predominantly enforced on people of color
Most of these vary by state, save for enthusiasm, jaywalking, and the national parks, which are universal, haha. My Canadian bf is amused by how excited I get to go biking/skiing/other outdoor activities :)
Sizes for clothes, drinks and fries are all bigger than in Brazil. A medium size shirt in the US is easily as big as a large in Brazil. For drinks I would usually groan every time I forgot to buy a small drink since I literally can't drink a medium soda in the US in less than an hour and I hate wasting food.
Well I've just read every comment on this thread and I'm relieved to realize that our recitation of our National Pledge of Allegience at every opportunity is in-fact seen as totally normal.
I can't tell you how much humor I found in this response to that comment. 😁
It is not, but it's also hard to notice as a tourist. I've learnt that from here
I only really saw that in grade school. And it was a Red Scare thing. Super culty, but so is all the McCarthy stuff.
Do you ?
At a point I was travelling a lot to the US, the only time I heard the national anthem was before a Rodeo in Texas, and I never saw someone reciting the "pledge of allegience
Mostly in schools, so not something a traveller is likely to see
I noticed too many churches in Texas.
Canadian checking in.
Biggest oddity to me is that the default for restaurants is one bill, and waiters get annoyed if you ask them to split it by person.
Like why would I want to either:
It's complete insanity to me.
Seems to have deliberately taken the opposite path of anything British:
It kinda makes me laugh to think about it as just anti-British 🤣
I'm not British. I just inherited mostly their system.
TBH, i laugh about both.
Eg the english language is a joke. Laugh? Larf? Laff?.
Canadian, so it's not all that different, but why. can. I. buy. liquor. in. a. PHARMACY?
Don't know if this is just a California thing, but it was weird as fuck. What's even weirder, in light of this, is they didn't go whole hog and sell cigarettes too. 'Cause helf.
Side story: Went into a Dollar General and bought a can of Sapporo. Ok, not so weird, it's functionally a super basic grocery store with a bunch of other cheap goods. Guy at the counter said, "Oh yeah, they make this beer in some place very far away". Looked at the can - I'm pretty sure he meant Japan, not Guelph, ON Canada.
He wasn't wrong but I did chuckle.
i like that there's this post where it's weird to be able to buy liquor in a pharmacy (canadian in california) and another where it's weird to only be able to buy liquor in a liquor store (brit in florida)
Liquor laws vary wildly throughout the US. The one good thing about Ohio is drive through liquor stores.
In some states you can buy booze pretty much anywhere. I moved out of the country for awhile and when I went back home I stopped into an ice cream shop slash convenience store, and when I was surprised to see the 6 coolers of beer along the back wall I realized I'd been gone a long time.
Electric kettles (or hot water jugs depending on where you are) are just not a thing there. Apparently it has something to do with your 110v AC system. They don't boil as fast, and so never really took off. Just a little factoid that blew my mind, considering how commonplace they are everywhere else.
It's not that much slower. Our 20a outlets give 2,400w, while yours gove 3000w. And, it's still faster than a stovetop kettle. Its more that we don't make hot tea very regularly, while drip coffee was the dominant hot drink for so long.
TIL
Can't resist a chance to reccomend Technology Connections
We aren't big tea drinkers, so we only need hot water for food preparation.
The coffee machines make their hot water for coffee. If you don't use a coffee machine to make coffee, you might use an electric kettle or the microwave if you are derrainged.
They do exist here, just not very common. But in my family at least, every person has one in their kitchen. We are big tea drinkers though. I use mine a lot to heat broth for Ramen.
I got this electric kettle and it heats up really quick. It shows the exact temperature on a screen too.
https://fellowproducts.com/products/stagg-ekg-electric-pour-over-kettle
LOL, we has 2 and have never used them. One is at camp, where we have a gennie, and we sold the other at the flea market.
The only hot drinks we make are coffe and we have 3 machines for that. If we need hot water to cook, we heat it on the stove top. I just can't see why we would want one. Am I missing out?
They're faster than the stovetop by a lot over here, so if you're boiling a lot of water multiple times a day (for tea, coffee, ramen, and whatever else) they're super convenient.
If you're not making many hot drinks (or have better machines for that) I'm not sure how much use they are.
As for cooking, I know for myself, when I make something like rice, I boil the water in kettle first, and it definitely saves me a couple minutes. A few minutes doesn't sound like much, but it all adds up. Another commenter says that they're actually not that much slower over there, so it might be worth timing one compared to stove top?
They're significantly faster than boiling water on the stove here in the US too.
I have an electric kettle because I'm a tea drinker. Not gonna lie though, it did take a while before I realized I could just generally boil water in the thing. One day, looking directly at the kettle while I filled a pot with water, the dusty light bulb in my head finally lit up. 😅
I mean, they sell them at Costco, I'd hardly call that unknown. They're less common because most people just don't need them.
Sugar in hot drinks by default. Asking for coffee-no-sugar seems to trigger incredulity. At least this was my experience in the South. New York is another country altogether, no eyebrows raised there.
Hmm? That seems odd to me. As a Southerner myself, I know more people who drink their coffee black, straight (No milk, no sweeteners) than I do people who put stuff in their coffee.
I've lived in the U.S. my whole life and I've never gotten automatically-sweet coffee unless I order something like a flavored coffee drink.
WEARING SHOES INDOORS
The god damn warning labels on absolutely fucking everything. Bro, I just wanna eat at a restaurant without wondering why the menu has a god damn "at your own risk" label... Also can't go 1 step in a water park without seeing a life guard, they're fucking everywhere. Not to mention on the rare occasion they aren't there, you just can't do shit. Land of the free my ass, feels like the optimal way to do anything is to always have a lawyer by side.
The menu one is specifically so restaurants don't get sued when they accidentally serve you raw products or food you're allergic to.
I suppose that makes us litigious, which is pretty weird and sad.
Drive thru ATMs. Also, people just sitting in their cars without driving.
What about drive-thru liquor stores!
The flags on the cars.
Most of us know that’s weird.
I'm Canadian. I went to a concert in Michigan (Third Eye Blind) and half the crowd had some article of clothing with the American flag on it. Not really that weird, but it's more than I'm used to seeing Canadians sporting Canadian flag clothing.
We do love our flag, especially post 9/11. Michigan is definitely a place where you would see more American flags than average. If you were in San Francisco, you would see far less.
In Belgium mostly the only time you'll see anyone with the flag on some piece of clothing is at some international (sports) event.
Donald Trump. I mean seriously WTF?
How annoying waiters are. I don't need small talk and I don't need you asking if everything's okay every five minutes. Just let me eat in peace!
The exact opposite experience if you're non white. I'm light skinned and get normal service. I go out with certain friends and suddenly we're getting ignored and waiting longer than people that came in way after us. We just end up ordering pickup or avoiding certain places all together.
Guns. Paying for being medically treated / not having a proper healtcare system. Weird relationship to Socialism.
Cold war really messed US up, mentally
School shootings Kids safety trainings for school shootings Guns everywhere Two party political system Rampant racism Prison slavery Everything about its police force Unaffordable medical system combined with absolute shit medical insurance I can go on for a while
Extreme focus on sports, wearing sportswear (both men and women do this), always “exercising”, mentioning calories on a menu card (a Caesar salad contains 1200 calories!).
I think this is a good thing. I would like to keep track of the calories I consume. (Do I? Nah, I just eat whatever looks healthy)
White socks and how Americans eat with their knife and fork.
How do Americans eat with their knifes and forks?
Edit: Apparently my fellow Americans put the knife down after cutting and switch the fork to the hand that was holding the knife. I'm not sure I've ever noticed this. I always use my right(dominant) hand to cut with but then I just use the fork in my left to eat the food with. I know I'm an odd duck but I'm baffled by the utensil boogaloo that seems to be going on. Now I'm going to have to watch people around me eat. I'll report back in a few weeks.
Holding the fork vertically with downward pressure in the left fist while cutting with the knife. Then putting down the knife, swapping the fork to the right hand for eating. Bonus points for biting the forks.
It's the most distracting thing in all American media. I like to yell "yanks eating weird!" And point at the screen. Once you see it you can't unsee it.
I don't think I've ever actively noticed that. And I have the feeling I'm going to regret now knowing this
Non-stop televangelism channels are quite something. But probably you know that’s weird.
A/C particularly, electricity waste. It's damn ridiculous, even for Texas. Are northerners born in fridges?
It gets to be 90°F with a dew point of ~75°F where I am.
You can swim in the air with those numbers and absolutely suffer heat stroke. Fans just circulate the humid as fuck hot air. :(
And that's a bit of a break here. We hit 100+F regularly over the summer, and its 82 F and 85% humidity in the mornings. No AC is bad.
I've never been there, but apparently you guys don't have blackberries, and have grape jam?
Edit: what you don't have is blackcurrants, not blackberries.
We absolutely have blackberries. In my neck of the woods, there's apparently 2 species of blackberries, one of which is highly invasive. I was going for walks about a month ago, specifically routed to pass by as many wild blackberries as possible, and they were very delicious!
We definitely have blackberries. We don't really have blackcurrants though, may be thinking of that?
Yep, currants took a hit because they were a vector for a pine tree infection that rocked our logging industry and led to a ban on currant growing like a hundred years ago. Currants aren't banned at the national level anymore.
And even through that, we have had creme de cassis as a liqueur that a decently built out bar would have.
We have both blackberries and grape jam. Though grape is more likely to come as a jelly rather than a jam.
We've definitely got blackberries and blackberry jam, but grape does tend to be the norm in a lot of areas. I prefer raspberry myself.
Crocs
everything is chlorinated. i get painful rash if i ingest chlorinated water, so basically everything was undrinkable. this was also true for soft drinks the time i visited Vegas, so my options for hydration were extremely limited.
as an american i would like to make the presumptious statement of "it's like, pretty normal actually"
please yell at me in the replies, i thrive on confrontation.
A problem with this question is that the US is such a big and diverse place, that you could have this same question posed to Americans only, asking about their experience visiting other parts of the US.
From Austria:
The amount of plastic waste you produce.
Every shopping trip you get (single use) plastic bags, every food item is packaged individually. Even your plates are often times made from plastic, as is the cutlery (sometimes).
All those plastic cups in every restaurant - it's disgusting.
It's insanity.
Also: general waste is labeled "landfill" in some places.
TSA, but I guess you know that this is not normal?
Also the constant humming of ACs in New York drove me crazy.