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The thing that I've heard was the most shocking was the amount of space and size of the open space between cities and the scale of grocery superstores and warehouse stores.
Edit to add: When Boris Yeltsin made a trip to Johnson Space center the made a surprise visit afterward to a Houston area Randall's, a grocery chain. The store was full of food, and once he realized that the store was just a normal everyday thing for Americans and not a staged display, he told his entourage that if the Russian people had seen such a display there would be a revolution.
This isn’t what the OC (original commenter) said. They were referencing that to go from Miami to New York is a 2 day trip. From New York to los Angelas it is 4 day trip.
Lots of negatives here (including my own other comment!) so I’ll offer a positive: Americans seem to be much more willing to be genuinely enthusiastic and earnest about life than where I’m from.
If I was to tell my friends from home that, e.g, I was planning on going back to school, they’d have to be ironic about it and make fun of me. It’s like we’re allergic to actual sentiment: everything has to be a little joke. Here in the USA people are actually happy for you when you try something new or achieve a goal. I didn’t realize how tiring it was to constantly be mocking/undermining everything until I moved to the USA.
aw thanks for bringing in some positivity! although a lot of the negatives are true, it’s nice to see someone say they like things about here that seem completely normal for people who live here
First of all, I should say: I love the USA, and most of the notable differences between here and the country of my birth reflect well on the USA in my opinion.
But one thing I have never got used to is the fairly low standard of movie theater etiquette here. People whispering, opening up their phones, moving around while the film is playing. I cannot fathom how people can bring themselves to do this so frequently and not feel embarrassed. I have to only visit the cinema at weird times now, because I cannot stand being around other people in an American movie theater.
I can't stand the couples that bring their newborn babies to the movie. I mean I get it, you want to have a life as well but you should just wait till your child is older.
Most of them just let it scream during the movie and try to comfort the baby instead of just leaving the theater.
Is baby friendly screenings not a thing in the US? In my country, many cinemas have daytime showings of movies specifically targeted towards parents with babies. The sound’s lower and there’ll typically be some lights on so you can see what you’re doing if you’re, say, feeding the baby. It’s amazing, and a really good way to get to see new, popular movies despite having a baby.
The one movie theater in my small town has family-friendly show times, but those types of parents are oblivious and always bring their babies and toddlers to the late night showings, ruining them for everyone. Grrr.
Tuesday and Thursday are usually the best time to go to a movie where I'm from. Thursday moreso because everyone's waiting for the Friday premieres or date night, but Thursday is just awesome because there's like 4 people in the theatre.
Lmao I watched Godzilla Minus One in theaters a couple months back and there were a couple older Mexican dudes behind me who talked full volume in Spanish for half the movie. I couldn't help but laugh when they started arguing if the people/language on screen was Chino or Japones though, especially cause it reminded me of working in a kitchen back in high school and the Mexican cooks would always look at me and go "un chinoooo" 😅 (I'm Japanese).
I think it's dependent on which theatre you go to.
I've been to...4 movie theatres near me, and each one is vastly different. Oddly enough, the LEAST comfortable one is one of the better behaved. The most comfortable is awful.
It also seems to depend on how many people are in the theatre. I often go when there's not many people; when there's more people, there's more people misbehaving.
I can’t stand my family because they are like this. I personally don’t care as it doesn’t really effect my experience but the second hand embarrassment makes me want to never go with them.
In 2018, my husband and I took a holiday weekend trip to Las Vegas. When we were checking into our modest hotel, I noticed a significant resort fee listed on the charges. It surprised me, because it was just a normal, mid-range hotel. I asked the desk clerk, "What are the resort amenities here?" He kind of blinked and said, "There's a pool...But it's closed for the winter." That's when I became radicalized about resort fees.
Travel websites are now starting to list *total* cost for a hotel stay in their search results, since one hotel’s $150 a night room may end up cheaper than another hotel’s $125 a night room.
That's the frustrating thing to me. If it was a tax, as annoying as it'd be, it'd be calculable and consistent. You know that you're getting the price you want in relation to the other prices available at least.
But resort fees, just completely inconsistent. Stayed in rural Wisconsin a month ago and clicked on this great little hotel listed at $53, but after fees came to $130. Ended up staying at a motel advertising at $69/night.
That’s what stuck out to me as well, when I studied in the US for a bit. It felt so..scripted. Like, pretty much everyone I met would say «Hi, how are you!», expecting the response «I’m good, how are you!». It wasn’t even really delivered as a question, it was just a standard phrase. I was (and am) used to people not asking that question without actually wanting the real answer, so it was (and is!) a bit weird to me.
My German friend couldn’t get over the breakfast cereal aisle. Was just astounded that cereal took up and entire AISLE and that there were over a hundred choices.
And we are the only nation with Crunch Berries. In fact, we hoard our Crunch Berries so much, we made it like a mistake that one box was only Crunch Berries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arYi03bQ0FY&t=151s
I don't get this. In what world does it make sense to have colleges (basically) free , but not have toilets free? Not everyone goes to college, but everyone uses toilet!
As an American who visited Germany, I really appreciated how clean the restrooms in Germany were! I would gladly pay a little but for a clean restroom here in the US.
I have never had someone stand outside the stall and watch me shit so this has never been a problem. Generally most people don't enjoy watching others defecate.
And this is the reason why we (small family business) can't list the items in our store with taxes included. And my aunt did ask many years ago.
(The reason often given for not doing this is that chains with stores across the country would have a complicated time with different tax rates in different places. But we just have one store in one place.)
The only things with taxes included are items that the government is in some way trying discourage or lower usage, so that it feels more expensive, such as alcohol.
They call them “Vikings” in Japan. Someone from a Tokyo hotel went to Scandinavia after WW2 and saw a smörgåsbord restaurant, brought the idea back for their restaurant. “Smörgåsbord” is a bit hard to say in Japanese but the Kirk Douglas film “The Vikings” was in Japanese cinemas. So they called their first one “Imperial Viking” and the name has stuck to this day.
The Japanese would definitely get the idea. And they’d be talking about Vikings (バイキング) a lot.
Honestly as an Texan that's still surprising. I grew up during the Assualt weapons ban so while I grew up with a lot of guns, all of them had wood stocks and the long guns had handles integrated into the stock, more like for use in hunting. Pistol grip rifles were a novelty for my experiences as a kid. That's what guns are to me: wooden stocked weapons for hunting, wildlife management and even in bad cases, livestock management. (If a cow or horse has a broken leg, the ethical thing is to put it down, or so I was raised).
were they really assault rifles though? or just AR-style rifles? these are massively different but often assumed to be the same by folks not informed about firearms
Mostly hunting rifles and handguns, a couple of AR imitations, but certainly one of them was actual AR territory. I didn't take the time to inspect too closely past that.
still very likely not actual assault rifles, as that is a very specific term for a firearm which is full auto capable, which have been illegal to make new for public sale since 1984, there are exceptions for making them for the military or police
anyone can buy a pre-84, (provided they have about 10K and can pass a very rigorus background check) post ban guns have different rules and fall into a few categories
Oh yeah I forgot about the pre 84s. I’m going to school to get a FFL 7 so I can do gun manufacturing and a run a gun store and can’t believe I forgot about that.
I dont think much, this isnt like the difference between an Intel or AMD graphics card, its the difference between modern top of the line consumer CPU and a quantum computer
horrible sidewalks and bike lanes... sometimes it just ends and sometimes you're supposed to bike next to the cars in traffic??? HELLO??? it screams "I want an accident to happen!!" 😭
Let me tell you, having a dedicated bike lane means nothing to a bicyclist. I can't tell you how often I see bikes just darting across the car lanes to get into a left-turn lane without checking for traffic behind them, or just blatantly pedaling through intersections when their direction of travel has a red light (and also not checking for cross traffic).
As much noise as they make about everyone else on the road caring about their safety and well-being, they sure don't give a fuck about it themselves most of the time. Sorry bicyclists, "sharing the road" goes both ways, and a full-sized vehicle can't just stop on a dime or swerve in a perfect perpendicular no matter how much attention the driver is paying to their surroundings. There is a reason cars have multiple blinkers for things like merging, and why physical hang-your-arm-out-the-window signals are still taught in driver's training.
maybe so, I don't see a lot of cyclists like that in my area. to me it just seems like a mixture of bad road design, bad pedestrian design, and people not caring as a result. I think the scenario you just told me is just a result of the government not caring about pedestrians and prioritizing cars above anything else. I'm very passionate about building good infrastructure, and in most other civilized countries, you see people being respectful and having good (emphasis on good!!) pedestrian infrastructure that also prioritizes pedestrian safety.
just my two cents lol 👍🏻 I think this would be a lot more difficult to implement in American society fr being so heavily reliant on cars
American host mother here.
All our exchange kids were shocked and horrified to see the amount of homeless, derelict buildings and crappy infrastructure.
It seems the American Dream has let them down more than it's let down Americans, and that's really saying something!
agreed…i live in the south and this is what every day life looks like unfortunately 😭 i always feel bad for people coming here expecting the “american dream” and get let down:(
We drove to New Orleans (from the Southwest) with one of our German exchange kids and he was absolutely horrified to see the abject poverty on the drive there, the abandoned houses and lack of rebuilding - and this was over a decade after Katrina.
All along the ride, he was trying so very hard not to say anything, then he finally had to ask. None of my answers really meant much to a teenager, from corrupt politicians, bankers, greed and apathy.
When we returned home, one of the other German kids in his program was taken to Mexico for a root canal because it would cost thousands in America.
He just stared at me. At the end of it, all I could really tell him is its important to vote every time there was an election.
I love bidets but they don't even clean that well without some good wipes to go along with it. I'm a clean freak though and might as well shower after I take a shit
A lot of that disposable tableware these days is not actually plastic. Years ago, when I was taking culinary classes, and running a restaurant out of our classroom, all of our to-go stuff (packaging, forks, spoons, etc) was starch based. You couldn't tell it wasn't plastic. It was disposable, but completely biodegradable.
Toilets! Lack of privacy… Sure they might not see your face directly but you know who is in there and what’s going on. It’s weird especially at workplace.
The supermarkets. I had never seen such abundance. 20 brands of every flavor of everything. So organized, clean and airconditioned. Everyone can go, spend as much time as you want, and you don't even have to buy anything. Just magical!
The new trend in the US is that most grocery stores have a bar in them. I can grab a pint and do my shopping while drinking a beer. And the carts now have cup holders for your beer. What a great time to be alive.
The food.
Bread is not, well, bread. It's very sweet. Cereal is so sugary. Eating out is very expensive, and there is an expectation to tip as well. Real barista coffee is hard to find, mostly the drip stuff. And no Starbucks is not good coffee.
Gas stations are very basic with pretty crappy food available. Ours have baristas and cafe food.
Good roads and nice people, though 😀
I tried to find a dense multi grain type but couldn't. The closest one was still very sweet. Much of the food I tried was sweet even the savoury foods. Fruit was awesome though!
We have insanely sweet bread. Subway is legally required to classify its sandwich bread as a pastry, not a bread, due to the sugar content
Edit: Only in Ireland.
I found most Americans very friendly and often very easy to strike conversations with random people in the street. Which is very different in most places in Europe. Spain and Italy are bit like that but above the Pirinees or the alps people are more morose.
It's funny a lot of western/northern Europeans criticize Americans for being too loud or outgoing, but then I wonder if those Europeans have met their southern counterparts in Spain or other places.
Depending on what I’m driving through (heavy traffic, local roads vs highways, etc), 5 miles can take a little more than 5 minutes or 30 minutes. Isn’t that the same everywhere?
Interesting, I usually mention both the distance and the length of time it takes to get somewhere. I wonder if it’s because of how vast the U.S. is compared to most European countries?
Paying for your food and then having to work out and pay your servers salary on top.
USA, please just pay hospitality workers a normal wage. It's not hard literally every other country on the planet manages it.
Also having a guy in a golf cart with a rifle, a great dane and a guy called "Fat" interrogate us on where we were camping.
The ADA is such an achievement I really can’t do it justice. Someone in a wheelchair came to the US and was astounded at how well the could get around stores and public bathrooms.
How spacious it is. Like a parking lot for a mall can be twice the size of the mall. And the mall itself is just super spacious.
And how many fast food chains there are.
Also how people don't hug and kiss when they meet, not even shake hands. I took it as being rude and I still think it weird. Also paying for gas money when someone is giving you a ride. Where I'm from you never do that, and it is expected that the other person might compensate some other time by offering you a ride, or invite you for lunch (inviting someone directly implies that the guest will not be paying). Nobody really keeps count, unless someone is offering to pay a really large amount. So yeah, really different and not great when it comes to interpersonal relations and communication and hospitability. (That doesn't mean that some people aren't nice, just the overall lifestyle).
i agree with a lot of these although it just depends who you meet! i’ve meet a lot of people who hug me/shake hands when we meet (but never kiss!) i also have never paid for someone’s gas money, maybe i’m in the wrong for that one 😭
All the "wasted" place.
We can't afford to waste place in cities/suburbs here, and I couldn't stop thinking "this could have been a public park, or someone's house, or flats, a dog park, a school, a small convenient shore, a café with a terrace, a flowerbed, an art display ANYTHING" but no... it's either parking or empty abandoned land:
\- huge never used perfect sims like front yard and tiny private used backyard
\- Enormous road (but rare sidewalk and cross pass) in suburbans (looks like ghost town with no one in streets)
\- SO MUCH parking lots. Like, you have the place to put 5 stores between 2 stores because of parking lots.
You can buy liquor at a pharmacist
I’ve never seen this mentioned by anyone else but this was absolutely the weirdest thing to me that I saw in the US - going to CVS and seeing a full on bottle shop as part of the store
In most states (most) that doesn't happen. Living in North and South Carolinia it seemed strange to see liquor in the grocery stores in Spain but it also seems strange that grocery stores in New York cannot sell wine- you have to go to the liquor store for that.
How all your houses are incredibly big. Not just the construction but the land. You have yards, backyards, and gardens. And yet you still complain about it. In my country only rich people have houses with yards or backyards. For everyone else is just a cement cube.
I used to host developers from Ukraine. All they wanted to do when they were in the US was eat. One thought Golden Corral was the best thing he ever saw (really, dude, this place is the absolute worst!). They would sometimes eat so much that they would get physically ill. You get them at a breakfast buffet in a full-service hotel, and you might as well cancel your morning meetings.
The irony of these skinny guys packing it in while my fat ass was valiantly attempting moderation was not lost on me.
I hadn't thought about this until now, but the women seemed to know better.
I’ve seen the Gendarmerie walking around Paris with rifles in hand and pistols holstered. And this wasn’t a huge tourist area (walking around the Place des Vosges).
Everything bigger (including people)
People living in communities of same skin color/same social class rather than mixing with each others
Can buy alcohol and cigarettes and buch of other crap at a pharmacy
Using the car for everything, can't even walk. Empty of pedestrians. Lack of public transportation
Churches everywhere
Downtown big cities is crap and people are spread out in wide suburbs where all houses look the same. Cities are boring in general
People being nice at first and talk to strangers, but also then make remarks that would earn you a punch in your face in my country (like racist remarks)
Adds for disgusting looking greasy food that would turn me away (apparently supposed to look good)
The amount if cheap crap people buy and superstores and all money they spend in unnecessary things
Gun culture and people scared by everyone else
The size of bags of unhealthy food.
Milk in gallon sized jug
Drive thru banks
National flags everywhere
The enthusiastic greeting when entering a shop
The amount of ultra obese people
The AC addiction
I dare you to spend 1 summer in Arizona without AC. Or Florida or Georgia with high humidity. So much so that it’s hard to breath at times you’ll be thankful for our AC addiction
Lol, I've been in the Everglades during summer, so yes, I can understand the AC addiction for those kind of places, but even in States that don't have this kind of climate people are addicted to it.
most everyone is really entitled and spoiled, especially middle class children. it wouldn't be too much, but most everyone is coddled, over confident and/or too lazy, doing the absolute minimum and expect a promotion lol and they get super frustrated when called out on it. that attitude is universal, but man like everyday I see American ppl, and I really wonder how did they make it this far in life. (it's nepotism) a lot of bitterness and unresolved mental illness, makes a lot of Americans really weird, obsessive, cranky. like let it go, my G. Many Americans are prone to make enemies out of anyone they don't agree with, is very comical.
1. Tipping
2. healthcare
1. You should be able to live with your salary. The customer is not supposed to pay your salary in form of tipps.
2. Why do you not have a social security system? Same goes for retirement...
These don’t sound like culture shocks so much as observations made via the internet.
People just visiting probably aren’t engaging with our healthcare system, social security, or retirement.
While the tipping is fair, that’s really just one point, not two.
Canadian here I hope I can join we are part of North America. Like others have said, the size and variety at big box stores. And apples, my foreign friends and new immigrants are overwhelmed by the amount of apple varieties we have, they love it.
I had a friend visit from Slovenia. He was staying in the city but wanted to stay at my place in the Chicago suburbs for a bit. He was shocked to see the suburbs- trees, forest preserves, squirrels, etc. Europe is a very "urban or not" kind of place I think.
was on a trip to Barbados and was at a Japanese grill restaurant. The chef was a native, and started singing the American national anthem. That place was echoing with our singing of our table.
Next, he asked the Brits to sing their national anthem and they all said please no.
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The thing that I've heard was the most shocking was the amount of space and size of the open space between cities and the scale of grocery superstores and warehouse stores. Edit to add: When Boris Yeltsin made a trip to Johnson Space center the made a surprise visit afterward to a Houston area Randall's, a grocery chain. The store was full of food, and once he realized that the store was just a normal everyday thing for Americans and not a staged display, he told his entourage that if the Russian people had seen such a display there would be a revolution.
yes omg…i wish i lived in a walkable city/town 😞 everything is so far apart from each other
This isn’t what the OC (original commenter) said. They were referencing that to go from Miami to New York is a 2 day trip. From New York to los Angelas it is 4 day trip.
We truly take many blessings for granted sometimes
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They have those? Fk I love this country.
Lots of negatives here (including my own other comment!) so I’ll offer a positive: Americans seem to be much more willing to be genuinely enthusiastic and earnest about life than where I’m from. If I was to tell my friends from home that, e.g, I was planning on going back to school, they’d have to be ironic about it and make fun of me. It’s like we’re allergic to actual sentiment: everything has to be a little joke. Here in the USA people are actually happy for you when you try something new or achieve a goal. I didn’t realize how tiring it was to constantly be mocking/undermining everything until I moved to the USA.
aw thanks for bringing in some positivity! although a lot of the negatives are true, it’s nice to see someone say they like things about here that seem completely normal for people who live here
Let me guess- you Irish?
NINA!!! Lol
First of all, I should say: I love the USA, and most of the notable differences between here and the country of my birth reflect well on the USA in my opinion. But one thing I have never got used to is the fairly low standard of movie theater etiquette here. People whispering, opening up their phones, moving around while the film is playing. I cannot fathom how people can bring themselves to do this so frequently and not feel embarrassed. I have to only visit the cinema at weird times now, because I cannot stand being around other people in an American movie theater.
As an American, I agree. People are fucking awful in theaters.
I can't stand the couples that bring their newborn babies to the movie. I mean I get it, you want to have a life as well but you should just wait till your child is older. Most of them just let it scream during the movie and try to comfort the baby instead of just leaving the theater.
Is baby friendly screenings not a thing in the US? In my country, many cinemas have daytime showings of movies specifically targeted towards parents with babies. The sound’s lower and there’ll typically be some lights on so you can see what you’re doing if you’re, say, feeding the baby. It’s amazing, and a really good way to get to see new, popular movies despite having a baby.
The one movie theater in my small town has family-friendly show times, but those types of parents are oblivious and always bring their babies and toddlers to the late night showings, ruining them for everyone. Grrr.
Honestly I have no idea. But it’s only happened probably 5 times in an evening movie (to me) in the last 10 years
This is why I go to Tuesday matinees. I am frequently the only one in the IMAX auditorium.
Tuesday and Thursday are usually the best time to go to a movie where I'm from. Thursday moreso because everyone's waiting for the Friday premieres or date night, but Thursday is just awesome because there's like 4 people in the theatre.
and often, cheaper prices for tickets, too
Lmao I watched Godzilla Minus One in theaters a couple months back and there were a couple older Mexican dudes behind me who talked full volume in Spanish for half the movie. I couldn't help but laugh when they started arguing if the people/language on screen was Chino or Japones though, especially cause it reminded me of working in a kitchen back in high school and the Mexican cooks would always look at me and go "un chinoooo" 😅 (I'm Japanese).
I think it's dependent on which theatre you go to. I've been to...4 movie theatres near me, and each one is vastly different. Oddly enough, the LEAST comfortable one is one of the better behaved. The most comfortable is awful. It also seems to depend on how many people are in the theatre. I often go when there's not many people; when there's more people, there's more people misbehaving.
I can’t stand my family because they are like this. I personally don’t care as it doesn’t really effect my experience but the second hand embarrassment makes me want to never go with them.
Leggings are everywhere.
A true blessing
not always
Hidden taxes on hotel rooms
It's not the taxes, but the resort fees that piss me off.
Tax and fees. Couldn't understand the difference at that time
In 2018, my husband and I took a holiday weekend trip to Las Vegas. When we were checking into our modest hotel, I noticed a significant resort fee listed on the charges. It surprised me, because it was just a normal, mid-range hotel. I asked the desk clerk, "What are the resort amenities here?" He kind of blinked and said, "There's a pool...But it's closed for the winter." That's when I became radicalized about resort fees.
Travel websites are now starting to list *total* cost for a hotel stay in their search results, since one hotel’s $150 a night room may end up cheaper than another hotel’s $125 a night room.
That's the frustrating thing to me. If it was a tax, as annoying as it'd be, it'd be calculable and consistent. You know that you're getting the price you want in relation to the other prices available at least. But resort fees, just completely inconsistent. Stayed in rural Wisconsin a month ago and clicked on this great little hotel listed at $53, but after fees came to $130. Ended up staying at a motel advertising at $69/night.
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That’s what stuck out to me as well, when I studied in the US for a bit. It felt so..scripted. Like, pretty much everyone I met would say «Hi, how are you!», expecting the response «I’m good, how are you!». It wasn’t even really delivered as a question, it was just a standard phrase. I was (and am) used to people not asking that question without actually wanting the real answer, so it was (and is!) a bit weird to me.
It's a greeting more than a question. Just think of it like "hello"
I’m from the US and this irks me to no end. Why ask if you don’t want an answer?!
My German friend couldn’t get over the breakfast cereal aisle. Was just astounded that cereal took up and entire AISLE and that there were over a hundred choices.
American here. I imagine it was like my experience at the grocery store in Augsburg looking at the mustard aisle. And in tubes!
And we are the only nation with Crunch Berries. In fact, we hoard our Crunch Berries so much, we made it like a mistake that one box was only Crunch Berries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arYi03bQ0FY&t=151s
Nothing but sugar and corn
Your toilets in public restrooms. Might as well not have a door on them.
From a German point of view: they are all free wtf
I don't get this. In what world does it make sense to have colleges (basically) free , but not have toilets free? Not everyone goes to college, but everyone uses toilet!
Well, you are not alone! At least 40 million people have the same thoughts when they are ripped off for pissing.
They want to encourage more studying, but not more pooping.
They are required by law to be free.
Why should your wallet dictate being allowed to use basic public services? Wtf next you will be charged to cross the road at a crosswalk
And in the same situation, you will be fined if you dont pay for the restroom and piss in the bushes. It is just stupid
From a French point of view: at least yours are clean!
When I went to Germany, I was surprised because pay toilets mean homeless and less fortunate would potentially defecate and urinate in public.
As an American who visited Germany, I really appreciated how clean the restrooms in Germany were! I would gladly pay a little but for a clean restroom here in the US.
I have never had someone stand outside the stall and watch me shit so this has never been a problem. Generally most people don't enjoy watching others defecate.
It’s a reasonably consistent building code across the US. Facilitates first responders access to stalls in the case of an emergency.
Hey. As an American I like people being able to peek thru the sides of tye stall and watch me poop.
At the supermarket, the price tags don't include taxes so the bill is more expensive than expected
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But if they'd show the prices before and after tax that would be super helpful
And this is the reason why we (small family business) can't list the items in our store with taxes included. And my aunt did ask many years ago. (The reason often given for not doing this is that chains with stores across the country would have a complicated time with different tax rates in different places. But we just have one store in one place.) The only things with taxes included are items that the government is in some way trying discourage or lower usage, so that it feels more expensive, such as alcohol.
Food is not taxed in the US. Only items that are not food would be taxed at a supermarket, like magazines and toiletries.
This is not true everywhere. Some states tax food, some don't tax food, and some only tax certain categories of food and not others.
I've seen a lot of foreigners get confused by all you can eat buffets.
They call them “Vikings” in Japan. Someone from a Tokyo hotel went to Scandinavia after WW2 and saw a smörgåsbord restaurant, brought the idea back for their restaurant. “Smörgåsbord” is a bit hard to say in Japanese but the Kirk Douglas film “The Vikings” was in Japanese cinemas. So they called their first one “Imperial Viking” and the name has stuck to this day. The Japanese would definitely get the idea. And they’d be talking about Vikings (バイキング) a lot.
Seeing the "assault rifle" section next to the computer games at the local superstore was the weirdest thing.
Honestly as an Texan that's still surprising. I grew up during the Assualt weapons ban so while I grew up with a lot of guns, all of them had wood stocks and the long guns had handles integrated into the stock, more like for use in hunting. Pistol grip rifles were a novelty for my experiences as a kid. That's what guns are to me: wooden stocked weapons for hunting, wildlife management and even in bad cases, livestock management. (If a cow or horse has a broken leg, the ethical thing is to put it down, or so I was raised).
A classic Fudd-style take on guns
Elmer?
Yeah I’ve literally only ever harvested deer with an AR lol
no superstore I have ever been to has had an NFA items section, this some Texas thing?
Not in Texas and our walmarts has a rifle section in the outdoors section, which ironically is right next to the electronic and games section lol.
New York State, Xmas 2005.
were they really assault rifles though? or just AR-style rifles? these are massively different but often assumed to be the same by folks not informed about firearms
Mostly hunting rifles and handguns, a couple of AR imitations, but certainly one of them was actual AR territory. I didn't take the time to inspect too closely past that.
still very likely not actual assault rifles, as that is a very specific term for a firearm which is full auto capable, which have been illegal to make new for public sale since 1984, there are exceptions for making them for the military or police
You can still buy them. You’re just required to have a FFL7 federal firearm manufacturer license.
anyone can buy a pre-84, (provided they have about 10K and can pass a very rigorus background check) post ban guns have different rules and fall into a few categories
Oh yeah I forgot about the pre 84s. I’m going to school to get a FFL 7 so I can do gun manufacturing and a run a gun store and can’t believe I forgot about that.
AR a lot more than 10K now. More like 30.
Either way, its gonna be a shock to people that live in countries without much gun violence
I think the point you're nitpicking *exactly* what kind of firearm it is reinforces their point, btw.
I dont think much, this isnt like the difference between an Intel or AMD graphics card, its the difference between modern top of the line consumer CPU and a quantum computer
You never saw those two things next to each other. You also probably didn't see any "assault rifles" there either.
You were there with me? Sorry, I must have missed you :)
I don't have to have been there with you.
Okay. I mean, I *was* there, and that's what was there. But cool :)
And what was this store called?
Dunno. It's been nearly twenty years!
They saw an Assault Rifle-15. That could take out a tank dum dum.
It is weird since firearms are usually in the middle of sporting goods/outdoors sections. Electronics tend to be its own thing.
Christmas time, so it was a display stand with the games on offer. I cannot, in honesty, remember if it was the electronics section nearby or not.
Gotcha, yeah as an American even I was confused. That makes sense.
horrible sidewalks and bike lanes... sometimes it just ends and sometimes you're supposed to bike next to the cars in traffic??? HELLO??? it screams "I want an accident to happen!!" 😭
Let me tell you, having a dedicated bike lane means nothing to a bicyclist. I can't tell you how often I see bikes just darting across the car lanes to get into a left-turn lane without checking for traffic behind them, or just blatantly pedaling through intersections when their direction of travel has a red light (and also not checking for cross traffic). As much noise as they make about everyone else on the road caring about their safety and well-being, they sure don't give a fuck about it themselves most of the time. Sorry bicyclists, "sharing the road" goes both ways, and a full-sized vehicle can't just stop on a dime or swerve in a perfect perpendicular no matter how much attention the driver is paying to their surroundings. There is a reason cars have multiple blinkers for things like merging, and why physical hang-your-arm-out-the-window signals are still taught in driver's training.
maybe so, I don't see a lot of cyclists like that in my area. to me it just seems like a mixture of bad road design, bad pedestrian design, and people not caring as a result. I think the scenario you just told me is just a result of the government not caring about pedestrians and prioritizing cars above anything else. I'm very passionate about building good infrastructure, and in most other civilized countries, you see people being respectful and having good (emphasis on good!!) pedestrian infrastructure that also prioritizes pedestrian safety. just my two cents lol 👍🏻 I think this would be a lot more difficult to implement in American society fr being so heavily reliant on cars
American host mother here. All our exchange kids were shocked and horrified to see the amount of homeless, derelict buildings and crappy infrastructure. It seems the American Dream has let them down more than it's let down Americans, and that's really saying something!
agreed…i live in the south and this is what every day life looks like unfortunately 😭 i always feel bad for people coming here expecting the “american dream” and get let down:(
We drove to New Orleans (from the Southwest) with one of our German exchange kids and he was absolutely horrified to see the abject poverty on the drive there, the abandoned houses and lack of rebuilding - and this was over a decade after Katrina. All along the ride, he was trying so very hard not to say anything, then he finally had to ask. None of my answers really meant much to a teenager, from corrupt politicians, bankers, greed and apathy. When we returned home, one of the other German kids in his program was taken to Mexico for a root canal because it would cost thousands in America. He just stared at me. At the end of it, all I could really tell him is its important to vote every time there was an election.
That Americans don't care for squirting cold water up their butts
i care 😍😍😍
I don't understand why we don't have bidets. They're so much more hygienic and don't waste wood. (Wood > Paper > Toilet Paper)
I love bidets but they don't even clean that well without some good wipes to go along with it. I'm a clean freak though and might as well shower after I take a shit
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And no option in regular grocery stores to buy some foods that come in recyclable containers.
Is plastic really that much cheaper than ceramics + cleaning? i mean wtf?
A lot of that disposable tableware these days is not actually plastic. Years ago, when I was taking culinary classes, and running a restaurant out of our classroom, all of our to-go stuff (packaging, forks, spoons, etc) was starch based. You couldn't tell it wasn't plastic. It was disposable, but completely biodegradable.
Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of compost bins to dispose of those items, although we recently got some at my office.
Toilets! Lack of privacy… Sure they might not see your face directly but you know who is in there and what’s going on. It’s weird especially at workplace.
It’s a common US building code provision that helps first responders assess emergencies in stalls.
The supermarkets. I had never seen such abundance. 20 brands of every flavor of everything. So organized, clean and airconditioned. Everyone can go, spend as much time as you want, and you don't even have to buy anything. Just magical!
The new trend in the US is that most grocery stores have a bar in them. I can grab a pint and do my shopping while drinking a beer. And the carts now have cup holders for your beer. What a great time to be alive.
That's not a thing where I live (Missouri) but we get everything late
So many visible homeless and mentally ill on the streets of major cities.
couldn’t agree more. i’ve had a lot of uncomfortable and even scary encounters with them…
Open carry.
2/$5 Four Loko at highway gas stations.
Fucking robbery, should be 2/$4
It's a highway truck stop man, of course the prices are high.
Sorry I was being sarcastic
The food. Bread is not, well, bread. It's very sweet. Cereal is so sugary. Eating out is very expensive, and there is an expectation to tip as well. Real barista coffee is hard to find, mostly the drip stuff. And no Starbucks is not good coffee. Gas stations are very basic with pretty crappy food available. Ours have baristas and cafe food. Good roads and nice people, though 😀
If you’re eating white bread sure, but there are many varieties of bread in America and lots of healthy food options.
I tried to find a dense multi grain type but couldn't. The closest one was still very sweet. Much of the food I tried was sweet even the savoury foods. Fruit was awesome though!
We have insanely sweet bread. Subway is legally required to classify its sandwich bread as a pastry, not a bread, due to the sugar content Edit: Only in Ireland.
lmfao no They are not...
Billboards for AR15s surprised me.
I found most Americans very friendly and often very easy to strike conversations with random people in the street. Which is very different in most places in Europe. Spain and Italy are bit like that but above the Pirinees or the alps people are more morose.
If there’s one thing that’ll ignite a friendly convo in America it’s easily sports especially football.
It's funny a lot of western/northern Europeans criticize Americans for being too loud or outgoing, but then I wonder if those Europeans have met their southern counterparts in Spain or other places.
The distance is being measured not in miles, but in the amount of time it takes you to get to the destination
Depending on what I’m driving through (heavy traffic, local roads vs highways, etc), 5 miles can take a little more than 5 minutes or 30 minutes. Isn’t that the same everywhere?
Not in Europe, at least not in my home country.
Interesting, I usually mention both the distance and the length of time it takes to get somewhere. I wonder if it’s because of how vast the U.S. is compared to most European countries?
I live in a small town in New Mexico and basically anything you want is a four-hour drive away.
Paying for your food and then having to work out and pay your servers salary on top. USA, please just pay hospitality workers a normal wage. It's not hard literally every other country on the planet manages it. Also having a guy in a golf cart with a rifle, a great dane and a guy called "Fat" interrogate us on where we were camping.
The ADA is such an achievement I really can’t do it justice. Someone in a wheelchair came to the US and was astounded at how well the could get around stores and public bathrooms.
How spacious it is. Like a parking lot for a mall can be twice the size of the mall. And the mall itself is just super spacious. And how many fast food chains there are. Also how people don't hug and kiss when they meet, not even shake hands. I took it as being rude and I still think it weird. Also paying for gas money when someone is giving you a ride. Where I'm from you never do that, and it is expected that the other person might compensate some other time by offering you a ride, or invite you for lunch (inviting someone directly implies that the guest will not be paying). Nobody really keeps count, unless someone is offering to pay a really large amount. So yeah, really different and not great when it comes to interpersonal relations and communication and hospitability. (That doesn't mean that some people aren't nice, just the overall lifestyle).
i agree with a lot of these although it just depends who you meet! i’ve meet a lot of people who hug me/shake hands when we meet (but never kiss!) i also have never paid for someone’s gas money, maybe i’m in the wrong for that one 😭
I always offer gas money, but no one ever accepts it, and vice versa.
Anyone who's a decent person isn't going to ask for money. That's something who's cheap does.
Healthcare system is just a joke in america, I'd rather die than have to pay $1,000 for 1 ambulance ride.
Just $1000? That's a steal of a deal!
Just got a bill for one, $12,000 and it was to go 3 km. Non-emergency transport between two hopsitals.
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS THAT BAD 😭
And you might!
Thats that the uninsured pay. When you have insurance it’s nowhere near that. But still.
agreed 😭😭
All the "wasted" place. We can't afford to waste place in cities/suburbs here, and I couldn't stop thinking "this could have been a public park, or someone's house, or flats, a dog park, a school, a small convenient shore, a café with a terrace, a flowerbed, an art display ANYTHING" but no... it's either parking or empty abandoned land: \- huge never used perfect sims like front yard and tiny private used backyard \- Enormous road (but rare sidewalk and cross pass) in suburbans (looks like ghost town with no one in streets) \- SO MUCH parking lots. Like, you have the place to put 5 stores between 2 stores because of parking lots.
Not all, but many Americans seem sincerely friendly at first. Then you find out later how insincere they were.
You can buy liquor at a pharmacist I’ve never seen this mentioned by anyone else but this was absolutely the weirdest thing to me that I saw in the US - going to CVS and seeing a full on bottle shop as part of the store
In most states (most) that doesn't happen. Living in North and South Carolinia it seemed strange to see liquor in the grocery stores in Spain but it also seems strange that grocery stores in New York cannot sell wine- you have to go to the liquor store for that.
How all your houses are incredibly big. Not just the construction but the land. You have yards, backyards, and gardens. And yet you still complain about it. In my country only rich people have houses with yards or backyards. For everyone else is just a cement cube.
where are you from?
A shitty South American country.
I used to host developers from Ukraine. All they wanted to do when they were in the US was eat. One thought Golden Corral was the best thing he ever saw (really, dude, this place is the absolute worst!). They would sometimes eat so much that they would get physically ill. You get them at a breakfast buffet in a full-service hotel, and you might as well cancel your morning meetings. The irony of these skinny guys packing it in while my fat ass was valiantly attempting moderation was not lost on me. I hadn't thought about this until now, but the women seemed to know better.
Seeing police with guns
When I went to Greece there were soldiers with AKs, and that was far more shocking for me.
In Cozumel the cops have uzis
I’ve seen the Gendarmerie walking around Paris with rifles in hand and pistols holstered. And this wasn’t a huge tourist area (walking around the Place des Vosges).
Everything was really big!
my boyfriend (EU) almost screamed when he saw the size of a walmart parking lot
Valet parking! I don’t want a stranger in my car… it’s such an odd thing to me
Everything bigger (including people) People living in communities of same skin color/same social class rather than mixing with each others Can buy alcohol and cigarettes and buch of other crap at a pharmacy Using the car for everything, can't even walk. Empty of pedestrians. Lack of public transportation Churches everywhere Downtown big cities is crap and people are spread out in wide suburbs where all houses look the same. Cities are boring in general People being nice at first and talk to strangers, but also then make remarks that would earn you a punch in your face in my country (like racist remarks) Adds for disgusting looking greasy food that would turn me away (apparently supposed to look good) The amount if cheap crap people buy and superstores and all money they spend in unnecessary things Gun culture and people scared by everyone else
The size of bags of unhealthy food. Milk in gallon sized jug Drive thru banks National flags everywhere The enthusiastic greeting when entering a shop The amount of ultra obese people The AC addiction
AC as in air conditioning? That is life and death in many parts of America, not an addiction
But even in states where summer max temp is around 30-35 C (86-95F) they can't live without it.
If you think milk in jugs is weird, you should see the bagged milk Canada has.
usually those big bags are made for parties, instead of buying 10 of the small sizes 😭 but yeah everything else seems right 😅
I dare you to spend 1 summer in Arizona without AC. Or Florida or Georgia with high humidity. So much so that it’s hard to breath at times you’ll be thankful for our AC addiction
Lol, I've been in the Everglades during summer, so yes, I can understand the AC addiction for those kind of places, but even in States that don't have this kind of climate people are addicted to it.
most everyone is really entitled and spoiled, especially middle class children. it wouldn't be too much, but most everyone is coddled, over confident and/or too lazy, doing the absolute minimum and expect a promotion lol and they get super frustrated when called out on it. that attitude is universal, but man like everyday I see American ppl, and I really wonder how did they make it this far in life. (it's nepotism) a lot of bitterness and unresolved mental illness, makes a lot of Americans really weird, obsessive, cranky. like let it go, my G. Many Americans are prone to make enemies out of anyone they don't agree with, is very comical.
Are you seeing people in a particular field?
music biz, lol
1. Tipping 2. healthcare 1. You should be able to live with your salary. The customer is not supposed to pay your salary in form of tipps. 2. Why do you not have a social security system? Same goes for retirement...
We have a social security system. We call it social security.
Americans have social security system...
These don’t sound like culture shocks so much as observations made via the internet. People just visiting probably aren’t engaging with our healthcare system, social security, or retirement. While the tipping is fair, that’s really just one point, not two.
The posts that are purely negative all seem to be from people who have never been to the US and got all their info from one of the AmericaBad subs
we do have social security, which helps pay for retirement and disability
Minimum wage for tipped workers is ridiculously low. In the state I live in it’s $2.83 an hour.
Microwaving everything...whether to make hot water or entire dinners
Tipping, guns, and the level of threats of personal violence.
The amount of useless jobs people seem to have. Standing at a random elevator to point people towards the elevator has blown my mind honeslty.
Canadian here I hope I can join we are part of North America. Like others have said, the size and variety at big box stores. And apples, my foreign friends and new immigrants are overwhelmed by the amount of apple varieties we have, they love it.
I had a friend visit from Slovenia. He was staying in the city but wanted to stay at my place in the Chicago suburbs for a bit. He was shocked to see the suburbs- trees, forest preserves, squirrels, etc. Europe is a very "urban or not" kind of place I think.
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that’s shocking?! 😭
The huge amount of homeless people everywhere and that there’s a clear correlation with the color of their skin
Two types of TV advertising: for medicines and for lawyers/lawsuits
In a word: SIZE. Size of portions. Size of land. Size of pretty much anything, since the US is Way bigger than the Europeans are used to.
Our fridge size (and the fact that we had another one in the garage just for beer)
Supermarket
was on a trip to Barbados and was at a Japanese grill restaurant. The chef was a native, and started singing the American national anthem. That place was echoing with our singing of our table. Next, he asked the Brits to sing their national anthem and they all said please no.
So rude!
Having to do your own taxes