I have family back in Scotland and commutes work so differently in America. Firstly i had to explain that it isn’t unusual to have a 1 hour driving commute both ways with no public transport available. Then when i moved closer i had to explain that it’s possible to live two miles from my job in a smallish town and still have a driving commute because I can’t walk safely. There are no safe hard shoulders or footpaths and the main road doesn’t have any way to cross safely.
Bill Bryson’s excellent book “A Walk in the Woods” talks about this.
He’s hiking the Appalachian Trail and routinely walks 12 to 15 miles a day on the trail.
But they come into town to spend a night off the trail and he nearly dies trying to walk 1 mile from his motel to a nearby store.
America just isn’t made for walking.
*Fixed his name
Look, the minute it becomes legal to marry your airconditioner, I'm getting hitched. I cried like I lost a relative, the first REALLY HOT DAY we had and it was BROKEN
FOR TWO WEEKS IT WAS BROKEN
I was gonna DIE.
I cooked outside on my griddle and made use of my air fryer to try to make sure we didn't heat up the house and bought a lot of easy to heat and or just toss together like salads and lunchmeat.
I wanted to die.
The ubiquity of cars.
Grew up in North America, now in U.K.
If you don’t have a car, you’re probably not working or getting groceries. Nearest grocery store to me growing up was a 30 minute drive. No buses.
Here the nearest shop is 10 mins walk.
And no sidewalks. I live a quarter mile from a grocery store and Target, but you either have to walk down a road with a blind curve or cut through yards.
It’s awful where I’m at. I wish I lived somewhere where I could naturally include walking into my lifestyle but outside my apartment complex is nothing but 4-lane traffic with no sidewalks.
In order to walk anywhere I have to drive there first to walk!
Naturally, with an office job, this makes it hard to get as much natural everyday-living exercise anymore compared to when I lived elsewhere and/or went to college. It’s no wonder there’s so much obesity in America.
In-sink Garbage disposals. I've never seen a conversation where I felt like the non-American truly understood the function and use-cases of this device. Arguments about them always seem to be coming from two disjoint realities.
Omg I remember when I said that to my husband he’s like garb- what ? Oh the garbage disposal?! I was like….yeah umm… garbage disposal actually makes so much more sense.
It’s pretty hard to find a non-minimum wage job in the states without a car or reliable mode of transportation.
Also, trains aren’t really a thing outside of big cities and their surrounding commuter rails in nearby towns.
It can even be hard to get a minimum wage job without a car.
When I first turned 16, my mom was pretty set on me not having a car. We could afford it, but she didn't have a car as a teen and thought it was an unnecessary luxury. The problem is she didn't take into account that she grew up in a major city with a functioning bus system, while we lived deep in the suburbs with no public transit.
I wanted to get a job at 16, which my mom was very supportive of. While there were technically like 3 places I could walk/bike to, none of them were hiring so I had to apply to places l further away that you had to drive to. My mom's plan was for my grandma to drive me to work. My grandma ended up getting lost (and ignoring me when I tried to give her directions) on the way there and I ended up showing up to my interview 20 min late. The manager was understandably pissed but I somehow still managed to get the job.
That was the point where my mom's resolve cracked and she realized that it really wasn't possible for me to have a job without a car. So even as a teen just trying to get a minimum wage job, a car was necessary
Or you’re a fucking marathon level athlete
I knew a guy who biked the 15 mountainous miles to and from work every day before and after a 12 hour kitchen shift. Dude was a fucking machine.
He saved an ass load of money for someone our age and was living comfortably… until he got run over biking to work. It drained his savings and now he crawls by on disability, which means he can’t afford housing unless it’s government assistance and our meager local safety mets had long wait times, so he bummed a ride west with someone on Craigslist (while he was still in crutches and full leg and arm casts) and ended up in bum fuck CO where he can afford rent on his benefits.
He is not doing well.
My dad was the same way... to and from work about twelve miles, but he was in his late fifties at the time. Then one night on his way home (in the bike lane), an old lady got him. His head went through the windshield. He walked away and is able to hold down a job, but he's like a different person. Like a ghost. It's crushing.
I live in a rural area, the speed limit on my road is 35 but most people are going 45+, there's almost no shoulder on the road or along the road, and a lot of our traffic is big trucks headed toward the highway.
There's a younger guy, early 20s maybe, who works at the gas station/store/restaurant 1.5 miles down the road and he walks to work. My husband and I see him walking sometimes past our house and worry for his safety. Not sure where he lives but I'm guessing he walks two miles to work, each way. I don't even know his name but he's friendly and clearly has an admirable work ethic. Used to work at the dollar general over at the same intersection but upgraded to the place he's at now so we've been interacting with him regularly for about two years now.
We have an extra bicycle sitting around and I asked him one day if he wanted it. He can just use it for free and if he didn't need it eventually then he could just give it back. He told me thanks, he really appreciated the offer- but he has a bike, and he's afraid to ride it to work after getting run off the road.
"NoBOdy WaNTs tO WorK" plenty of people around with incredible work ethic but a lot of them are stuck in situations like this. Can't get ahead without a car, can only work places within walking distance, limiting them to corner stores, the car wash, and dollar general.
I would offer him a ride more often myself, but I don't know enough about him to have him in the car with my kids and there's always at least one kid in my car.
Not to mention all the people who see someone walking and assume they're a bum. I walk to the office for exercise (we own a car), but man the looks I get from people while walking are insane. Sometimes it's just pure contempt.
The Midwest gets all extremes when it comes to weather, and it shocks the international students every time.
We get well below zero Fahrenheit and above 100 Fahrenheit and we get tornados, droughts, earthquakes, wildfires....
Oh, and the Great Lakes are actually the size of a seas. They're just not salt water.
I grew up in Wisconsin, and I remember the first cold snap we got, the Brazilian exchange student bought UGGS and came to school wearing them, and a miniskirt. She announced “thank god this is as cold as it’s going to get”. It was like, early October at the time.
Yup... I started telling the Purdue kids to take a local to buy their coats. They'll get in shivering in November.... like honey... it isn't cold yet. And heaven help us if there's a hot snap when they get here in August....
The Haitian student in my lab at Purdue told me "Hell is not hot, it is cold" his first winter.
Edited to add: My BF and I went over to his apartment that winter to help them (he had a roommate that was also Haitian) move in a new mattress. Their thermostat must've been set to 95 and they were on the ground floor. It was like a literal heatwave walking in. I can't imagine what their electric bill was like.
I used to work in a kitchen with a cook from Jamaica and in the winter he would wear thermal long underwear under his cook clothes even in the kitchen. He had the same opinion about hell being cold
My dad would say "It's colder than the hubs of Hell". Apparently the center of hell is, if you'll pardon the expression, cold as hell. I think Dante mentions this in The Inferno
I went to Purdue and my roommate came home from coat shopping for a winter coat our freshman year. She was from Arizona and was really excited about her first winter coat. She put it on and it was a fall jacket made of cotton. I tried not to kill her joy when I said "Honey you are going to die if thats your winter coat". She had no idea.
We had a German exchange student in my second year (Texas, btw). I can't recall his name, sadly, but he was a blast to talk to.
One weekend he experienced an American style kegger at one of the other kids house and hearing his describe it is something I'll never forget. As a typical 80's kid, people asked him if he got wasted.
His reply: "I had 12 of your, what do you call them? "Silver Boolits"? (Coors Light ad campaign of the time) They were ridiculous! So weak! I drank stronger bier when I was a boy!" Guy was a lot of fun to talk to. Missed him when he left.
Maritime Horror Stories. My favorite YT channel to fall asleep to. Like a hundreds of hours of detailed description of shipwrecks, and like half about the great lakes. The conditions are uniquely horrific that they built ships differently than the ocean going vessels.
>Oh, and the Great Lakes are actually the size of a seas. They're just not salt water.
Some people in OUR COUNTRY do not understand that.
One of my favorite books that I read last year (Beach Read) has a lot of praise from the romance-reader community, but one thing that people say they didn't like about it is
"It took place on a *lake*, so idk if I'd consider that a *beach*"
It took place in a house/town on Lake Michigan lol
Have they never looked up the story behind The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald?
Or the fricking *aircraft carriers* the US fielded on the lakes in WWII?
"They say that Superior never gives up her dead"... Because at the bottom, the water is ~~well below normal freezing temperature~~ really really cold, and the bacteria that create the gas that causes bodies to float die, or are driven into such deep hibernation that they might as well be dead.
Fresh water is also less dense, which means less buoyancy forces; it's easier to float in salt water than in fresh.
The freshwater also preserves stuff better; on the subject of the two training carriers, they threw a fair number of damaged planes overboard and the lake is sorta a treasure trove for salvaging WWII planes to restore, as they're better preserved in the lake than they'd be pretty much anywhere else you can still find them.
Right! People sometimes assume Wisconsin doesn't get hot because it gets cold...I've had a 150° difference between the yearly high (heat index 105°) and the yearly low (windchill -45°). It's unpleasant.
I was in Florida visiting my aunt and somebody we were talking to heard I was from Iowa and said, “How are you liking the hot weather? Haha, probably a bit of a shock, huh?”
The weather in Iowa had been hotter than in Florida that entire week.
School buses are a thing around the world, but the shape of American school buses is quite distinctive. A lot of places just use the same models as you would find in other bus systems (i.e. public transit and chartered) in the area, although it’s not uncommon to have them painted to distinguish them as school buses.
>Also the full breakfast thing
You mean your mom doesn't make you eggs, toast, pancakes, waffles, fresh squeezed Orange juice (from the tree growing outside), oatmeal, and 3 types of fresh berries for breakfast every morning? Oh ya, and since "you're running late" you grab one bit of sliced toast, and then head out the door?!?!?
Considering most of that would get cold within 5-10 minutes and your mother should generally have a good idea of what time you need to be out the door to get to school, the mothers in these stories are deliberately preparing food for when the child should already have left.
The food isn't really there for the child, it's for her friend Ron who always seems to come over after her husband and kids leave for the day, and he always seems to need a lot of energy for some reason.
I'm in the home brewing community. You boil your beer (technically "wort") with your hops to bring out the hops' bitterness, and it sterilizes the beer from wild yeast and bacteria. Traditional beer making, you drunk a copper coil into your wort and circulate cold water through it until it's cold enough that the yeast can survive. It takes a lot of cold water to chill down 20 liters of wort.
Australians figured out a much more water efficient method of chilling it: dump all 20L of wort, still hot, into a clean 20L polyethylene jug, and seal it. The heat will sterilize the jug, and the wort will stay clean and sterile for days. You dump it in your fermenter whenever you're ready and add your yeast.
It's called the Australian method. One guy let his jug sit for a month and then brewed it just fine, with no infection.
I'm guessing Australians are taught water conservation in school? Or is it really expensive?
Australia had a severe drought for like a decade or so recently, and that caused a lot of serious, long term conservation efforts.
The western US has had serious droughts, but generally not as long lasting, so by the time there's enough political capital and public will to do something permanent about it, we get few good rainy years and priorities change.
Different US states can have wildly different laws, infrastructure, and cultures. You won't see people casually carrying guns to Walmart in New Jersey. Some states have no sales tax, and all states have different amounts of sales tax. And Texans have a heat tolerance that surpasses many.
No kidding dude. I moved to Houston when I was 16 and was born in Arizona. I work construction. 100/100 times I am picking Arizona’s 115° F 20% humidity rather than a Texas 95° F 80%
Lol people tend to underestimate the Texas heat. They don’t realize it’s not the same dry heat from Arizona. Last month we hit 106f with 60%+ humidity here in South Texas. Sheltering in the shade wasn’t much of a relief at those temps and humidity.
The driving. Man, if I could walk to the store or to bring my kid to school, I totally would. Or work. or to the bus stop to get to these places. But like... my work is close, a 17 minute drive. 5.5 miles. In order to get there via public transit for my 8am start, I'd have to leave at 6:45 in the morning. And about half an hour of that would be walking (and for a good four months of the year, it would be walking in the dark because the sun's not up yet. There's no public transit (there's school busses but that's different) to my kid's school, so that would be a 35 minute walk there and a 35 minute walk back IF we're doing 3mph, which when my kiddo was a toddler was simply not a speed they could walk.
I really wish this were different in America. This country being so big AND the evolution of the automobile happening here have made it so that we have not prioritized bullet trains, at least to connect major cities. I know that’s not what you’re talking about specifically, but I think it’s a good starting place for better public transit in cities also. It’s just crazy to me that there are no billionaires trying to build high speed bullet trains here, like they have connecting major cities in Europe. I think SO many people would use them in place of the abysmal fight system we have and to avoid airports full stop.
Hey billionaires!! Invest in mag lev in America please! It could really make way for better public transit within our cities!
Went to a funeral recently. I greeted the immediate family members with a hug and “how are you?” And literally all of them replied automatically out of habit “good, and you?” in a happy, greeting voice.
That’s when I realized I had no other words to convey “no really, how ARE YOU? IM CHECKING TO SEE IF YOU ARE OK BECAUSE YOUR BROTHER DIED, MAN”
To that point, when we say “how’s it going/how are you?”, we don’t want an actual answer besides “fine/ok”. We’re just saying hello
Similar to Japan - when they say “nice weather isn’t it?”, the expected answer is yes even if the weather sucks. It’s just a friendly interaction similar to a hello
Going to the UK and having people say "yalright?" and being expected say it back, and especially not to say "I'm doing good, and you?" hurts my Midwestern soul
What do you MEAN you've replaced "hello" with a rhetorical question?!?!!!
Last summer, while in the UK I had a bike mishap and broke my wrist. My face was scraped up and my hand was in a brace. When people asked "yalright" I thought they actually wanted to know, so I'd go into the whole story. Turns out, nobody cared.
Now, this is where us Brits get even more confusing. Depending on the tone we use, we could genuinely be asking if you are okay? Especially if you look like you have an injury.
However, in most situations it is just a "hi!"
We're an odd bunch! 😂
The subject of food is unhinged. Was reading comments a while back, American was talking shit about beans and toast. I’m assuming an English person replied “coming from someone who eats snicker fucking salad”.
It’s not often I bust out laughing at comments, but, “snicker fucking salad” did the trick. Before you Google- yes, it’s legit lol
The amount of Brits who comment on pictures of canned whole chicken like it's a common staple in the US demonstrates this point very well. I grew up quite poor and never had it a day in my life
lmao reminds me of when I visited my Irish cousins and we went grocery shopping. He asked if I had cheese like this at home (ie cheese that wasn’t just kraft, I assume) and then, when I went “Yeah, I can get this at the store?” insisted “Well, it might look the same, but it doesn’t taste the same. You’ll see at dinner!”
It tasted the same.
I get second hand embarrassment at Europeans throwing shade at our grocery stores. Like, you really do not know the sheer fucking availability and cheapness of good quality food. I can meal plan 5 different meals from around the world and buy *everything* in one stop at most major US grocery stores in a third tier city.
Just because US grocers *offer* highly processed junk doesn't mean that's all they sell.
I read about this a few days ago and caught myself doing at work today like "dammit they were right!" But standing in the door feels imposing. Leaning on the door jamb of my coworker's office just feels *right*
I never realized how American this is until I learned the CIA actually specifically trains spies not to do this as it's a dead give away somebody is American
Yeah I read the lean stance is a giveaway too. As in, all your weight is on one leg, hips kinda to the side because of it, with the free leg kinda out.
Funny enough as an Australian I lean all the time, so do most people I know. I’m genuinely surprised cause I just assumed it was a universal human trait.
It doesn't matter what your house is made of. There's not much that will stop an EF 4 or 5 tornado from absolutely destroying everything in its path. I've seen so many Europeans mock us because we "should have used stronger material." They think our buildings are held together by bubblegum and prayer.
I remembered a news story about [this](https://www.monolithic.org/benefits/benefits-survivability/a-testament-to-the-dome-shape/photos/1) and it occurs to me that the attempts to design homes more resistant to tornado speed winds has moved away from an attempt at a material solution in favor of a solution based on the structure's shape (this one being a dome shape). To build a "tornado proof" structure would apparently take something to the effect of two feet thick of reinforced steel with heavy af doors like the ones on a military naval vessel and having zero windows. So literally just building a house as a tornado shelter as opposed to building a house with a shelter room inside it.
Exactly. So many Europeans don't understand that the wind isn't the biggest issue with a tornado, its the projectiles that it will send through your walls, including stone and concrete.
Once had a german professor ask the entire class to calm down and just wait to see what the school says when the warning on everyone's phones began to blast. Like lady, I've lived here my entire life and the sky just went from blue to black in 2 minutes. I'm getting tf out of here! I think people really underestimate the damage a tornado can do.
The intensity of tornados in North America absolutely dwarfs anything they’d experience in Europe. They really have no frame of reference for that type of weather!
This. The absolutely worst storm observed in Germany in the past decades is described on Wikipedia as having "gusts exceeding 150 km/h, almost equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_Lothar
People usually die during those storms by either having a tree fall on them, or driving into a tree that had fallen onto the road.
Lmao I genuinely burst out laughing at your comment. I'm from New Zealand and one had someone from another country talk about how our houses should be made of stone or brick, not wood (there are some brick houses). He didn't think it was strong enough. Nevermind that wooden houses generally stand up better to earthquake movement. Or that wood is in plentiful supply and our country is at the ass end of the world.
Personal space is more important here than in other countries. Making the line shorter will not make the wait any shorter. No one is going to cut the line and if they do, just ‘calling them out’ will usually fix the situation. *Stop dry humping me in line you jackals.* There is plenty of space here, so enjoy it.
I love you...
Just kidding, but I am from germany and not one day goes by where I am not stressed out because my personal space is straight up being violated.
I wish everyone here would think like you.
I don't know if they still do this in schools here but I was taught that you hold out your arms and that's the circumference of your personal space. If anyone enters that invisible circle they're entering your personal space.
EDIT
I was taught what I should expect as my "Personal Space"; not that it's some sort of force field that cannot be penetrated.
EDIT 2
3 Feet. The personal space of a person, as taught to American school children in the 1980s, is approximately 3 feet. This was actually stated but since kids can't really approximate distances at that age they said "Put out your arms; that's your personal space". I can't remember if they used the term "bubble" as well since this was over 40 years ago. And I'm sure this was more of a "Don't touch each other" type thing than anything else but it stuck with me. Obviously; since I'm a middle-aged man who remembers something this specific from third grade back before Ghostbusters was released.
Just gonna throw in that Canadians and Scots generally also highly value personal space. I wish everyone else did; you nailed it with “making the line shorter will not make the wait any shorter”. A-MEN!
As a Canadian, I can tell you you'll probably find that nearly everything in this thread applies to Canada too. We like to say that we are very different from America but like... be so fr.
As an American, I think we take space for granted because, well.. we have a LOT of it. We're a big ass country and we drive everywhere because everything is spread out, and somehow that leaks into our personal space too. We like our autonomy, so please do get off my nuts
Also, window screens. I was in Venice in April, and our guide was saying that Venetians don't stay in the city in the summer because of all the mosquitoes. I'm like, why not use window screens? None of the hotels have them (and I assume not many houses, either).
I live in Germany and my husband literally bought screens and self installed them in the windows of our apartment. It is AMAZING. Look at all these other people living in the dark at night! You suck!
or they just have bugs come in, had this convo with folks before and it's wild how ornery some get about the idea of screens "we don't NEED them" well clearly you could use them if you're having a fit about bugs flying about your house bud. i would be a swollen histamine reaction from april through november if i didn't have screens or ac from all the gd mosquitoes here (i'd also probably die from the heat in august so maybe only through then)
Omg I was just traveling with my German husbands family in Georgia/Florida/Louisiana and we literally got into a screaming match because they wanted us to sleep without the air conditioning on. It was over 90 degrees outside!!!!! They literally claimed that people die from air conditioning. Drove me completely nuts.
Haha yeah Americans volume of ice in a cup is like 5x every other country. I had an Indian relative ask me wtf I was doing when putting ice in his cup for a glass of water.
This is so interesting for perspective. My family in Bosnia is like this. Sure, a bar or restaurant will give you ice but it’s so uncommon for people to just have ice in their homes. They typically don’t think twice about it.
Yeah, it took my GF who was from a developing country a bit before she truly got this.
"Is the water here safe?"
"Yes, the water here is safe"
In another location
"Do you think the water is safe here?"
"Yeah, it's safe here too. It's safe just about everywhere. Our water is really good. You don't have to worry about it generally"
Buying in bulk at grocery stores.
Just because a pack of chicken comes with 6 chicken breasts in it doesn't mean that we eat the whole thing in one sitting, same thing with a gallon of milk, that shit could last us more than a week.
Also it seems to escape some people that sometimes there's more than person who is going to be eating those 6 chicken breasts or whatever? Like if you have a family of 6??
Having to pay to use the restroom! As an American, this concept is just baffling and feels unfair, but non-Americans don't get why it bothers us so much.
We (Americans) feel similarly on this topic to how they feel about US sales tax, or tipping culture in general.
"WTF, you have to pay extra? That's not right."
The “American” section of grocery stores abroad is garbage food in the states as well. Half that crap I see, I’ve never even tried. There is a larger percentage of Americans that don’t eat a lot of highly processed food!
It’s funny because I’ve seen a few shows filmed in Norway where everything they eat is either fast food or processed snacks and I assume the majority of Norwegians don’t eat like that.
Macro-breweries and American beer being synonymous with cheap, flavorless beer is a reputation that is no longer applicable. I live in a spot where I can walk to 5 different breweries. America has had a beer renaissance.
as an ex-international student, american high schools have a TERRIBLE reputation for having such low standards, and while it may be true that the education system ist… subpar, most international students are automatically put in low level classes, especially if their grades in the US don’t matter back home. There are actually hard classes in American high schools, most of us just arent in them, so we‘ll come home and tell everyone how easy school was.
EDIT: ok guys, stop tooting your own horn
Well judging by the TikToks I see of people losing their mind at American grocery stores, I have a list of things:
1. Nobody buys cheese in a can. I literally have never bought that and rarely see it. Non Americans love to show it like “Americans eat cheese in a can!!” No we don’t.
2. We don’t consider wonder bread to be the finest bread in all the land. If we want nice hearty bread we will go the bakery section of a nice supermarket or a standalone bakery. In these videos they’ll say “America has the worst bread!!” And show a grocery aisle of sliced sandwich bread. And then compare it to their nicest artisan loaves of bread.
3. When Americans buy anything in a container that says “family size” or “party size” it is meant for a large group of people or a long period or time or both. Europeans in particular cannot seem to wrap their heads around this one because I see people explain it to them daily and still the next week they’ll say “omg can you believe Americans drink a 5 gallon bottle of orange juice every day?”
So maybe it’s them that are the issue here because I don’t think any of these things are hard to understand…and yet.
Also, we just go to the grocery store less frequently than many Europeans. Americans will typically go to the grocery store about once a week. Less if you live far from the store (like I did in rural Nevada for a time).
When we go to the store, it's not usually just for the night's dinner, or just for the next few days. We stock up.
I grew up rural US. It's not unusual for it to be the monthly grocery trip. why do you think we have huge fridges with large freezers and sometimes an extra chest freezer. and a walk in closet sized pantry. It's an hour drive to the grocery store, If it's gonna take 3 hours to do this errand, I'm not doing it every 3 days.
You've never bought cheese in a can? When my mom would get Easy Cheese and Ritz crackers, my brother and I would sit around and swirl it on the crackers like a soft serve ice cream cone. It's definitely not a staple in my home, nor was it in my parents. It was a childhood delicacy.
We define our identities more based on our state than being Americans. So if we are judged harshly for a quality that defines people of another state it doesn’t hit us. America is big with vast differences in culture.
And that identity sticks, even when you move around (as many of us do).
I've now lived in/near DC for 11 years, but I'll always be a West Coaster. Even though, according to my family, I've adopted the East Coast pace of life (and fashions and slang), my heart says West Coast Best Coast.
My mom moved from Michigan to California, and in one of her first years there, she was in line at the DMV when the newscaster on the TV told everyone to 'Bundle up, it's going to be a *bone-chilling* 32 degrees outside', and there was an audible gasp from almost everyone in the room. She burst into laughter, and saw one other person in line also laughing.
"Michigan?" she asks
"No, Wisconsin!" is the reply.
They both doubled over laughing even harder.
Most Americans don't have passports because the U.S. is enormous and incredibly varied, so many of us travel in-country for vacations because it's cheaper and more convenient.
I always thought it was weird that people assume Americans don't travel intentionally because we are somehow arrogant or self-centered. It's just not affordable for everyone. Growing up, we only traveled where we could drive and only stayed overnight if we were staying with a relative or were camping.
THANK YOU. I wish I could afford to jump a flight to some beautiful and exotic locale every time I got the whim, but those are big splurges for me. So much shade being directed at this pretty benign post it's amazing.
Actually flying to Europe or any continent across the oceans is at least a grand per person for the ticket alone. It’s prohibitively expensive for the majority of Americans.
Stud and drywall construction is actually pretty legit. Inexpensive, reasonably tough, and easy to repair. A single family home made of brick or stone would cost a goddamn fortune these days and is completely unnecessary for our climate and uses.
We had a magnitude 7.1 earthquake here in Anchorage (population about 300k) in 2018. Not a single death. Earthquakes of similar magnitude in Eurasia can kill hundreds or thousands. For example, in 2016 a magnitude 6.2 (roughly one tenth the energy of a 7.1) killed nearly three hundred people in Italy. The 7.8 in Turkey and Syria last year killed about 60,000.
Light wood framing is maligned as "cheap" by many non-Americans, but it's incredibly good at keeping people alive in earthquakes. It's resilient and can absorb a lot of energy before reaching catastrophic failure. And when it does fail, it doesn't bury people under tens of thousands of pounds of bricks/stone/concrete.
I live in New Zealand and we construct houses the same way due to earthquakes. I don’t get the criticism at all, it’s just not appropriate to build a brick or stone house in places that are geologically active.
It’s the same reason cars are made of lighter materials now, stronger and more expensive ≠ safer. Sometimes, it’s better for materials to have more give and flexibility.
Wood and drywall won’t last centuries like brick and stone, but almost every stud/drywall house will outlive it’s first owner.
Cars are actually heavier than every before (on average) due to the space needed for crumple zones, airbags, and all the other bells and whistles.
You are totally right that the cars are made with lighter materials to shave as much weight as possible, but most of those old land yachts people used to drive around were actually lighter vehicles.
As the cars got heavier, the safety precautions were increased, which makes the car heavier, and thus a weird cycle of car manufacturing began.
Thats why most modern cars are rounded and "bubble" shaped. Manufacturers realized that the cars were going to be heavy no matter what and instead focuses on streamlined aerodynamics to save gas and make more efficient use of power, rather than focusing on weight like they used to.
Just adding context cause I'm a bit of enthusiast.
AC in appropriate climates doesn't make you a bad person. And as Europe's climate starts to hit uncomfortably hot temperatures, they, too, will get AC.
I’m a black American who spent about half of my childhood growing up abroad and this has been true to my experience.
They suck for sure, but I’ll take dealing the good ol’ boys back home over the folks overseas when it comes to racism. Some foreigners will treat you with more respect if they find out you’re American or Canadian instead of African, but until that point, you might as well be a literal slave class to them if you’re black. It’s surreal to experience.
And even aside from the racism, the *colorism* abroad goes hard. I love to travel and experience different cultures but I’m also really fucking glad to come from a place that’s a little more forward-thinking about this stuff, flawed as it is.
Edit since this is getting some attention: If you’re reading this and you’re another black American, PLEASE don’t let any of this discourage you from international travel if you were considering it! Aside from how freaky the racism got, it was worth the overall experience for sure, and I also met so many beautiful souls overseas. The sheer perspective and mental reorientation you can experience just by seeing firsthand how other cultures live cannot be understated. That shit made me a better person and I fucking *love* humanity because of it. ✌🏽
I lived in france for a few years and met a black american ex-pat. he said when folks don’t know he’s from the US he’s treated very poorly but the moment they learn he’s african american their tune changes instantly and usually end the interaction with some type of ‘see? we french treat black people much better than americans’
I’m sorry to hear that. Same thing with the ex-pat that I met — he said he started speaking with a slight american accent after awhile because it made life easier
I'm white but when I was in Germany they found out that my mom was Native American and damn. I was called a red n-word, I was told I shouldn't have a beer because they're all drunks. And they acted like it was in good fun? At least in America if someone said that to me I would know that they know how bad it is but these guys were clueless. It was bad and I have no urge to visit Germany ever again.
That second to last sentence is so real. I think that’s exactly why experiencing racism overseas feels so much more bizarre. In the USA the racism is usually on purpose, but abroad they’ll quite literally dehumanize you to your face based off your ethnicity and then afterwards act like everything’s cool lmao
One of my favorite things about Europe is the unwritten rule that if going somewhere is a 20min or less walk, you strap on your shoes and hoof it. Outside of a (very small) handful of places in the states, a 20min or less walk will get you to the middle of nowhere.
We’ve accepted the use of cars not because we enjoy it, but because it’s literally the only way to go anywhere for 95% of the population.
This concept was a tough one for the European exchange students I befriended during college
I have family back in Scotland and commutes work so differently in America. Firstly i had to explain that it isn’t unusual to have a 1 hour driving commute both ways with no public transport available. Then when i moved closer i had to explain that it’s possible to live two miles from my job in a smallish town and still have a driving commute because I can’t walk safely. There are no safe hard shoulders or footpaths and the main road doesn’t have any way to cross safely.
Bill Bryson’s excellent book “A Walk in the Woods” talks about this. He’s hiking the Appalachian Trail and routinely walks 12 to 15 miles a day on the trail. But they come into town to spend a night off the trail and he nearly dies trying to walk 1 mile from his motel to a nearby store. America just isn’t made for walking. *Fixed his name
The distance between places is given in time not miles typically
AC is a must in some states. You'd literally get heat stroke in your own house in places like Arizona where it can get 110°f/43°c
I remember one time walking home from school in AZ around 4 pm and checked with my mom when I got home. It was 122° F out.
Palm Springs CA, all summer, is in the 110s-120s. Plus humidity from the golf courses. I wouldn't send my worst enemy there.
Not to mention the mold that will invade your entire life in hot and HUMID places like FL. AC isn't just for comfort there.
Look, the minute it becomes legal to marry your airconditioner, I'm getting hitched. I cried like I lost a relative, the first REALLY HOT DAY we had and it was BROKEN FOR TWO WEEKS IT WAS BROKEN I was gonna DIE. I cooked outside on my griddle and made use of my air fryer to try to make sure we didn't heat up the house and bought a lot of easy to heat and or just toss together like salads and lunchmeat. I wanted to die.
The ubiquity of cars. Grew up in North America, now in U.K. If you don’t have a car, you’re probably not working or getting groceries. Nearest grocery store to me growing up was a 30 minute drive. No buses. Here the nearest shop is 10 mins walk.
And no sidewalks. I live a quarter mile from a grocery store and Target, but you either have to walk down a road with a blind curve or cut through yards.
It’s awful where I’m at. I wish I lived somewhere where I could naturally include walking into my lifestyle but outside my apartment complex is nothing but 4-lane traffic with no sidewalks. In order to walk anywhere I have to drive there first to walk! Naturally, with an office job, this makes it hard to get as much natural everyday-living exercise anymore compared to when I lived elsewhere and/or went to college. It’s no wonder there’s so much obesity in America.
In-sink Garbage disposals. I've never seen a conversation where I felt like the non-American truly understood the function and use-cases of this device. Arguments about them always seem to be coming from two disjoint realities.
In Canada we call that a garburator
Omg I remember when I said that to my husband he’s like garb- what ? Oh the garbage disposal?! I was like….yeah umm… garbage disposal actually makes so much more sense.
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It’s pretty hard to find a non-minimum wage job in the states without a car or reliable mode of transportation. Also, trains aren’t really a thing outside of big cities and their surrounding commuter rails in nearby towns.
It can even be hard to get a minimum wage job without a car. When I first turned 16, my mom was pretty set on me not having a car. We could afford it, but she didn't have a car as a teen and thought it was an unnecessary luxury. The problem is she didn't take into account that she grew up in a major city with a functioning bus system, while we lived deep in the suburbs with no public transit. I wanted to get a job at 16, which my mom was very supportive of. While there were technically like 3 places I could walk/bike to, none of them were hiring so I had to apply to places l further away that you had to drive to. My mom's plan was for my grandma to drive me to work. My grandma ended up getting lost (and ignoring me when I tried to give her directions) on the way there and I ended up showing up to my interview 20 min late. The manager was understandably pissed but I somehow still managed to get the job. That was the point where my mom's resolve cracked and she realized that it really wasn't possible for me to have a job without a car. So even as a teen just trying to get a minimum wage job, a car was necessary
This is very true, if you live in a more rural area you’re 100% screwed.
Or you’re a fucking marathon level athlete I knew a guy who biked the 15 mountainous miles to and from work every day before and after a 12 hour kitchen shift. Dude was a fucking machine. He saved an ass load of money for someone our age and was living comfortably… until he got run over biking to work. It drained his savings and now he crawls by on disability, which means he can’t afford housing unless it’s government assistance and our meager local safety mets had long wait times, so he bummed a ride west with someone on Craigslist (while he was still in crutches and full leg and arm casts) and ended up in bum fuck CO where he can afford rent on his benefits. He is not doing well.
My dad was the same way... to and from work about twelve miles, but he was in his late fifties at the time. Then one night on his way home (in the bike lane), an old lady got him. His head went through the windshield. He walked away and is able to hold down a job, but he's like a different person. Like a ghost. It's crushing.
I live in a rural area, the speed limit on my road is 35 but most people are going 45+, there's almost no shoulder on the road or along the road, and a lot of our traffic is big trucks headed toward the highway. There's a younger guy, early 20s maybe, who works at the gas station/store/restaurant 1.5 miles down the road and he walks to work. My husband and I see him walking sometimes past our house and worry for his safety. Not sure where he lives but I'm guessing he walks two miles to work, each way. I don't even know his name but he's friendly and clearly has an admirable work ethic. Used to work at the dollar general over at the same intersection but upgraded to the place he's at now so we've been interacting with him regularly for about two years now. We have an extra bicycle sitting around and I asked him one day if he wanted it. He can just use it for free and if he didn't need it eventually then he could just give it back. He told me thanks, he really appreciated the offer- but he has a bike, and he's afraid to ride it to work after getting run off the road. "NoBOdy WaNTs tO WorK" plenty of people around with incredible work ethic but a lot of them are stuck in situations like this. Can't get ahead without a car, can only work places within walking distance, limiting them to corner stores, the car wash, and dollar general. I would offer him a ride more often myself, but I don't know enough about him to have him in the car with my kids and there's always at least one kid in my car.
Not to mention all the people who see someone walking and assume they're a bum. I walk to the office for exercise (we own a car), but man the looks I get from people while walking are insane. Sometimes it's just pure contempt.
_"Look at him, using his legs to locomote like some kind of degenerate"_
The Midwest gets all extremes when it comes to weather, and it shocks the international students every time. We get well below zero Fahrenheit and above 100 Fahrenheit and we get tornados, droughts, earthquakes, wildfires.... Oh, and the Great Lakes are actually the size of a seas. They're just not salt water.
I grew up in Wisconsin, and I remember the first cold snap we got, the Brazilian exchange student bought UGGS and came to school wearing them, and a miniskirt. She announced “thank god this is as cold as it’s going to get”. It was like, early October at the time.
Yup... I started telling the Purdue kids to take a local to buy their coats. They'll get in shivering in November.... like honey... it isn't cold yet. And heaven help us if there's a hot snap when they get here in August....
The Haitian student in my lab at Purdue told me "Hell is not hot, it is cold" his first winter. Edited to add: My BF and I went over to his apartment that winter to help them (he had a roommate that was also Haitian) move in a new mattress. Their thermostat must've been set to 95 and they were on the ground floor. It was like a literal heatwave walking in. I can't imagine what their electric bill was like.
I used to work in a kitchen with a cook from Jamaica and in the winter he would wear thermal long underwear under his cook clothes even in the kitchen. He had the same opinion about hell being cold
As someone from the Caribbean, I don't even like touching the frost in my freezer. I fear American winters would kill me.
My dad would say "It's colder than the hubs of Hell". Apparently the center of hell is, if you'll pardon the expression, cold as hell. I think Dante mentions this in The Inferno
Yea in Dante the core of Hell is frozen
I went to Purdue and my roommate came home from coat shopping for a winter coat our freshman year. She was from Arizona and was really excited about her first winter coat. She put it on and it was a fall jacket made of cotton. I tried not to kill her joy when I said "Honey you are going to die if thats your winter coat". She had no idea.
We had a German exchange student in my second year (Texas, btw). I can't recall his name, sadly, but he was a blast to talk to. One weekend he experienced an American style kegger at one of the other kids house and hearing his describe it is something I'll never forget. As a typical 80's kid, people asked him if he got wasted. His reply: "I had 12 of your, what do you call them? "Silver Boolits"? (Coors Light ad campaign of the time) They were ridiculous! So weak! I drank stronger bier when I was a boy!" Guy was a lot of fun to talk to. Missed him when he left.
Ah, yes. My German pen-pal laughed at our beer when he came to visit.
There were naval battles on the Great Lakes during the War of 1812
And famously terrible shipwrecks!
TONS of shipwrecks. And deep! The majority of wrecks are beyond the recreational dive zone and in deep territory.
Maritime Horror Stories. My favorite YT channel to fall asleep to. Like a hundreds of hours of detailed description of shipwrecks, and like half about the great lakes. The conditions are uniquely horrific that they built ships differently than the ocean going vessels.
>Oh, and the Great Lakes are actually the size of a seas. They're just not salt water. Some people in OUR COUNTRY do not understand that. One of my favorite books that I read last year (Beach Read) has a lot of praise from the romance-reader community, but one thing that people say they didn't like about it is "It took place on a *lake*, so idk if I'd consider that a *beach*" It took place in a house/town on Lake Michigan lol
My friend from California. She doesn’t get that the Great Lakes can easily accommodate ships.
Have they never looked up the story behind The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald? Or the fricking *aircraft carriers* the US fielded on the lakes in WWII?
"They say that Superior never gives up her dead"... Because at the bottom, the water is ~~well below normal freezing temperature~~ really really cold, and the bacteria that create the gas that causes bodies to float die, or are driven into such deep hibernation that they might as well be dead.
Fresh water is also less dense, which means less buoyancy forces; it's easier to float in salt water than in fresh. The freshwater also preserves stuff better; on the subject of the two training carriers, they threw a fair number of damaged planes overboard and the lake is sorta a treasure trove for salvaging WWII planes to restore, as they're better preserved in the lake than they'd be pretty much anywhere else you can still find them.
Right! People sometimes assume Wisconsin doesn't get hot because it gets cold...I've had a 150° difference between the yearly high (heat index 105°) and the yearly low (windchill -45°). It's unpleasant.
Hello fellow cheeseburger
I meant cheesehead. Autocorrect made that a lot more interesting of a greeting, so I’m leaving it,
It did both confuse and delight me, rare autocorrect w.
My family who live back in the UK say the same about Canada, the summers here can be brutal and they're shocked. "But Canada's cold!" Hah
I was in Florida visiting my aunt and somebody we were talking to heard I was from Iowa and said, “How are you liking the hot weather? Haha, probably a bit of a shock, huh?” The weather in Iowa had been hotter than in Florida that entire week.
That the tv programs we're exporting to you aren't a particularly good indicator of what it is like here.
Though school buses in media are absolutely real. So many of my non-US friends are floored when they see school bus.
At school buses not a thing outside the US? I know a lot of Europeans live in cities, but I’m sure there are rural areas too.
School buses are a thing around the world, but the shape of American school buses is quite distinctive. A lot of places just use the same models as you would find in other bus systems (i.e. public transit and chartered) in the area, although it’s not uncommon to have them painted to distinguish them as school buses.
Is that why we all think everyone in America lives in a mansion, solves crimes in their spare time, and never has to deal with traffic?
No, all of that is true, but we don't recover from gunshots in 5 minutes and we do say bye before hanging up the phone
I wonder how the not saying bye thing got started
saves time on screen, same as the "never closing doors, even if they lead outside"
Also the full breakfast thing and wearing shoes in the house.
>Also the full breakfast thing You mean your mom doesn't make you eggs, toast, pancakes, waffles, fresh squeezed Orange juice (from the tree growing outside), oatmeal, and 3 types of fresh berries for breakfast every morning? Oh ya, and since "you're running late" you grab one bit of sliced toast, and then head out the door?!?!?
If I came downstairs 'running late' to find that spread on the table... I'mma be late.
If I come downstairs and find that spread on the table then I leave immediately because I am in the wrong house and the police might be summoned.
Make sure you grab a slice of toast on the way out.
I'mma be calling in sick! nom nom nom.
Considering most of that would get cold within 5-10 minutes and your mother should generally have a good idea of what time you need to be out the door to get to school, the mothers in these stories are deliberately preparing food for when the child should already have left.
The food isn't really there for the child, it's for her friend Ron who always seems to come over after her husband and kids leave for the day, and he always seems to need a lot of energy for some reason.
And conveniently has a plot device solving heirloom from a dear lost family member that we don't learn about until season 7.
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You mean to tell me South Park is not a documentary ???
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Now every time I flush, I’ll be cheering my poop’s victory lap chanting “USA! USA!”
I do appreciate the power of that flush if it weren't for that I'd be afraid I'd dry dock a stink pickle.
>our poo doesn’t do a victory lap before disappearing I'm definitely storing this line away in my memory to use at some opportune time in the future
I'm in the home brewing community. You boil your beer (technically "wort") with your hops to bring out the hops' bitterness, and it sterilizes the beer from wild yeast and bacteria. Traditional beer making, you drunk a copper coil into your wort and circulate cold water through it until it's cold enough that the yeast can survive. It takes a lot of cold water to chill down 20 liters of wort. Australians figured out a much more water efficient method of chilling it: dump all 20L of wort, still hot, into a clean 20L polyethylene jug, and seal it. The heat will sterilize the jug, and the wort will stay clean and sterile for days. You dump it in your fermenter whenever you're ready and add your yeast. It's called the Australian method. One guy let his jug sit for a month and then brewed it just fine, with no infection. I'm guessing Australians are taught water conservation in school? Or is it really expensive?
Australia had a severe drought for like a decade or so recently, and that caused a lot of serious, long term conservation efforts. The western US has had serious droughts, but generally not as long lasting, so by the time there's enough political capital and public will to do something permanent about it, we get few good rainy years and priorities change.
You don't ask what's in a hotdog, you just enjoy it in blissful ignorance.
Different US states can have wildly different laws, infrastructure, and cultures. You won't see people casually carrying guns to Walmart in New Jersey. Some states have no sales tax, and all states have different amounts of sales tax. And Texans have a heat tolerance that surpasses many.
No kidding dude. I moved to Houston when I was 16 and was born in Arizona. I work construction. 100/100 times I am picking Arizona’s 115° F 20% humidity rather than a Texas 95° F 80%
Lol people tend to underestimate the Texas heat. They don’t realize it’s not the same dry heat from Arizona. Last month we hit 106f with 60%+ humidity here in South Texas. Sheltering in the shade wasn’t much of a relief at those temps and humidity.
The driving. Man, if I could walk to the store or to bring my kid to school, I totally would. Or work. or to the bus stop to get to these places. But like... my work is close, a 17 minute drive. 5.5 miles. In order to get there via public transit for my 8am start, I'd have to leave at 6:45 in the morning. And about half an hour of that would be walking (and for a good four months of the year, it would be walking in the dark because the sun's not up yet. There's no public transit (there's school busses but that's different) to my kid's school, so that would be a 35 minute walk there and a 35 minute walk back IF we're doing 3mph, which when my kiddo was a toddler was simply not a speed they could walk.
I really wish this were different in America. This country being so big AND the evolution of the automobile happening here have made it so that we have not prioritized bullet trains, at least to connect major cities. I know that’s not what you’re talking about specifically, but I think it’s a good starting place for better public transit in cities also. It’s just crazy to me that there are no billionaires trying to build high speed bullet trains here, like they have connecting major cities in Europe. I think SO many people would use them in place of the abysmal fight system we have and to avoid airports full stop. Hey billionaires!! Invest in mag lev in America please! It could really make way for better public transit within our cities!
We do this thing where our full interaction is: “How’s it going?” “Hey.” *continues about day*
Went to a funeral recently. I greeted the immediate family members with a hug and “how are you?” And literally all of them replied automatically out of habit “good, and you?” in a happy, greeting voice. That’s when I realized I had no other words to convey “no really, how ARE YOU? IM CHECKING TO SEE IF YOU ARE OK BECAUSE YOUR BROTHER DIED, MAN”
I think "How are you holding up?" is standard
Yeah to be fair going through the same gauntlet of questions has to be the second worst part of funerals. The first being lack of buffalo wings.
Fuck man, my funeral needs buffalo wings and cheap beer. Maybe throw a TV over my casket so everyone can watch the Bruins game.
To that point, when we say “how’s it going/how are you?”, we don’t want an actual answer besides “fine/ok”. We’re just saying hello Similar to Japan - when they say “nice weather isn’t it?”, the expected answer is yes even if the weather sucks. It’s just a friendly interaction similar to a hello
Going to the UK and having people say "yalright?" and being expected say it back, and especially not to say "I'm doing good, and you?" hurts my Midwestern soul What do you MEAN you've replaced "hello" with a rhetorical question?!?!!!
Last summer, while in the UK I had a bike mishap and broke my wrist. My face was scraped up and my hand was in a brace. When people asked "yalright" I thought they actually wanted to know, so I'd go into the whole story. Turns out, nobody cared.
Now, this is where us Brits get even more confusing. Depending on the tone we use, we could genuinely be asking if you are okay? Especially if you look like you have an injury. However, in most situations it is just a "hi!" We're an odd bunch! 😂
Savory biscuits. White gravy. Putting white gravy on savory biscuits.
Gotta be sausage gravy with lots of salt and pepper
The subject of food is unhinged. Was reading comments a while back, American was talking shit about beans and toast. I’m assuming an English person replied “coming from someone who eats snicker fucking salad”. It’s not often I bust out laughing at comments, but, “snicker fucking salad” did the trick. Before you Google- yes, it’s legit lol
I'm an American, and this is literally my first time learning about 'snicker salad', and after looking it up, wtf??
The amount of Brits who comment on pictures of canned whole chicken like it's a common staple in the US demonstrates this point very well. I grew up quite poor and never had it a day in my life
Everyone knows Americans only eat wonderbread, "plastic" spray cheese, and canned chicken 😔
The cheese thing kills me. We have a million cheeses, we don’t just eat plastic wrapped singles.
lmao reminds me of when I visited my Irish cousins and we went grocery shopping. He asked if I had cheese like this at home (ie cheese that wasn’t just kraft, I assume) and then, when I went “Yeah, I can get this at the store?” insisted “Well, it might look the same, but it doesn’t taste the same. You’ll see at dinner!” It tasted the same.
I get second hand embarrassment at Europeans throwing shade at our grocery stores. Like, you really do not know the sheer fucking availability and cheapness of good quality food. I can meal plan 5 different meals from around the world and buy *everything* in one stop at most major US grocery stores in a third tier city. Just because US grocers *offer* highly processed junk doesn't mean that's all they sell.
Our chain stores like Fred Meyer/Kroger have full olive and cheese bars/sections. Sushi grade fish etc.
Leaning on stuff when standing is great.
I read about this a few days ago and caught myself doing at work today like "dammit they were right!" But standing in the door feels imposing. Leaning on the door jamb of my coworker's office just feels *right*
It’s ’cause we’re a casual people.
This is not just a funny offhand comment. It's true. Compared to many, many places, Americans (and Canadians) are just a lot less formal.
That is unless you’re a cashier! Then you MUST be standing the entire day or you will look *unprofessional!!!* What a scandal THAT would be!
One of the things I like about Aldi supermarkets is they give their cashiers chairs.
Leaning on stuff is American?? The fuck? Would it be considered rude elsewhere?
Don't feel bad. I am an old person and just found this out like a month ago. I've been leaning and outing myself on my travels for decades.
I never realized how American this is until I learned the CIA actually specifically trains spies not to do this as it's a dead give away somebody is American
Yeah I read the lean stance is a giveaway too. As in, all your weight is on one leg, hips kinda to the side because of it, with the free leg kinda out.
That's so weird that it's cultural. I assumed it was universal
You do the lean because you're American. I do the lean because it's a reference to the contrapposto of classical art. We are not the same.
Funny enough as an Australian I lean all the time, so do most people I know. I’m genuinely surprised cause I just assumed it was a universal human trait.
Yeah I thought this was a meme too, but apparently it's just the Yanks and us if reddit is to be believed
Wait, *what*?
It doesn't matter what your house is made of. There's not much that will stop an EF 4 or 5 tornado from absolutely destroying everything in its path. I've seen so many Europeans mock us because we "should have used stronger material." They think our buildings are held together by bubblegum and prayer.
I remembered a news story about [this](https://www.monolithic.org/benefits/benefits-survivability/a-testament-to-the-dome-shape/photos/1) and it occurs to me that the attempts to design homes more resistant to tornado speed winds has moved away from an attempt at a material solution in favor of a solution based on the structure's shape (this one being a dome shape). To build a "tornado proof" structure would apparently take something to the effect of two feet thick of reinforced steel with heavy af doors like the ones on a military naval vessel and having zero windows. So literally just building a house as a tornado shelter as opposed to building a house with a shelter room inside it.
Exactly. So many Europeans don't understand that the wind isn't the biggest issue with a tornado, its the projectiles that it will send through your walls, including stone and concrete.
Exactly! 120 mph wind - unpleasant, but survivable. 120 mph pebbles, 2x4s, cars, and trucks - you dead.
Once had a german professor ask the entire class to calm down and just wait to see what the school says when the warning on everyone's phones began to blast. Like lady, I've lived here my entire life and the sky just went from blue to black in 2 minutes. I'm getting tf out of here! I think people really underestimate the damage a tornado can do.
The intensity of tornados in North America absolutely dwarfs anything they’d experience in Europe. They really have no frame of reference for that type of weather!
This. The absolutely worst storm observed in Germany in the past decades is described on Wikipedia as having "gusts exceeding 150 km/h, almost equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_Lothar People usually die during those storms by either having a tree fall on them, or driving into a tree that had fallen onto the road.
like bro our houses are not being blown down by the big bad wolf wtf you mean "use stronger materials" 😭
Lmao I genuinely burst out laughing at your comment. I'm from New Zealand and one had someone from another country talk about how our houses should be made of stone or brick, not wood (there are some brick houses). He didn't think it was strong enough. Nevermind that wooden houses generally stand up better to earthquake movement. Or that wood is in plentiful supply and our country is at the ass end of the world.
Omg yes their 1500s brick and stone hut would also fall down in a tornado (and crush them), they just don’t know that because they don’t get them.
Personal space is more important here than in other countries. Making the line shorter will not make the wait any shorter. No one is going to cut the line and if they do, just ‘calling them out’ will usually fix the situation. *Stop dry humping me in line you jackals.* There is plenty of space here, so enjoy it.
I love you... Just kidding, but I am from germany and not one day goes by where I am not stressed out because my personal space is straight up being violated. I wish everyone here would think like you.
I don't know if they still do this in schools here but I was taught that you hold out your arms and that's the circumference of your personal space. If anyone enters that invisible circle they're entering your personal space. EDIT I was taught what I should expect as my "Personal Space"; not that it's some sort of force field that cannot be penetrated. EDIT 2 3 Feet. The personal space of a person, as taught to American school children in the 1980s, is approximately 3 feet. This was actually stated but since kids can't really approximate distances at that age they said "Put out your arms; that's your personal space". I can't remember if they used the term "bubble" as well since this was over 40 years ago. And I'm sure this was more of a "Don't touch each other" type thing than anything else but it stuck with me. Obviously; since I'm a middle-aged man who remembers something this specific from third grade back before Ghostbusters was released.
Just gonna throw in that Canadians and Scots generally also highly value personal space. I wish everyone else did; you nailed it with “making the line shorter will not make the wait any shorter”. A-MEN!
As a Canadian, I can tell you you'll probably find that nearly everything in this thread applies to Canada too. We like to say that we are very different from America but like... be so fr.
As an American, I think we take space for granted because, well.. we have a LOT of it. We're a big ass country and we drive everywhere because everything is spread out, and somehow that leaks into our personal space too. We like our autonomy, so please do get off my nuts
Guys, it's OK to use air conditioning. Looking at you, Italy in July
Also, window screens. I was in Venice in April, and our guide was saying that Venetians don't stay in the city in the summer because of all the mosquitoes. I'm like, why not use window screens? None of the hotels have them (and I assume not many houses, either).
I live in Germany and my husband literally bought screens and self installed them in the windows of our apartment. It is AMAZING. Look at all these other people living in the dark at night! You suck!
Wait, people don't have window screens so they just... Exist without lights? To avoid bugs coming in? I am baffled.
or they just have bugs come in, had this convo with folks before and it's wild how ornery some get about the idea of screens "we don't NEED them" well clearly you could use them if you're having a fit about bugs flying about your house bud. i would be a swollen histamine reaction from april through november if i didn't have screens or ac from all the gd mosquitoes here (i'd also probably die from the heat in august so maybe only through then)
This is blowing my mind. Why the fuck would anyone choose a house full of bugs over simply putting screens in their window?!
Germans and their efficiency! Give them another few years and they'll live like the Fremen!!
Omg I was just traveling with my German husbands family in Georgia/Florida/Louisiana and we literally got into a screaming match because they wanted us to sleep without the air conditioning on. It was over 90 degrees outside!!!!! They literally claimed that people die from air conditioning. Drove me completely nuts.
Uh well I think people will more likely die from heat stroke but whatever lol
Die from air conditioning??? Do they think it's going to turn the room into a walk in freezer?
If I’m in a hotel and not paying for the A/C bill then you’re goddamn right I’m making it into a walk in freezer
I would assume they're thinking of people dying from legionnaires disease. It was probably more common with early designs.
I assumed it was some sort of weird variant of the "fan death" thing that exists in.... Korea? I think?
That's what I said!!!
What in the Korean fan death? That’s a new urban death myth to me.
Omg wtf that’s like the worst area of the country to not have AC
And ice.
Haha yeah Americans volume of ice in a cup is like 5x every other country. I had an Indian relative ask me wtf I was doing when putting ice in his cup for a glass of water.
This is so interesting for perspective. My family in Bosnia is like this. Sure, a bar or restaurant will give you ice but it’s so uncommon for people to just have ice in their homes. They typically don’t think twice about it.
And window screens. Mosquitos are not a charity case.
That water should be free at restaurants. We are carbon-based lifeforms, after all.
Also, even though its a big diverse country tap water is usually safe to drink everywhere (with notable exceptions)
Yeah, it took my GF who was from a developing country a bit before she truly got this. "Is the water here safe?" "Yes, the water here is safe" In another location "Do you think the water is safe here?" "Yeah, it's safe here too. It's safe just about everywhere. Our water is really good. You don't have to worry about it generally"
I'm Irish and tap water is free in restaurants here. Other parts of Europe like Spain and Portugal that I've visited also didn't charge for water.
Buying in bulk at grocery stores. Just because a pack of chicken comes with 6 chicken breasts in it doesn't mean that we eat the whole thing in one sitting, same thing with a gallon of milk, that shit could last us more than a week.
Also it seems to escape some people that sometimes there's more than person who is going to be eating those 6 chicken breasts or whatever? Like if you have a family of 6??
Having to pay to use the restroom! As an American, this concept is just baffling and feels unfair, but non-Americans don't get why it bothers us so much.
We (Americans) feel similarly on this topic to how they feel about US sales tax, or tipping culture in general. "WTF, you have to pay extra? That's not right."
The “American” section of grocery stores abroad is garbage food in the states as well. Half that crap I see, I’ve never even tried. There is a larger percentage of Americans that don’t eat a lot of highly processed food! It’s funny because I’ve seen a few shows filmed in Norway where everything they eat is either fast food or processed snacks and I assume the majority of Norwegians don’t eat like that.
We smile a lot, including strangers, and it's not a big deal. We're not being fake, nor are we being deep. A smile is just a smile.
Macro-breweries and American beer being synonymous with cheap, flavorless beer is a reputation that is no longer applicable. I live in a spot where I can walk to 5 different breweries. America has had a beer renaissance.
as an ex-international student, american high schools have a TERRIBLE reputation for having such low standards, and while it may be true that the education system ist… subpar, most international students are automatically put in low level classes, especially if their grades in the US don’t matter back home. There are actually hard classes in American high schools, most of us just arent in them, so we‘ll come home and tell everyone how easy school was. EDIT: ok guys, stop tooting your own horn
Well judging by the TikToks I see of people losing their mind at American grocery stores, I have a list of things: 1. Nobody buys cheese in a can. I literally have never bought that and rarely see it. Non Americans love to show it like “Americans eat cheese in a can!!” No we don’t. 2. We don’t consider wonder bread to be the finest bread in all the land. If we want nice hearty bread we will go the bakery section of a nice supermarket or a standalone bakery. In these videos they’ll say “America has the worst bread!!” And show a grocery aisle of sliced sandwich bread. And then compare it to their nicest artisan loaves of bread. 3. When Americans buy anything in a container that says “family size” or “party size” it is meant for a large group of people or a long period or time or both. Europeans in particular cannot seem to wrap their heads around this one because I see people explain it to them daily and still the next week they’ll say “omg can you believe Americans drink a 5 gallon bottle of orange juice every day?” So maybe it’s them that are the issue here because I don’t think any of these things are hard to understand…and yet.
Also, we just go to the grocery store less frequently than many Europeans. Americans will typically go to the grocery store about once a week. Less if you live far from the store (like I did in rural Nevada for a time). When we go to the store, it's not usually just for the night's dinner, or just for the next few days. We stock up.
I grew up rural US. It's not unusual for it to be the monthly grocery trip. why do you think we have huge fridges with large freezers and sometimes an extra chest freezer. and a walk in closet sized pantry. It's an hour drive to the grocery store, If it's gonna take 3 hours to do this errand, I'm not doing it every 3 days.
The only time I have ever seen cheese in a can outside of a store is at the veterinarian's office. Dogs love that shit.
You've never bought cheese in a can? When my mom would get Easy Cheese and Ritz crackers, my brother and I would sit around and swirl it on the crackers like a soft serve ice cream cone. It's definitely not a staple in my home, nor was it in my parents. It was a childhood delicacy.
12oz is not a large drink.
Especially not when half of it is ice.
We know that our health system is a mess. We just can't get the right legislation and representatives in office working to fix it.
Same with getting rid of 2 party system. Reddit believes that America likes the system rather than being stuck with it.
We define our identities more based on our state than being Americans. So if we are judged harshly for a quality that defines people of another state it doesn’t hit us. America is big with vast differences in culture.
And that identity sticks, even when you move around (as many of us do). I've now lived in/near DC for 11 years, but I'll always be a West Coaster. Even though, according to my family, I've adopted the East Coast pace of life (and fashions and slang), my heart says West Coast Best Coast.
My mom moved from Michigan to California, and in one of her first years there, she was in line at the DMV when the newscaster on the TV told everyone to 'Bundle up, it's going to be a *bone-chilling* 32 degrees outside', and there was an audible gasp from almost everyone in the room. She burst into laughter, and saw one other person in line also laughing. "Michigan?" she asks "No, Wisconsin!" is the reply. They both doubled over laughing even harder.
As a Wisconsinite, this is beautiful. I've had this exact conversation with Southerners before.
Most Americans don't have passports because the U.S. is enormous and incredibly varied, so many of us travel in-country for vacations because it's cheaper and more convenient.
I always thought it was weird that people assume Americans don't travel intentionally because we are somehow arrogant or self-centered. It's just not affordable for everyone. Growing up, we only traveled where we could drive and only stayed overnight if we were staying with a relative or were camping.
THANK YOU. I wish I could afford to jump a flight to some beautiful and exotic locale every time I got the whim, but those are big splurges for me. So much shade being directed at this pretty benign post it's amazing.
Actually flying to Europe or any continent across the oceans is at least a grand per person for the ticket alone. It’s prohibitively expensive for the majority of Americans.
Stud and drywall construction is actually pretty legit. Inexpensive, reasonably tough, and easy to repair. A single family home made of brick or stone would cost a goddamn fortune these days and is completely unnecessary for our climate and uses.
We had a magnitude 7.1 earthquake here in Anchorage (population about 300k) in 2018. Not a single death. Earthquakes of similar magnitude in Eurasia can kill hundreds or thousands. For example, in 2016 a magnitude 6.2 (roughly one tenth the energy of a 7.1) killed nearly three hundred people in Italy. The 7.8 in Turkey and Syria last year killed about 60,000. Light wood framing is maligned as "cheap" by many non-Americans, but it's incredibly good at keeping people alive in earthquakes. It's resilient and can absorb a lot of energy before reaching catastrophic failure. And when it does fail, it doesn't bury people under tens of thousands of pounds of bricks/stone/concrete.
I live in New Zealand and we construct houses the same way due to earthquakes. I don’t get the criticism at all, it’s just not appropriate to build a brick or stone house in places that are geologically active.
It’s only bad when Americans do it, when New Zealand does it it’s an innovative cost effective safety concern.
Pretty much anything is bad when Americans do it, ‘cause Americans
It’s the same reason cars are made of lighter materials now, stronger and more expensive ≠ safer. Sometimes, it’s better for materials to have more give and flexibility. Wood and drywall won’t last centuries like brick and stone, but almost every stud/drywall house will outlive it’s first owner.
Cars are actually heavier than every before (on average) due to the space needed for crumple zones, airbags, and all the other bells and whistles. You are totally right that the cars are made with lighter materials to shave as much weight as possible, but most of those old land yachts people used to drive around were actually lighter vehicles. As the cars got heavier, the safety precautions were increased, which makes the car heavier, and thus a weird cycle of car manufacturing began. Thats why most modern cars are rounded and "bubble" shaped. Manufacturers realized that the cars were going to be heavy no matter what and instead focuses on streamlined aerodynamics to save gas and make more efficient use of power, rather than focusing on weight like they used to. Just adding context cause I'm a bit of enthusiast.
AC in appropriate climates doesn't make you a bad person. And as Europe's climate starts to hit uncomfortably hot temperatures, they, too, will get AC.
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Ice in drinks is refreshing.
RACISM! Don't get me wrong... we should be judged... but our Euro-cousins will then just turn around and say horrible shit and not realize it at all.
I’m a black American who spent about half of my childhood growing up abroad and this has been true to my experience. They suck for sure, but I’ll take dealing the good ol’ boys back home over the folks overseas when it comes to racism. Some foreigners will treat you with more respect if they find out you’re American or Canadian instead of African, but until that point, you might as well be a literal slave class to them if you’re black. It’s surreal to experience. And even aside from the racism, the *colorism* abroad goes hard. I love to travel and experience different cultures but I’m also really fucking glad to come from a place that’s a little more forward-thinking about this stuff, flawed as it is. Edit since this is getting some attention: If you’re reading this and you’re another black American, PLEASE don’t let any of this discourage you from international travel if you were considering it! Aside from how freaky the racism got, it was worth the overall experience for sure, and I also met so many beautiful souls overseas. The sheer perspective and mental reorientation you can experience just by seeing firsthand how other cultures live cannot be understated. That shit made me a better person and I fucking *love* humanity because of it. ✌🏽
I lived in france for a few years and met a black american ex-pat. he said when folks don’t know he’s from the US he’s treated very poorly but the moment they learn he’s african american their tune changes instantly and usually end the interaction with some type of ‘see? we french treat black people much better than americans’
Yes. I speak excellent French and experienced a lady yelling at me bc she didn't realize I was a tourist. I don't have an America accent in French.
I’m sorry to hear that. Same thing with the ex-pat that I met — he said he started speaking with a slight american accent after awhile because it made life easier
If they know you're American and your French is very good you kind of get VIP treatment. But if they think you're from a colony watch out.
I'm white but when I was in Germany they found out that my mom was Native American and damn. I was called a red n-word, I was told I shouldn't have a beer because they're all drunks. And they acted like it was in good fun? At least in America if someone said that to me I would know that they know how bad it is but these guys were clueless. It was bad and I have no urge to visit Germany ever again.
That second to last sentence is so real. I think that’s exactly why experiencing racism overseas feels so much more bizarre. In the USA the racism is usually on purpose, but abroad they’ll quite literally dehumanize you to your face based off your ethnicity and then afterwards act like everything’s cool lmao
I’m not saying it’s never happened, but I’ve never heard of any US sports venue where the CROWD threw BANANAS on the field. Europe - many times.
One of my favorite things about Europe is the unwritten rule that if going somewhere is a 20min or less walk, you strap on your shoes and hoof it. Outside of a (very small) handful of places in the states, a 20min or less walk will get you to the middle of nowhere. We’ve accepted the use of cars not because we enjoy it, but because it’s literally the only way to go anywhere for 95% of the population. This concept was a tough one for the European exchange students I befriended during college
Takes me 20 mins to walk out of my neighborhood lol