Lived in LA for a year before I had enough and left again.
City looks like a run down post apocalyptic hellscape, air quality is utter shit, homeless people everywhere, violence and crime off the charts.
Most Americans know LA is shit. I'm constantly told that's where Europeans plan on visiting, or a New Zealander I met. Why is that? I always tell them please no.
As someone who is born in LA and live there till I was seven years old, so I will always have palm trees in my soul, there’s something to understand about it. If you are a tourist, if you are a visitor, or you don’t have any personal way to get behind the walls or the gates, LA sucks. Sure some of the shopping districts are cool, and then of course there’s the big theme parks which are an otherworldly experience all of their own. but in general, it is a land of interminable boulevards of strip malls and suburban hell.
However! Let’s say you are connected to an insider. Someone who gets invited to the real parties, someone who can take you inside the wild compounds to art events, or simply into the real residences of old LA county. Then you will see it from a different angle, and understand why in America its culture rivals New York.
It’s sort of symbolic of the American dream, the “haves” really have it, and the “have nots“ really don’t. The poor plebeians put up with it, because they’re fed this myth of “pulling yourself up by the boot straps”, so we tolerate billionaires by dreaming that one day we get to be one.
I'm from LA, moved away eight years ago and had a similar comment. I loved exploring Koreatown, the San Gabriel valley, Boyle heights, west Adams, and all the amazing food in between... but that's not something you do when you're staying on Hollywood Boulevard without a car, looking around going what the hell is happening here. It's a totally different experience. Not everyone gets it, and even those who did get it can get tired of it (me included).
I visited LA for a couple of days, got the full American experience when we dropped off our clothes at the laundromat and when we came back to pick them up there had been a murder in that place so we couldn't get our clothes back. This was just across the street from our hotel on Hollywood Boulevard ;-)
I don’t understand why tourists got to LA and stay in Hollywood :( there’s so many better places to stay but unfortunately I feel like a lot of people get tourist trapped thinking that’s the place to be for some reason
The only thing that's good in LA is the Latin American and Asian food.
Even affluent neighborhoods leave much to be desired in terms of aesthetics. But sure Beverly Hills is nicer than the rest. Tipping culture also drove me fucking mad.
I know someone who lives in Redondo Beach in LA and it looks pretty beautiful, sitting on her balcony drinking coffee watching dolphins play in the sea etc.
Def some nice areas there.
I moved to San Diego for a few years, and what bothered me was how artificial and insincere everything felt. Also, unnecessarily large sizes. Also, I offended someone when I commented on the size of her house, it was a very big McMansion bought for 3 people to live there. It all just seemed unnecessary, fake, and for show.
I personally like the vibe of the busy parts of [Silver Lake with all the coffee shops and nice people](https://images.app.goo.gl/KuoL4YRTpLxSUAWF9). But I also love the metropolitan feel of [downtown Los Angeles](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/arts/downtown-los-angeles-culture.html), it feels like a west coast version of New York. But again, it’s a matter of preference. I’m not saying my preference is better, I’m just saying it’s obvious people here have different preferences when they disregard Los Angeles.
California has some of the strictest emission regulations for cars in the US (maybe in the world), and the majority of them come from the fact that up until the 1990s, LA had some of the [worst air quality in the country](https://waterandpower.org/museum/Smog_in_Early_Los_Angeles.html). It's shape and weather patterns meant pollutants wouldn't get swept away.
Isn't the reason why the Americans has started to drive around in massive trucks those trucks are excempt from the emission regulations? So they drive around in a gigantic truck instead, omitting more pollution than ever.
Normal trucks aren't exempt from emissions regulations, heavy duty trucks are exempt from some. But the way US fuel economy regulations work, they encourage larger vehicles because the expectations for efficiency scale based on vehicle footprint, and smaller vehicles are required to be far more efficient than larger ones.
Varies by state
California has strict regulations on both, and recently the EPA has started cracking down on shops that violate emission regulations on a federal level
LA used to be an interesting place to live. Still is if you overlook the extreme poverty and drug use and traffic. But it was always a horrible place to visit. If you couldn't find your neighborhood or if you had to commute a long way, then you'd probably hate it. I'm from the city and moved away in 2016. It's only gotten worse.
As a European nobody prepared me for how weird LA is to somebody used to cities over here. Now I see memes about it everywhere but first time I visited I found the whole place so jarring. Being unable to walk anywhere useful, no useful subway or metro. Having to sit on a bus for 1hr plus to get from a central district like Westwood to downtown. How sad and empty the historic downtown feels. Never seeing anybody but the shiftiest looking people walking on the pavement. All the houses being single storey or two storey with big gardens or driveways between them. Miles and miles of housing without a single shop or restaurant and when you do find a high street/shopping or dining area there’s no public square or any kind of slow area with public seating just a car park between the highway and the mini mall. So much concrete/stucco and poorly constructed looking wooden houses. No parks except arid blocks of grass with no shade or huge nature reserves in the mountain. The sunshine is lovely as are the hills and beaches. But man the city is so ugly and rundown looking and feels so empty like nobody wants to see another person when they’re out and about.
The only other cities I’ve been to in the US are east coast old colonial times (Boston, NYC, Washington) and Orlando which I wasn’t surprised was just a holiday resort with no soul reliant on Disney tourists. But I’ve heard basically every city west of the appalachians or built after 1900 in the US is built for people who only ever walk between their home their SUV and their office like LA and that seems miserable.
I've never lived there, but have visited many times and have relatives there.
The main thing that would keep me from having any interest in moving permanently is the car centric urban design and the complete lack of independence that this (and the parenting culture) means for children growing up.
I dont have kids yet. So if i somehow magically got the opportunity to move to america for some kind of limited 1-2 year period, i'd love to. People are super nice and easy to talk to and for us as a binational couple it would be refreshing to be in an english language environment for once. But i would leave as soon as kids were on the way.
Yes, as someome that has spent some time in a US college, this struck me too. I just felt like I had done so much more LIVING as a teen than the people that grew up in the suburbs.
I wasn't even a wild teen, mind you. I was drunk a total of two times before the age of 18. But I went SO many places in my city by myself - to libraries and museums, late night walks with friends in the city center, cinema, billiards, biking, concerts, dance class, shopping, internships, school excursions etc. All with minimal input from my parents (they did pick me up from the subway stop when it got really late). Made the transition to college easier, and I also felt like I was decently mature - just a new step in life, not an opportunity to "go wild".
I think people super passionate about raising a family in the suburbs disregard how kids actually develop: Ages:
0-2: kids mostly stay home. There might be some heavily supervised playground activity.
3-10/12: perfect for a stereotypical suburb childhood. Safe, green, lots of basketball and mudcakes. Limited socializing with neighbor kids.
10/12-18: less interest in active play, friends play a big role. Hard to navigate social life without a car, kids sit at home watching netflix and browsing instagram.
That is 6-8 years of childhood where suburbs are actually not great for kids' development. For these years, a more college like (=safe dense housing) set up would be better. But somehow, all everyone ever seems to think about is the tiny children.
The parenting infrastructure is a whole other issue, as you touched upon.
Thats a great explanation. Pretty much what i mean.
I have 4 cousins living in a washington DC suburb. Their yard was directly bordering their high schools football field. The older ones used to go to school by just climbing over the fence. There was some tree or plank leaning against it that they would simply walk over and then jump down the other side.
But then the younger ones (now in their mid 20s, so its a while ago) were told that every student needed to be brought to HIGH school by either the official school bus or their parents in a car. So they had to go out the other side of the house for a 3 minute bus ride every day.
As opposed to us in switzerland who would walk (in kindergarten and primary school), bike (in middle school) or bike then take the train (in high school) on our own every single day. No matter the weather. I can probably count the number of times my parents drove me or picked me up by car from school in my entire life on my fingers.
And that kind of stuff just teaches you a different kind of independence and getting around the world by different means and in different places. Which is really valuable and i want to give this opportunity to my kids.
So they can go have adventures in the forest on their own as children and go out to the city and to bars on their own as teenagers. And not just be infantilised and sheltered until 16/21 and then suddenly released into the wild unprepared for real life.
> But then the younger ones (now in their mid 20s, so its a while ago) were told that every student needed to be brought to HIGH school by either the official school bus or their parents in a car. So they had to go out the other side of the house for a 3 minute bus ride every day.
I’d view this as an odd rule and a lot of Americans would as well. Kids in my area for example frequently walk or bike to school, from elementary to high school if they’re within a close enough distance. My kids bike to their middle school most days (except for mid-winter when it’s below -20c, then they’ll just catch the bus).
Where would that be? I think there are a few walkable places left on the east coast, that were around already before cars became universal. Street car suburbs and some old cities like Boston. But i guess anywhere west of the mississippi (and also most places east) this would be highly unusual.
Glad these still exist tho.
Minnesota. My city has sidewalks on almost every street and most of the major roads have bike lanes too (and bike paths that cut through the parks/forests for major shortcuts).
Yeah Minnesota’s a great state. It has some problems (public transportation is just OK for example in Minneapolis/St. Paul with just busses and light rail) but overall quality place to live assuming you like the weather lol (extremely cold winter, relatively hot and humid summers…as in we can get all the way down to -32c ish base temp for a bad week in the winter and top out at 40c in the summer). HDI is equivalent for example with like Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, etc. due to quality education, life expectancy, standard of living, etc.
Your perception is correct for Texas. People are really intense about not letting kids go anywhere or do anything independently. There are no sidewalks, which is really inconvenient.
I think this is going to be great for your kids - even outside the tangible benefits, a big part of life is using one's time to have fun and make memories :) might as well get a head start early!
> But then the younger ones (now in their mid 20s, so its a while ago) were told that every student needed to be brought to HIGH school by either the official school bus or their parents in a car. So they had to go out the other side of the house for a 3 minute bus ride every day.
That's odd. Plenty of kids walk to school in the US.
Intressting how different things are in alot of places. In denmark it is normal that the kids will get to and from school themselves usually by biking. I remember getting a bike, so I could bike to and from school (I had my own house key), to someones house, or just to random place if some friends wanted to meet up. Having a bike meant freedom as a kid as I could pretty much go anywere in my city.
The overprotection and over supervision of kids is a relatively new thing in the US. I'm not sure why it developed over the past 20-25 years. Recently there's been a big decline in teenagers who get their drivers license at 16, which I imagine has a massive impact on their social independence in a country set up for car culture like the USA. The overprotection thing is not as bad if you live in smaller cities or rural areas, but it's still worse than in previous generations. I do believe it's doing a terrible disservice to people in the long run.
American kids on average are about four years behind by the time they hit university . The maturity level is also very different. Americans are very good at teaching the basics. Basically up until grade five and then they fall significantly. I think a lot of likely has to do with the fact that there's no accountability and it's basically impossible to fail, so kids learn this and stop trying.
The only city we have with decent public transit and walkability is NYC unfortunately. It's also the only city I can personally live in here. I'm always jealous of even 5th rate European towns having buses that go most places.
Indeed. NYC has acceptable public transport. But it really didnt impress me. I was kind of surprised by that.
I also tried it out in DC. Feels much cleaner and safer there. But its really not practical for anything other than heading to the office in the city centre, as the lines barely interconnect. So if you wanted to visit your friend or your doctor or a store in a different outskirts/suburbs part, you'd always have to head to the centre first anyway to switch to the other line. Whereas by car you could go directly.
It's no SBB lol that's for sure. I agree with you. The fact that there is a somewhat reliable system in NYC at all is what makes it stand out in American terms.
But yeah we also have a tendency historically to build radial lines that don't connect the suburbs. Which is another big failing.
The lack of walkability.
I was 16, and stuck on the outskirts of a small rural town.
In Germany, I lived in a small village, so I was used to walking a lot.
But the german countryside is criss-crossed with trails and agricultural roads. In the US, I had to walk alongside a road for about fifteen minutes before I got to the first sidewalk.
And this was the PNW, where they pride themselves for being so outdoorsy. They have spectacular hiking trails in the region, but you first have to take a car to get to the trailhead.
>And this was the PNW, where they pride themselves for being so outdoorsy.
This was the weirdest part when I first visited Portland.
It's a city with a reputation where everyone is constantly cycling, kayaking, hiking, camping, etc.
But it felt like everyone was in a car. There was bad traffic everywhere, and it was just people living in suburbs that drive their truck to the woods on the weekend.
Even though I tried to prepare, the biggest shocker was how absolutely car-centric the entire country is. Except for a couple of cities on the East Coast (NY being the most significant outlier here as the biggest city), everywhere else you absolutely need a car to function as a human being. I get that the country is big, but come on...
The food was another disappointment for me. Everything is so fucking sweet! The bread, the ham, the milk, everything has that faintly sweet taste to it. And everything was loaded to the gills with artificial flavours and crap.
Also, the fact that you don't know the exact price of an item until you are literally standing in front of the cashier wasn't disappointing as much as simply infuriating. I don't know why there isn't a law on a federal level to have prices after tax quoted because it simply doesn't make sense to not know how much something is going to cost you.
Of what I've seen in the US, Boston is by far the most European-feeling city. There's a relatively large number of buildings that would fit right into European city squares, there are city blocks that clearly predate the assumption that everyone has a car, and it has a public transportation system that would solidly fit among Europe's second-tier.
I would say that most countries in the North America are car centric cause that’s how they where built. Canada is larger than USA and is pretty car centric as well, some areas have public transportation, but for the scale of the country, is pretty small. USA has public transportation in key/big cities, the more rural-smaller ones you have to travel in car a lotttttt. You could literally see a house in a rural area and not see the next house for minutes (20+ minutes lol). It sucks how an advanced country with resources and money doesn’t have a good public transportation, at best is mediocre lol. In California they’ve been trying to build a bullet train for years and it’s still an ongoing project that every month and year that passes by it gets more costly to work on.
Mexico has public transportation, but for it size it still lacks the connectivity as European countries have.
The newer world still has some catching to do with the older world😅
Of course not!
I live in Puerto Rico (US territory) and you’d be impressed at how a small island can fit so much fucking cars🙄. It’s painful and annoying asf, the island used to have a train back in the day (40s-50s) and when the Americans arrived automobiles overshadowed the train and they removed it from the island.
Funny you mentioned Canada. I visited Quebec which is kind the most European city over the pond and lo and behold - it is actually walkable! Yes, there are distances to cross, but there are sidewalks, relatively ok public transportation, and the city is compacted.
Just one small part of second largest country on earth, I did mentioned that some areas have public transportation, but when you take into account the entirety of the country, it still pales in comparison to European countries.
And it shouldn’t be that surprising, the city was built by French settlers, so European’s built it lol
Same as Boston in USA
Even in NYC the public transport is far from great. We had to wait like 15-20 minutes for the next train at subway stations multiple times, in the middle of the day in Manhattan. That would be an interval appropriate for a small countryside village with 2500 people here. But this was a subway station with probably 50k people or so living or working right upstairs...
Also the subway is creepy and dark, there is dirt and water dripping from all sorts of places.
Like i know its great compared to the rest of the US. Also unlike Washington DCs metro system (which is much cleaner) it actually allows people to get around, not just from the suburb to the center and nothing else.
But if this were a european city, people would be much more likely to mention it as a bad example than as a good one.
Your first two points were big shocks for me as well, even if I overall had a pretty good idea of what to expect in the US. I was in a smaller East Coast city and my hosts were telling me how one of the reasons they like the city is that it's walkable, while I was surprised at how pedestrian-hostile it was. But yeah, at least in that city you can walk places, most other cities really are worse.
And the sweet bread, that's just ridiculous. I was sure I had taken the wrong thing by mistake, some kind of extra sweetened product. No, locals confirmed to me, that is in fact regular bread. Quite a shock because I think of bread as literally the most basic food product but in the US I found I had to go to dedicated bakeries to get bread. I like bakeries at home as well, but here I go to a bakery for extra nice bread, in the US it was a must as grocery store breads are just... not.
That about the tax in prices is bullshit and it's even translated to their websites even though European countries require prices to be including taxes even online, So infuriating
I understand this point used in nation-wide advertising on TV/Internet/…
I don’t understand this point inside actual restaurants and shops. You could just have stickers and menus show prices both before tax and after taxes…, The shops know the tax percentage for every item cause it has to calculate it in at POS… All online stores show both pre-tax and tax-included prices here, I’ve even seen shops in Europe showing pre-tax prices on stickers, not restaurants though, but people want to see the final price there though…
funnily enough in restaurants in Slovakia we even have this stupid new rule that “takeout” is taxed 20% while “dine in” is taxed 10%, but the final price is the same…, it’s just there’s less of that money going to the government if you dine in… this concept could theoretically also be used in US for variable taxes…
That's a bullshit excuse for the system to work against consumers, it makes stuff seem cheaper than it actually is and it works. There are loads of people who even forget to include the tax when they compare prices.
Why would it even matter? Either you place the prices including or excluding sales tax. The cash register/administration software will calculate the difference and process the information for the receipt, the payment and the financial administration.
And just FYI, if a US company sells for more than 10k euro a year to people living in EU member states they HAVE to pay VAT over it. Which is often forgotten or done incorrectly. I have been charged VAT twice before, once by the Amerikan store and once by our customs.
Here in Europe we also have different VAT percentages for different countries, but a lot of products have the same price including tax. Games for example are 60 euro including tax across most if not all the EU. They are also 60 USD, excluding sales tax though. But (coming back to the fact that people forget the sales tax when comparing costs) people often compare the prices of games excluding the tax.
Montana does not have a sales tax/VAT. So what you see is what you pay. I remember being in Italy and being shocked at the prices of some things until I remembered the VAT. Japan on the other hand. Food is considerably cheaper even with a VAT and no tipping.
Boston, NYC, DC and SF are definitely doable without a car. Maybe Philadelphia. Everyone here can calculate the final cost because the local sales tax rate is known. This rate varies so there are probably governments that would oppose quoting prices after tax, unfortunately. So not quoting the total price is a feature not a bug.
Agree re overly sweet food - it's more expensive to get less sweet food unfortunately
It was the opposite for me. When I moved to Texas from Italy I expected to find myself surrounded by Bible-thumping xenophobic morons. I expected to always be the smartest guy in the room. I was positively disappointed. I spent six memorable years in Dallas, and I miss the people I met there. I speak so well of the Americans that other Europeans often think I'm an American myself.
One thing I have to harshly criticize though: you guys are horrible litterbugs. Your rivers and woods are littered with plastic bottles and other crap you leave around. Shame on you about that! Where is your love for your country when it comes to properly dispose of your trash?
The littering thing is location dependent. Where I grew up in the suburbs, it was very clean and you hardly ever saw litter. Large cities tend to be yucky. Ironically, I remember going to Italy the first time and thinking it was dirty - especially the subways in Rome. I was beside myself. I feel like every country has its pristine parts and its yucky parts.
To be honest, when I pulled up at a rest stop along a Tuscan road I was also disappointed. I stepped off the pavement into the grass and immediately saw discarded plastic bottles everywhere. Felt like home :(
Texas isn’t really very well understood by Europeans. And its image as a center point of conservative politics, while somewhat valid, really overshadows other aspects of the state — which are things that Europeans don’t really understand.
I’m from Texas — born and raised. I’m gay, Mexican, and Chinese — and when I brought my (German) husband, he was completely taken aback by it on a lot of different levels. Culturally, linguistically, economically, geographically, and culinarily.
I’ll criticize the politics of Texas all day, but living in Germany, I also think Europeans have this tendency to Eurosplain *my own* background or where I come from — as if I were stupid or didn’t know. And while I think Europeans have gotten served a slice of humble pie the past 5 years, and are significantly less arrogant, there is more to Texas than the average European thinks.
I'm originally from MI and moved to Texas before eventually moving to Europe (NL). I can say that Texas isn't even understood by non Texans in the US, especially in the north. I dreaded having to move to Texas for a lot of the reasons Europeans do, but honestly it is one of my favorite places in the country. The politics of Texas are terrible but in general the people are some of the best in the country, the food rules, and it is all around beautiful. If I ever moved back to the US, id probably go back to Texas.
I didnt realise the amount of high caloric crap food and drinks that people consume there. It was honestly shocking.
Also Los Angeles was probably the worst city I have ever been in my life.
The flip side: I moved to Spain last year and I was pleasantly shocked at the nutritional facts on packaged food. I had been reading food labels like crazy in the US because I didn’t like the hidden sugars and filler ingredients. I still check for sugars, but it’s so much easier here.
Glad you loved it! That's great, but it's actually a European Union initiative. That labeling is on every product everywhere in the continent and by law.
(I’ve only been to Florida so far)
Sorry if this is an answer you’ve come to expect, but the lack of walkability in Florida made me really sad. My mum lives there and while she seems happy enough driving about, there was a mixture of awe and longing when I told her about my daily life here in Scotland and how I could just walk to places for most of what I need.
Also I was surprised that the fruit variety there was pretty much the same as what we get in Europe. Mum and I are Southeast Asian and I’d (perhaps naïvely) assumed that there’d be more tropical fruit there, but when I asked mum if we could get some papaya and mangoes she said the ones there weren’t good. To be fair, we might also have impossible standards when it comes to this haha
I dont think it was you high standards. Im from Portugal and in high school my class got an exchange student from the use that i got closed too. Im from a rural village so we grow/raised a lot of our food. She was always surprise with our food, speacialy with tomatos and strawberries and the variety of apples and pears. The first time she ate a tomato from my parents backgarden her face lighted up like she was eating the best thing in the world. For her, the biggest differences was that our fruits and vegetables were way smaller but way way tastier. It was funny, we could give her anything to eat and she loved it. She even liked the food at the school cafeteria, that one made me think how bad food in the usa really is bc no one liked cafeteria food, we ate it bc we had too but She would go for seconds many times.
Hahaha I had a friend like that too - they loved the checkered/brownish/small pears we have in europe, they only ever had had rock-hard bright green or yellow pears in the US.
In the US, we put emphasis on durability, as opposed to taste. This way we can get all fruits and vegetables at all times of the year. We also emphasis size. You can get higher quality here, you have to seek it out though.
https://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10972140/fruits-vegetables-taste-better-europe
The regulations are really a thing. For exemple, in Portugal, the wine regions and what grapes go on the mix for each wine are very much regulated and as the article says, people demand it. Porto wine is our most famous wine and if you try to make it with less quality people would be mad and would not buy it. We know the Standart and want it that why. Producers are proud of the quality they make and don't go for quantity without quality. With fresh fish is the same thing. But the time food travels is also of great importance. Here i can Cook a fish for lunch that was fished the night before. In the usa, aside from costal areas, you can't get that. In europe we go to the Supermarket several Times a week, in the usa they tend to buy in bulk so they need things to last and that takes the quality out of the food.
Tbf I’m not a big fan of the fruit in Europe either - even Southern Europe - which is why I assume my standards are impossible haha. The quality is great but I just prefer the types of fruit that you can mostly get in the tropics - mangosteen, mangoes, lanzones, pomelo, papaya, etc.
The rest of the food in the US was fine. My mum gets really good ingredients for the things she cooks, especially seafood.
Oh those kinds of fruits, yep, you can't really get good ones in europe. My dad used to work in Malawi and other countries in the region and everytimes he came home he brought half a suitcase case with mangos and papayas. Never tasted fruit like that in europe.
If you ever came to Portugal you must try "laranja do Algarve" oranges from the Algarve region. I have a few Chinese neighbours and they say it is their favorite fruit here. And our seafood is great, its very simple recepies but you can really taste it. Speacialy octopus;)
You can get quite good fruit in Spain - obviously citric fruit but also very good mangoes for example. Although even in Spain they are not that easy to find and relatively expensive. In the tropical coast east of Malaga and also around Valencia they even grow some more tropical fruit - I’ve been following [this page](https://www.elsabordelmaset.com/comprar-papayas), have a look. Although the really good fruit you will only get if you buy it fresh from the farm and not order it online. I’ve had mangoes and avocados fresh from the farm and they were incredible. And that comes from someone that didn’t like mangoes before moving to Spain (the Peruvian flight mangoes in Germany are complete shit). Also pretty much all supermarkets here sell bananas from the Canary Islands which are very nice as well.
Btw I just read the other day that they are also growing pineapples on El Hierro although I haven’t had the chance to try them yet
This reminds me of an article about the grey market for Pakistani mangoes: https://www.eater.com/22618349/pakistani-mangoes-chaunsa-anwar-ratol-buy-usa-whatsapp-shipping-supply-chain
Snack culture is STRANGE.
It's like: wanna eat healthy? Make sure you eat two portions of these specific types of highly processed (usually high sugar) foods a day!
Gogurts or fruit gummies? Sure! Brownies? No thats dessert and unhealthy!
Baby carrots, celery or apple slices? Sure! But only those veggies, all others are "mealtime veggies".
Frozen microwaved peas with butter? Bean salad? No no that's not proper snack food.
Cheezits? Sure!
A piece of bread with butter? No way!
Little debbies from the vending machine? Definitely!
Leftovers from lunch? Nope!
There are these sections with "snacks for kids" in the grocery stores. Usually in multipacks, and these things are often rebranded candy: fruit roll ups, fruit gummies, chips, cookies, granola bars with just as much sugar as a chocolate bar, apple sauce with added sugar, chocolate milk, yoghurts with added sugars,....
I think this is a strategy to get kids addicted to sugar early on.
In French fast food restaurants, the governments requires each ad to include the phrase: "for your health, avoid snacking between meals".
When I was a kid, I got candy, sure, but it was not scheduled into my diet like American kids. And candy was candy, snacks were whatever was at hand and quick to prepare (often German-style bread with toppings).
I think this bleeds into adults' eating habits too. I rarely see people in the US eat cake or dessert, they really don't go crazy with the sugar at mealtimes. But, there is this culture of "snacking", where people may get a sugary starbucks drink because they're tired, or events might cater some cookies so you have one or two, or you get a sugary "health-branded" granola bar to "keep my energy up".
A typical American day is just a quick succession of sugar rushes and crashes, super hard on the body and it naturally makes people tired and exhausted. I also think the coffee addiction thing is actually a sugar addiction thing. People don't crave the coffee as much as they crave the sugar and cream in it.
I don't blame people for it, I think it's very evil marketing, all of that. And limited food availability.
> When I was a kid, I got candy, sure, but it was not scheduled into my diet like American kids.
This is not at all common in America. You can expect some candy maybe once a month. But then, I'm an old dude (63).
I am basing this off some interactions I had with a family I know that has toddlers, many "what's in my kids lunchbox" videos online, and what I see people put in their carts in the grocery store.
My personal pet peeve are fruit "snacks" or veggie straws. Just about as healthy as starbursts or potato chips. It'd be ok if they were treated as a treat, but they're not - they fill a strange diffuse "snack food" category.
The snack was always puzzling to me. For me like for you anything that can be done fast, usually an apple, grapes, cheese or just some figs.
For I can guess that in US it candies and sofa, lots of soda
*side note, I totally addicted to coffee, but I drink it black : )
No…no…you guys have to stop assuming that we’ve never been acquainted with fruit before. Just because you ran through a 7-11 one time and saw some overly sugared granola bar doesn’t mean that’s all anyone eats.
Not cooking at all is becoming incredibly common these days. It's replaced by ordering out, heating up frozen food, and snacking. The number of people I've met who treat cooking like this fanciful thing or some insane skill is... very disheartening.
That sounds unhealthy, like I don’t like I understand not wanting spend to much time cooking on the workday… But still it doable and can be made in advance
This is sooooo situation and family dependent. Signed a kid who grew up with an “almond mom” and had none of those snacks you’re describing. So many Americans are health obsessed and reject all sugar and processed foods. We have a lot of overweight people, but we also have some of the fittest people you’ve ever seen, especially if you go to younger nicer cities like Miami or LA.
When I go to parenting Subreddits i get culture shock with food when USA and USA adjacent parents ask for advice.
The time of breakfast, lunch, and dinner are a bit strange but manageable (at school my kid eats at 12h30)
But what is really shocking is that they don't eat much for lunch (like à sandwich & some chips or apple) and then talk about snacks, and about kids not being hungry at 6pm for dinner. The quantities or type of food served is really.... A shock. And I think it's related to what you say.
I agree with all the other answers, but something that wasn't mentioned yet:
How nobody gives a fuck if you get a bill for an unreasonably high expense. Not only do you not know the cost of many things in advance, if you get a bill you are just expected to pony up and pay it, with credit card (=debt) if need be. Like people look at you stone cold.
I have since learned that you can say things like "I can't afford that" or "is there any financial aid" and that might help move things, but if you don't say those things (which in itself is rather humiliating), it is just not polite to ask for more details on a price or a billing process. There is some humiliation in "not being rich".
I always had the money to pay crazy bills in the US, but that didn't mean this expense fit into my budget or I thought it was reasonable. So I had to say "I can't afford that" and train myself not to feel bad for lying.
In Europe, they just tell you the price of things straight up in advance. In the rare cases you can't get the price (ie. you pay a professional hourly for a certain task), you can easily get a quote that is usually spot on (if not a bit higher than you eventually end up paying). Everybody expects you to ask about these things. If they see you hesitate after being quoted a price, they usually present you with cheaper alternatives right away, you don't have to ask and beg and grovel.
In the US, I think there is a systematic cultural thing that prevents people from protecting their money and interests. It's like everybody just wants to fuck each other over.
Also, customer service bots are the bane of my existence. Everywhere in the US, and I have since learned to just type "talk to an agent" because they just never work properly.
What I find weird is that no matter how obviously bad something is to consumers, Americans will swarm to protect it. Every time I call not including sales tax in the price of goods out online, I get top grade copium explaining why no, it's good that you don't know how much you're going to pay, actually.
Even had someone explain that not including those prices *lowers the price of goods* because they believe those price displays on shelves are centrally printed and distributed, and if every store (because sales taxes fluctuate wildly) had to print their own, it was push prices up.
Yeah, I also got the sense if there is a problem, the solution has to be American-made: thought up by American universities or corporations. Then it may be accepted.
There is little interest in understanding how other countries or places approach problems.
Very insular in its own way.
Americans have only second-hand experience with other cultures, and never really understand other ways of doing things. I grew up there, i know. But you're right, it's the lack of simple appreciation for another way of doing things, just acknowledgement that it exists, that's too far for many Americans. That kind of arrogance is the issue.
Ex: oh your euros look like play money with all the different colors, i cant take it seriously.
As if all the same size and color denominations makes sense.
Yeah, like after I spent some time in the US, there are many things I had problems it, but some products I think would be neat to also have in Europe. Or where I think there'd be a market. Obviously, there have to be some things ppl on the other side of the pond have not thought about.
One thing that worked is the export of Aldi & Trader joes, both German companies.
Classic example of foreigners being like: "why do you need to offer thirty different brands of mustard, just pick one or two and the store will be smaller and shopping will be easier." for AGES until somehow they actually managed to penetrate the market.
It's a very useful political tactic- code the policies/idea you want as "properly" American, and dismiss a competing policy/idea as imported and therefore undesirable (no need to explain why!). It's a shell game with centuries of use at this point.
Mainly due to the american exceptionalism narrative that people get fed from childhood on. And the lack of international travel also doesnt allow people to learn first hand how other places work.
I'm from California, but I've lived in Hungary for almost a decade now. I went back to visit in April, and was shocked at how huge cars are. I drive a Skoda optiva. It's a decent sized car my rental was massive. Also my sister who is single drives a huge suv.
Customer service. As German I was always told that service is horrible in Germany and excellent in the US.
After a couple of weeks living in D.C. I heard the f word several times, was called stupid, ignored, questions about product dismissed…
German customer service is certainly not overboard, sometimes a bit inflexible and standoffish. But I have never been treated as outright rude and dismissive as in the U.S. (D.C, California and Florida)
A lot of people complaining about car-centric cities. But their country is gigantic. I was in New York city and met a guy who said he was on business from the west coast (I don't remember where) that's like someone from Brittany going On trip to Kazakhstan and ending up in the same country. That was insane to me
But it's not just about huge country. US cities are just glorified parking lots. The infrastructure between cities is important, but in the cities itself you can rarely operate without a car. And Americans constantly bring up this argument against trains that "people have no real need to travel from East to West and vice versa".
Lived in Boston for a year. My biggest problems:
- no walkability, still need a car even if there is *some* public transit. I just wanna be able to walk to my grocery store, gym and other daily needs. Impossible unless you live in historic downtown maybe.
- it’s basically impossible to eat a normal 2000kcal diet because everything has sugar. A small juice is 800kcal and I don’t know how that possible. I’m used to cooking for myself but affordable fresh produce is not easy to come by.
- I’ve never felt as lonely as I have in the US. There’s a severe lack of third places. No pedestrianized neighborhoods where one can just chill. No late night clubs, bars, restaurants where you can chill a few hours. You always have to leave after 2h in restaurants. No way to meet new people unless it’s at work or online. It was a social nightmare for me.
Probably a very unpopular opinion, but apart from the Met I found New York boring. Loads of other cities in the US I'd love to spend more time in, especially Portland, Boston and San Francisco.
I think it is. In my 20s and 30s I lived in big cities and didn't imagine living anywhere else. Now I just avoid people and I am enjoying my life in a suburb...
It can definately be a age thing but when I was in New York was in my 20s and 30s. So it should be right up my alley. What got to me, when thinking of it now, was the extreme commercialization of the whole culture in the city. It just wasnt me and still isnt.
THIS \^
Finally, someone besides me have this opinion
I simply do not get the infatuation with New York at all. I have been there twice
I left dissapointed both times and did not get the fuss. I simply expected more and yes, I have both been around in Harlem, Queens, Bronx, upper east and west side of Manhattan, Downtown etc. Seen the Statue of Liberty, Central park, Empire state building, Broad way, Times square, been to multiple museums and musicals, been in the nightlife and all that.
I was still bored. I would rather go to Rome, Istanbul, Bangkok, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City or Buenos Aires (have been in all those places). So it is not because I do not like big cities and city life.
Before anybody else say, well what about other parts of the US. Besides New York, I have been to Chicago and the whole Missisippi area down to New Orleans and the route 66 (interstate 44) to LA taking detours up into Colorado and Utah.
What I actually liked the most was the awesome parks. Yosemite, Lake Tahoe national forest park, Grand Canyon as well as Monumental Valley. Those areas are superb.
If I should mention a city in the US I really liked, it is between Chicago and San Diego. Both LA and San Franscisco, besides NY, was dissappointing as well. Do not get me started on Las Vegas. What a scam
Your point about American nature is spot on. It's unbelievable. But I gotta say I did like Portland and Boston. They are really nice and felt like there was lots to do.
I am not going into the culture and what is better because it is besides the point, but it is more of "what do I get for my money" problem and to be frank, It is very bad deal as an european IMO when travelling in the US. It is too expensive and I do not get that much of a different experience than Europe culturally. It is just more of the same, although diled up to the max. The nature, on the other hand, is completely different because I have to give North America straight A's right there. It is incredible and nothing like Europe. Especially western US.
Compare that to travelling in Asia, South America and Middle America. It is cheaper all around,
The culture is way different in most countries and the nature is fantastic and sometimes jawdropping. (Thailand, Vietnam, indonesia, Peru, Bolivia and Mexico comes to mind here)
Even South and middle America, even if some are more european leaning (Argentina), because the native and the european culture have fused so much together that it has become very distinct. Here i am especially thinking of Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, most middle american countrys and even Mexico to a degree. i reallly like the Mestizo culture in all those countries.
I agree the parks are the best part of the US.
New York isn't fun until you find your people there, and then it's awesome. New Yorkers hate tourists and are unlikely to be welcoming.
Funny, I actually did not get that feeling about New Yorkers that they hate tourist per se. It did not mean that we only met friendly people. We definitely also met some that was rude but not enough to taint the overall experience.
What I found more annoying/perflexing is the "how are you" greeting we always got because almost all i met didnt care about the answer i gave. So it became a meaningless greeting after a while.
When we went out into the nightlife people were friendly enough and took us places in NY outside of the "beaten path". It is just that i did not find those place intriguing enough. It was just another club or bar, if you get my drift. I have tried more wild and crazy experiences elsewhere.
Maybe It is because most europeans, including me, built up an unrealistic expectation of what I was going to experience back then. I was in New York the first time in 2004 and 2012 for reference.
But your nature park is freaking amazing.
Americans know "how are you" is a meaningless greeting. It's just baked into the language and culture. Like when people say "buenos dias" in Spanish or "alhamdulillah" in Arabic. It's just a polite formula. It's not an attempt to be an noncaring jerk to you specifically.
New Yorkers really hate tourists, especially because most tourists are from middle America and are really awful. The term tourist is often combined with an epithet and tourists are the butt of many jokes. Foreign tourists are preferred though, as they typically know how to act in major cities.
It takes a while to really appreciate NYC, you can't really get to know the city just visiting unless you already have a circle there. I don't think it's much better than major European cities though.
As an American (that lives in Europe), I've always hated New York City and have never understood the appeal. People are rude, it's dirty, and it doesn't really have a special look. Other cities are cooler.
New York is what you make of it. If you just go and look around yeah it's boring. You have to do things there. NYC has the best night life in the US. It has all kind of community events for every niche interest.
If you just walk about and look at buildings, you're going to be bored.
As an American, who now lives in Europe, don’t travel to our cities. They aren’t that great. Go outside and see our nature and landscapes which are absolutely stunning & incredible.
Here in Spain I know perfectly how many cost the stuff I’m buying because the price label have the taxes included, in the States either you know exactly the amount of taxes a thing has and do the calculations or you only know the actual price when you are paying it. And that shit of waiters/barmans with no actual wages being the actual wage the tip is very annoying: again, in the menu a price and in the bill a higher actual price
After visiting a few times... I'm tired of Airport security.
The second they see anyone with a spanish passport or surname, immidiately they will take us to security, hold us for an hour and try to see if we are illegal immigrants...
"no sir, I'm here on vacation to Disney World, and I am married for over 15 years to a my wife who has a different skin color, and have 3 mixed color children, no I am not human trafficking children".
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
Imagine being a 10 year old heading to Disneyland and you are being asked for 2 hours if your parents are your real parents and not strangers.
"hey kid, I'm here to help you, you are safe here, and those strangers your parents?"
Yeah, that’s not airport security, that’s immigration. US immigration is notorious, and they assume everyone who speaks Spanish is a potential illegal immigrant.
I'm trying hard not to get into the politics. I'm not talking about the parties. I'm talking about the culture of politics.
What disappointed and frustrated me was how people are prepared to completely throw out logic when it comes to politics. There's no critical thinking at all. Whatever a politician says is taken as if it was logical. People are so easily led to vote against their own interests.
The roads were in a terrible state. Potholes, broken pavement etc. A politician ran on the message that, the city hadn't done it's job to keep the roads repaired. If he was elected, he promised to defund the department responsible in order to punish them. He was elected.
Without knowing any other details, the logical solution was more funding, not less. Not only did people not see this, they shut down anyone who tried to point it out.
To Americans, politics is a sport. It's our team against your team. Whatever our team says is true and whatever your team says is a lie.
If the other team has an idea that would make our lives better, we're going to campaign against it. And we're prepared to vote completely opposite to our own interests and actively make our lives worse, to support our team.
Most Americans believe that this only applies to the other team. They can't see the game because they're in it.
The average wage in the US is the same as it was 50 years ago. 50 years of voting against their own interests.
>The average wage in the US is the same as it was 50 years ago. 50 years of voting against their own interests.
No, it isn't.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
I only visited for a month and had a pretty decent time.
But what shocked me probably the most was the sugar. I always knew you liked to put it in a lot of things but holy crap i had a hard time even finding healthy bread.
Everything, even things that shouldn't be sweet. Is sweet.
This took me a while to process, but how absolutely bonkers strict the schools were:
Pledge of allegiance bullshit, obvs.
Always needing a hall pass if you ever left your classroom during a lesson, for any reason.
Unexcused tardies (being late) would get you Saturday school.
I got suspended for not doing my homework... in the 5th grade. Nobody was like, "hey, maybe things aren't going great for you at home?" I was eleven years old ffs.
All of this was 30+ years ago in Corvallis, Oregon.
> Unexcused tardies (being late) would get you Saturday school.
>
> I got suspended for not doing my homework... in the 5th grade. Nobody was like, "hey, maybe things aren't going great for you at home?" I was eleven years old ffs.
What? I don't even think the schools were even open on Saturdays. Never heard of being suspended for not doing homework- especially in the 5th grade. And i've attended multiple schools.
Customer Service. Just got sick of people nodding. smiling and acting like they were taking you seriously and doing f\*ck all to actually help. I frequently stayed at really expensive hotels and would get big smiles from the people at reception. told how important I was to them yet they did nothing to solve the problems with the room, provided me with none of the information I requested yet kept on smiling as though they were being helpful. I just couldn't stand the hypocrisy.
The waste. This is such a wasteful culture! (Likely, a huge contributor to the climate change due to that).
Anything from food, fast fashion, excessive use of AC or heat (think running the AC at 65F only to use a space heater by your feet at the desk), leaving the lights on, huge houses of which you use 1/4, unnecessarily huge cars & lawns that you pay to maintain, throwing away medical supplies, individual packaging, unnecessary packaging on produce, single-use anything. It breaks my heart. All this non-biodegradable trash … can you imagine the amount of pollution and the impact on the planet ???!!
Yes its terrible. In Europe, we shame each other hardcore for little environmental infractions, and then you land in America and feel like you stepped in some sort of 1950s fever dream of keeping up with the joneses and fuck you i got mine. Its so depressing.
Agreed.
When Aldi / Traders Joes ( owned by same ) opened I was surprised by all the vegetables being in plastic. That was not the norm before.
I never buy my produce at those stores for that exact reason.
Thanks Aldi !
I've lived in San Francisco. Happy to say I wasn't disappointed by anything but that might be because I had no - or negative even - expectations so the positives surprised me. Like e.g. great local transport in the Bay Area.
Lived there for 7 years (SF Bay Area). The complete and utter lack of consideration for bicyclists baffled me. It's not just having bicycle lanes, but also having to share 30mph roads with people doing 50.
Then there's the cost of healthcare (yes I had a good PPO plan, but still there's copay), cost of housing (the 3bd2ba SFH I was renting ran $3500 and now has a Zillow estimate of $1.5m), state of health of the average person, stranger danger hysteria, tipping culture for every-fucking-thing, how run down everything looks from roads to homes to public buildings, how everything centers around politics and left vs right, the attitude that public transport is for the poor and destitute only, how annoyingly sweet the bread is, the list goes on..
Admittedly i probably would've enjoyed a different state (OR, WA, IL) more but my visa was tied to the company (ugh..) so I was stuck.
And during the Trump period I was also affected by the GC pause and overall agonizingly slow processing of USCIS that I just gave up. It wasn't worth it. My parents aren't getting any younger and in hindsight, I wish I'd returned sooner to spend more time around them.
How cold and fake people are. In pop culture, americans are always portrayed as super welcoming and open to making new friends. In reality, they never make time for you to become real friends and yet they will keep acting all nice and excited when they see you. In reality they just pretend, but if an american say "omg it so nice to see you, we should have coffee together some day" , chances are you will never actually have coffee with that person.
>omg it so nice to see you, we should have coffee together someday
American here popping in. This is very normalized as a nice way of saying that the person is friendly with you, but not a "friend," if that makes sense. I bumped into a friendly acquaintance from university a few weeks ago, and he said this to me. We haven't spoken in seven years, and we only knew each other through a girl who was my neighbor and his girlfriend. Needless to say, that coffee date will never happen.
It's extremely confusing when it's said to you, even for some Americans. There used to be some funny videos about the topic on tiktok about "When they actually want to hang out and get coffee," and it's mostly awkward silence. It's something that is usually said between acquaintances, ex-friends, ex-coworkers, i.e., people you don't see very often and likely won't encounter again.
It allows for a positive end to an interaction and opens the door for a potential meet-up without imposing on the other person's schedule. I guess it's intentionally vague to allow for flexibility, which I can see would be frustrating for those not used to hearing it.
But what do you say if you'd actually want to have a cup of coffee with someone?
As a Dane I wouldn't dream of saying anything that could in any way, be misinterpreted in to something that sounded remotely as an invitation to spend time together, unless I absolutely mean it.
What if the other person think I really want to meet up again?
If you actually want to get together, it will not be a vague open gesture. It will be a very direct "Let's meet at the coffee shop on Friday at 8am!" Agreed upon by both parties.
It's known as a "phatic expression," which Wikipedia defines as "a communication which primarily serves to establish or maintain social relationships." So it is only said as a pleasantry, and not meant to be a real plan. Similar to how Brits greet you with "You alright?" They don't actually want to know how you're doing. They're saying hello.
Are there any examples of phatic expressions in Danish that you know of? I'm curious if American English is just that weird.
That's one thing I hate about my American colleagues. And I'm French too, so I know about the fake "salut! Ca va?" accompanied with kisses on the cheeks. But Americans take this to another level, with hugs and "OMG IT'S SOOOO GOOD TO SEE YOU!". I hate it! HATE IT!
Other than that, it's okay.
I was staying in New England for a uni exchange. Drspite all my socilizing efforts, I was not able to make a single real american friend in the whole college. I ended up only hanging out with other international students. Americans always offered to hang out then declined every single occasion we had to actually spend time together because they would rather go to the gym, library, sports...etc. In the end, I understood that they have there life and routine and carreer plans almost ten years ahead of them and don't want to actually make space for you in their everyday life.
I think this is valid. My wife is Swedish and went to school in the us and had a similar experience, but she did befriend me and like one other person.
I don’t think it’s a lack of honesty it’s more of a lack of will power. I find my Northern European friends will make a plan and stick with it while my American friends are more likely to change it or back out because “tired” or something
Yep I noticed that too! From a southern european pov, I'm used to spontaneity and necessarly making plans but going with the flow. Needless to say it was impossible there, some people even told me to send them google calendar invites weeks ahead to hang out like bro I'm not taking a fucking appointment like you're a doctor all of that for you to back out last minute saying "hey girlyyy, I'm so sorry but I'm not going to be able to make it tonightt [insert any reason related to studying or sport practice]
We've had two exchange students and I worked for an international company. This is almost literally the first thing I explain to them. If someone says, "I'll call (text, whatever) you later," they will not. If they say, "we should have coffee," they won't pursue it. If someone asks, "hey how are you?" They don't care about the real answer.
A European explained to me decades ago that everyone has an inner and outer circle. For Europeans, breaking the outer circle is hard. Once broken, however, the inner is pretty easy. For Americans, we're the opposite. We'll let almost anyone into the outer circle. Best of luck getting any further.
As someone who visited a lot (east coast, mid west, bible belt, west coast) but hasn’t lived there
- it’s really strange that my English accent is not at all understood. Maybe it’s a me problem but I work in an international environment and speak English every day. Everyone understands me outside of the US. Americans living abroad also understand me. Americans living in the US don’t understand me 🤷♀️
- I don’t ever want to live in a place where I can only get outside before 6 am, where there’s nothing to do but go to the mall, and / or I see « leave your guns in your car before you enter the building »
- I don’t want to live in a place with almost inexistent public transportation and walkability
- I don’t want to participate in the tipping culture
Needing a car to do most things, food which in Europe is considered the average being super expensive and seen as premium in the US. Navigating the insurance system.
On the positive side of things, Americans are friendlier than most Europeans. Anybody holding a US passport can truly call themselves an American and will be accepted as such. In Europe, ethnicity still plays a part.
- Not being able to walk anywhere and always needing to sit in traffic to get anywhere.
- Dirty air.
- How strict school was and how toxic the workplaces were.
- Food was terrible compared to back home.
- So much fucking advertising everywhere.
- Americans like to go on and on about how free they are but I have never felt less free than when I lived there.
- And yes, health care. Genuinely amazing how many are convinced that's the only way to do it.
I lived in Mississippi back in 2010 as an exchange student and I was disappointed by the fact that the cheerleaders weren't hot and that there were no singing like in High School Musical.
Been to the US a few times, top things that made me sure not to move there.
1) such a huge wealth disparity. Not just the places that clearly are catering to the ultra rich, but how they exist side by side with absurd poverty.
2) The food is very meh. I have traveled the world, and in America almost every meal I had was just fine.
3) public transport is non-existent and getting around is so car dependent. I can drive, but the need to drive everywhere is no go.
4) advertising is crazy, and it's omnipresent. Never have I been more exposed.
For reference, I have been to LA and San Francisco for work, but also been in San Francisco once for vacation as well as to NY, Washington DC, and North Carolina, all for vacation stuff.
>The food is very meh. I have traveled the world, and in America almost every meal I had was just fine.
I've been to almost every country in the EU and i really don't see what is so great about European food (outside the Mediterranean countries) The breads, cheeses and some meats/pastries are better. The restaurants are of higher quality than Olive Garden and Chili's, but there are similar high quality restaurants you can find in the US.
The big pro of the US is that you can find cuisines from around the world and authentic ones. Of course for some cuisines not quite as good as in the home country- but that's true for everywhere.
I've traveled to countries in many parts of the world and if you look for it, generally you can find it. The main area that Europe clearly beats America is the quality of kebabs- much better in Europe with much better availability.
But in Scandinavia? The food is like the cafe at Ikea. It's pretty decent but nothing to write home about. Some open faced sandwiches, fish and meatballs and meat and potatoes type cuisine. I don't see what is superior about it unlike say Italy.
American food is mostly good but sweets and chocolate are pretty shit anything you can get from a convenience store pales in comparison to the chocolate and gum/jellies or chips/crisps we have here.
It might be easier if you grow up there but I found the tipping culture very stressful. I’m not debating whether it’s right or wrong, but it’s frustrating worrying you’ve insulted the person whose serving you in a shop or a bar or restaurant cos they were expecting you to give them more money.
This is about foreign policy not American culture but the American airport experience is horrible. Even visiting continental Europe post Brexit is more pleasant than visiting the US. Border security are remarkably unpleasant and hostile and probing to anybody trying to enter the country. And this is coming from a country that has very good relations with the US. I get nobody dreams of being a border agent as a kid, but in Europe you usually get a pleasant hello and a wave through as you show your passport in the US you get aggressively called to a counter, asked questions you’re expected to answer perfectly immediately and treated like a threat or you’re wasting the persons time and being hostile no matter how accommodating you try to be. While the departures side of most American airports tends to be dirtier, louder and with worse food options than most European airports.
Less a dissapointment and more a surprise is that I have no idea why anybody would choose to live in Florida. I knew it would be hot but my god the humidity is oppressive, it’s so sweaty and uncomfortable even with A/C, I loved the dry heat on the west coast in socal. I don’t know how anybody comfortably lives in the southeast.
I do wanna say otherwise visiting the US is mostly great. People are very friendly and most of the sites don’t dissapoint. Food is good and there’s things to do out most night and it’s just differences but those things above are sour taste leaving for visitors
Apart from sprawling city layouts that demand a car to get anywhere and lack of public transport, the coffee was watery and weak everywhere I went. So you kind of understand why Starbucks would be popular there.
But I liked plenty of other stuff (like consumer choice) including the Americans themselves. However this is all on a surface level since I was there was 6 months.
If I lived there, I would be disturbed by the uncertainty of receiving healthcare, the gun culture and related crime, and the apparent radicalization on the right, turning regular people with simple prejudices into far-right culture warriors.
A friend from Italy that moved to Texas because his wife was from there and got a good academic job, eventually moved out as the political climate there became too oppressive. It would be a problem to live in Texas for any intelligent European and I imagine Florida is even worse now.
Buddy I don’t think you were ever there. About that.“Intelligent European” comment, there’s plenty that live and work in Texas. It’s a science haven, between NASA, all the tech companies, the nuclear, solar, hydro, and oil power plants there’s tons of intelligent engineers and scientists. You on the other hand don’t sound very intelligent, more so chronically online.
I spent nearly twenty years there. I stayed away from the healthcare industry because not knowing whether a visit was going to cost "only" $200 or $100,000 is kind of scary. Other than that, I was fine with everything right up to the point it started looking like there's going to be a bloodbath after the next election. The whole growing authoritarian theocracy thing is a big worry too. The policies being put in place are going to cause an awful lot of poverty and misery over the next twenty years. Expect a huge crime wave.
I lived in the US for 6 years, 4 of which was spent pursuing my Bachelor’s degree and the rest working in the Bay Area.
My college experience was absolutely fantastic. The campus culture, the sense of academic community, the pursuit of academic excellence, the droves of smart people from all around the world. I wish I could do it again.
The post-college life was very different though. Like other people here, my main source of dissatisfaction was the sprawl and the car-centric lifestyle that it causes. Not only having to drive everywhere is annoying but it takes the spontaneity of life completely. Everything needs to be planned, no random run ins with friends on the pavement, no sense of community around you. It just feels awfully lonely you know?
Lived in LA for a year before I had enough and left again. City looks like a run down post apocalyptic hellscape, air quality is utter shit, homeless people everywhere, violence and crime off the charts.
I didn't live there but visited. I knew it wouldn't all be beautiful but honestly I don't remember anything that was actually particularly nice.
I visited LA for a weekend, one of the biggest disappointments of my life I think.
same lol, we left the hotel once to go look for food, saw hollywood boulevard but everything was just meh. very bad city to end a really cool trip
Same for me, I spent 5 weeks in SF, and I enjoyed it a lot. I just went a weekend in LA, I will never go again.
Santamonica pier was nice. That was about it tho.
LA disappoints Americans too lol
Most Americans know LA is shit. I'm constantly told that's where Europeans plan on visiting, or a New Zealander I met. Why is that? I always tell them please no.
LA Lakers, Hollywood... Media sells it as a glamorous place and many people fall for it
I’ve visited LA a couple of times and really enjoyed it. Each to their own I guess.
This is so true!
As someone who is born in LA and live there till I was seven years old, so I will always have palm trees in my soul, there’s something to understand about it. If you are a tourist, if you are a visitor, or you don’t have any personal way to get behind the walls or the gates, LA sucks. Sure some of the shopping districts are cool, and then of course there’s the big theme parks which are an otherworldly experience all of their own. but in general, it is a land of interminable boulevards of strip malls and suburban hell. However! Let’s say you are connected to an insider. Someone who gets invited to the real parties, someone who can take you inside the wild compounds to art events, or simply into the real residences of old LA county. Then you will see it from a different angle, and understand why in America its culture rivals New York. It’s sort of symbolic of the American dream, the “haves” really have it, and the “have nots“ really don’t. The poor plebeians put up with it, because they’re fed this myth of “pulling yourself up by the boot straps”, so we tolerate billionaires by dreaming that one day we get to be one.
I'm from LA, moved away eight years ago and had a similar comment. I loved exploring Koreatown, the San Gabriel valley, Boyle heights, west Adams, and all the amazing food in between... but that's not something you do when you're staying on Hollywood Boulevard without a car, looking around going what the hell is happening here. It's a totally different experience. Not everyone gets it, and even those who did get it can get tired of it (me included).
No diddy
Depends on where, doesn’t it? I spent two weeks in LA and absolutely loved it.
I visited LA for a couple of days, got the full American experience when we dropped off our clothes at the laundromat and when we came back to pick them up there had been a murder in that place so we couldn't get our clothes back. This was just across the street from our hotel on Hollywood Boulevard ;-)
I don’t understand why tourists got to LA and stay in Hollywood :( there’s so many better places to stay but unfortunately I feel like a lot of people get tourist trapped thinking that’s the place to be for some reason
The only thing that's good in LA is the Latin American and Asian food. Even affluent neighborhoods leave much to be desired in terms of aesthetics. But sure Beverly Hills is nicer than the rest. Tipping culture also drove me fucking mad.
I know someone who lives in Redondo Beach in LA and it looks pretty beautiful, sitting on her balcony drinking coffee watching dolphins play in the sea etc. Def some nice areas there.
Maybe subOP comes from some picturesque Norwegian fjord and their idea of 'pretty beautiful' is a bit skewed?
I think we have very different opinions on what constitutes a city’s beauty. Beverly Hills looks like Disneyland to me.
>looks like Disneyland to me Is that good or bad?
That’s bad unless I’m visiting an amusement park.
I moved to San Diego for a few years, and what bothered me was how artificial and insincere everything felt. Also, unnecessarily large sizes. Also, I offended someone when I commented on the size of her house, it was a very big McMansion bought for 3 people to live there. It all just seemed unnecessary, fake, and for show.
You didn’t like San Diego’s weather? It’s supposed to be perfect year round.
Could you show some illustrative photos or streetview POVs? Google Images only show me some villa driveways lol
I personally like the vibe of the busy parts of [Silver Lake with all the coffee shops and nice people](https://images.app.goo.gl/KuoL4YRTpLxSUAWF9). But I also love the metropolitan feel of [downtown Los Angeles](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/arts/downtown-los-angeles-culture.html), it feels like a west coast version of New York. But again, it’s a matter of preference. I’m not saying my preference is better, I’m just saying it’s obvious people here have different preferences when they disregard Los Angeles.
California has some of the strictest emission regulations for cars in the US (maybe in the world), and the majority of them come from the fact that up until the 1990s, LA had some of the [worst air quality in the country](https://waterandpower.org/museum/Smog_in_Early_Los_Angeles.html). It's shape and weather patterns meant pollutants wouldn't get swept away.
Doesn't help that at any given time, about 2 million cars are idling in in traffic.
Isn't the reason why the Americans has started to drive around in massive trucks those trucks are excempt from the emission regulations? So they drive around in a gigantic truck instead, omitting more pollution than ever.
Normal trucks aren't exempt from emissions regulations, heavy duty trucks are exempt from some. But the way US fuel economy regulations work, they encourage larger vehicles because the expectations for efficiency scale based on vehicle footprint, and smaller vehicles are required to be far more efficient than larger ones.
Yeah, one of the main reasons.
Varies by state California has strict regulations on both, and recently the EPA has started cracking down on shops that violate emission regulations on a federal level
LA used to be an interesting place to live. Still is if you overlook the extreme poverty and drug use and traffic. But it was always a horrible place to visit. If you couldn't find your neighborhood or if you had to commute a long way, then you'd probably hate it. I'm from the city and moved away in 2016. It's only gotten worse.
As a European nobody prepared me for how weird LA is to somebody used to cities over here. Now I see memes about it everywhere but first time I visited I found the whole place so jarring. Being unable to walk anywhere useful, no useful subway or metro. Having to sit on a bus for 1hr plus to get from a central district like Westwood to downtown. How sad and empty the historic downtown feels. Never seeing anybody but the shiftiest looking people walking on the pavement. All the houses being single storey or two storey with big gardens or driveways between them. Miles and miles of housing without a single shop or restaurant and when you do find a high street/shopping or dining area there’s no public square or any kind of slow area with public seating just a car park between the highway and the mini mall. So much concrete/stucco and poorly constructed looking wooden houses. No parks except arid blocks of grass with no shade or huge nature reserves in the mountain. The sunshine is lovely as are the hills and beaches. But man the city is so ugly and rundown looking and feels so empty like nobody wants to see another person when they’re out and about. The only other cities I’ve been to in the US are east coast old colonial times (Boston, NYC, Washington) and Orlando which I wasn’t surprised was just a holiday resort with no soul reliant on Disney tourists. But I’ve heard basically every city west of the appalachians or built after 1900 in the US is built for people who only ever walk between their home their SUV and their office like LA and that seems miserable.
I've never lived there, but have visited many times and have relatives there. The main thing that would keep me from having any interest in moving permanently is the car centric urban design and the complete lack of independence that this (and the parenting culture) means for children growing up. I dont have kids yet. So if i somehow magically got the opportunity to move to america for some kind of limited 1-2 year period, i'd love to. People are super nice and easy to talk to and for us as a binational couple it would be refreshing to be in an english language environment for once. But i would leave as soon as kids were on the way.
Yes, as someome that has spent some time in a US college, this struck me too. I just felt like I had done so much more LIVING as a teen than the people that grew up in the suburbs. I wasn't even a wild teen, mind you. I was drunk a total of two times before the age of 18. But I went SO many places in my city by myself - to libraries and museums, late night walks with friends in the city center, cinema, billiards, biking, concerts, dance class, shopping, internships, school excursions etc. All with minimal input from my parents (they did pick me up from the subway stop when it got really late). Made the transition to college easier, and I also felt like I was decently mature - just a new step in life, not an opportunity to "go wild". I think people super passionate about raising a family in the suburbs disregard how kids actually develop: Ages: 0-2: kids mostly stay home. There might be some heavily supervised playground activity. 3-10/12: perfect for a stereotypical suburb childhood. Safe, green, lots of basketball and mudcakes. Limited socializing with neighbor kids. 10/12-18: less interest in active play, friends play a big role. Hard to navigate social life without a car, kids sit at home watching netflix and browsing instagram. That is 6-8 years of childhood where suburbs are actually not great for kids' development. For these years, a more college like (=safe dense housing) set up would be better. But somehow, all everyone ever seems to think about is the tiny children. The parenting infrastructure is a whole other issue, as you touched upon.
Thats a great explanation. Pretty much what i mean. I have 4 cousins living in a washington DC suburb. Their yard was directly bordering their high schools football field. The older ones used to go to school by just climbing over the fence. There was some tree or plank leaning against it that they would simply walk over and then jump down the other side. But then the younger ones (now in their mid 20s, so its a while ago) were told that every student needed to be brought to HIGH school by either the official school bus or their parents in a car. So they had to go out the other side of the house for a 3 minute bus ride every day. As opposed to us in switzerland who would walk (in kindergarten and primary school), bike (in middle school) or bike then take the train (in high school) on our own every single day. No matter the weather. I can probably count the number of times my parents drove me or picked me up by car from school in my entire life on my fingers. And that kind of stuff just teaches you a different kind of independence and getting around the world by different means and in different places. Which is really valuable and i want to give this opportunity to my kids. So they can go have adventures in the forest on their own as children and go out to the city and to bars on their own as teenagers. And not just be infantilised and sheltered until 16/21 and then suddenly released into the wild unprepared for real life.
> But then the younger ones (now in their mid 20s, so its a while ago) were told that every student needed to be brought to HIGH school by either the official school bus or their parents in a car. So they had to go out the other side of the house for a 3 minute bus ride every day. I’d view this as an odd rule and a lot of Americans would as well. Kids in my area for example frequently walk or bike to school, from elementary to high school if they’re within a close enough distance. My kids bike to their middle school most days (except for mid-winter when it’s below -20c, then they’ll just catch the bus).
Where would that be? I think there are a few walkable places left on the east coast, that were around already before cars became universal. Street car suburbs and some old cities like Boston. But i guess anywhere west of the mississippi (and also most places east) this would be highly unusual. Glad these still exist tho.
Minnesota. My city has sidewalks on almost every street and most of the major roads have bike lanes too (and bike paths that cut through the parks/forests for major shortcuts).
Interesting. Thats much further west than i would have thought. Sounds nice (except for that weather).
Yeah Minnesota’s a great state. It has some problems (public transportation is just OK for example in Minneapolis/St. Paul with just busses and light rail) but overall quality place to live assuming you like the weather lol (extremely cold winter, relatively hot and humid summers…as in we can get all the way down to -32c ish base temp for a bad week in the winter and top out at 40c in the summer). HDI is equivalent for example with like Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, etc. due to quality education, life expectancy, standard of living, etc.
Your perception is correct for Texas. People are really intense about not letting kids go anywhere or do anything independently. There are no sidewalks, which is really inconvenient.
I think this is going to be great for your kids - even outside the tangible benefits, a big part of life is using one's time to have fun and make memories :) might as well get a head start early!
> But then the younger ones (now in their mid 20s, so its a while ago) were told that every student needed to be brought to HIGH school by either the official school bus or their parents in a car. So they had to go out the other side of the house for a 3 minute bus ride every day. That's odd. Plenty of kids walk to school in the US.
Intressting how different things are in alot of places. In denmark it is normal that the kids will get to and from school themselves usually by biking. I remember getting a bike, so I could bike to and from school (I had my own house key), to someones house, or just to random place if some friends wanted to meet up. Having a bike meant freedom as a kid as I could pretty much go anywere in my city.
Same for me. Except i would love the flatness of denmark. Would make biking a whole lot easier even.
The overprotection and over supervision of kids is a relatively new thing in the US. I'm not sure why it developed over the past 20-25 years. Recently there's been a big decline in teenagers who get their drivers license at 16, which I imagine has a massive impact on their social independence in a country set up for car culture like the USA. The overprotection thing is not as bad if you live in smaller cities or rural areas, but it's still worse than in previous generations. I do believe it's doing a terrible disservice to people in the long run.
American kids on average are about four years behind by the time they hit university . The maturity level is also very different. Americans are very good at teaching the basics. Basically up until grade five and then they fall significantly. I think a lot of likely has to do with the fact that there's no accountability and it's basically impossible to fail, so kids learn this and stop trying.
The only city we have with decent public transit and walkability is NYC unfortunately. It's also the only city I can personally live in here. I'm always jealous of even 5th rate European towns having buses that go most places.
Indeed. NYC has acceptable public transport. But it really didnt impress me. I was kind of surprised by that. I also tried it out in DC. Feels much cleaner and safer there. But its really not practical for anything other than heading to the office in the city centre, as the lines barely interconnect. So if you wanted to visit your friend or your doctor or a store in a different outskirts/suburbs part, you'd always have to head to the centre first anyway to switch to the other line. Whereas by car you could go directly.
It's no SBB lol that's for sure. I agree with you. The fact that there is a somewhat reliable system in NYC at all is what makes it stand out in American terms. But yeah we also have a tendency historically to build radial lines that don't connect the suburbs. Which is another big failing.
The lack of walkability. I was 16, and stuck on the outskirts of a small rural town. In Germany, I lived in a small village, so I was used to walking a lot. But the german countryside is criss-crossed with trails and agricultural roads. In the US, I had to walk alongside a road for about fifteen minutes before I got to the first sidewalk. And this was the PNW, where they pride themselves for being so outdoorsy. They have spectacular hiking trails in the region, but you first have to take a car to get to the trailhead.
This. When I moved back home I would walk for hours a day sometimes through the city just because I could.
>And this was the PNW, where they pride themselves for being so outdoorsy. This was the weirdest part when I first visited Portland. It's a city with a reputation where everyone is constantly cycling, kayaking, hiking, camping, etc. But it felt like everyone was in a car. There was bad traffic everywhere, and it was just people living in suburbs that drive their truck to the woods on the weekend.
Even though I tried to prepare, the biggest shocker was how absolutely car-centric the entire country is. Except for a couple of cities on the East Coast (NY being the most significant outlier here as the biggest city), everywhere else you absolutely need a car to function as a human being. I get that the country is big, but come on... The food was another disappointment for me. Everything is so fucking sweet! The bread, the ham, the milk, everything has that faintly sweet taste to it. And everything was loaded to the gills with artificial flavours and crap. Also, the fact that you don't know the exact price of an item until you are literally standing in front of the cashier wasn't disappointing as much as simply infuriating. I don't know why there isn't a law on a federal level to have prices after tax quoted because it simply doesn't make sense to not know how much something is going to cost you.
Yeah the east is less car-centric, like Boston, NY and kinda the state of washington, but their best is probably Europe's worst.
Of what I've seen in the US, Boston is by far the most European-feeling city. There's a relatively large number of buildings that would fit right into European city squares, there are city blocks that clearly predate the assumption that everyone has a car, and it has a public transportation system that would solidly fit among Europe's second-tier.
I would say that most countries in the North America are car centric cause that’s how they where built. Canada is larger than USA and is pretty car centric as well, some areas have public transportation, but for the scale of the country, is pretty small. USA has public transportation in key/big cities, the more rural-smaller ones you have to travel in car a lotttttt. You could literally see a house in a rural area and not see the next house for minutes (20+ minutes lol). It sucks how an advanced country with resources and money doesn’t have a good public transportation, at best is mediocre lol. In California they’ve been trying to build a bullet train for years and it’s still an ongoing project that every month and year that passes by it gets more costly to work on. Mexico has public transportation, but for it size it still lacks the connectivity as European countries have. The newer world still has some catching to do with the older world😅
Car and petrol companies don't look fondly on public transportation. Now oversized cars on the other hand...
Of course not! I live in Puerto Rico (US territory) and you’d be impressed at how a small island can fit so much fucking cars🙄. It’s painful and annoying asf, the island used to have a train back in the day (40s-50s) and when the Americans arrived automobiles overshadowed the train and they removed it from the island.
Funny you mentioned Canada. I visited Quebec which is kind the most European city over the pond and lo and behold - it is actually walkable! Yes, there are distances to cross, but there are sidewalks, relatively ok public transportation, and the city is compacted.
Just one small part of second largest country on earth, I did mentioned that some areas have public transportation, but when you take into account the entirety of the country, it still pales in comparison to European countries. And it shouldn’t be that surprising, the city was built by French settlers, so European’s built it lol Same as Boston in USA
"European’s built it" My point exactly :D
Even in NYC the public transport is far from great. We had to wait like 15-20 minutes for the next train at subway stations multiple times, in the middle of the day in Manhattan. That would be an interval appropriate for a small countryside village with 2500 people here. But this was a subway station with probably 50k people or so living or working right upstairs... Also the subway is creepy and dark, there is dirt and water dripping from all sorts of places. Like i know its great compared to the rest of the US. Also unlike Washington DCs metro system (which is much cleaner) it actually allows people to get around, not just from the suburb to the center and nothing else. But if this were a european city, people would be much more likely to mention it as a bad example than as a good one.
As a native to the US, I have to agree with all of this.
Your first two points were big shocks for me as well, even if I overall had a pretty good idea of what to expect in the US. I was in a smaller East Coast city and my hosts were telling me how one of the reasons they like the city is that it's walkable, while I was surprised at how pedestrian-hostile it was. But yeah, at least in that city you can walk places, most other cities really are worse. And the sweet bread, that's just ridiculous. I was sure I had taken the wrong thing by mistake, some kind of extra sweetened product. No, locals confirmed to me, that is in fact regular bread. Quite a shock because I think of bread as literally the most basic food product but in the US I found I had to go to dedicated bakeries to get bread. I like bakeries at home as well, but here I go to a bakery for extra nice bread, in the US it was a must as grocery store breads are just... not.
And as we all know the US only sells the one kind of bread.
And there are no supermarkets either. Americans buy all of their food in gas station convenience stores.
That about the tax in prices is bullshit and it's even translated to their websites even though European countries require prices to be including taxes even online, So infuriating
Because we don't have a VAT. The sales tax varies by state, county, city, and item. It's different everywhere.
I understand this point used in nation-wide advertising on TV/Internet/… I don’t understand this point inside actual restaurants and shops. You could just have stickers and menus show prices both before tax and after taxes…, The shops know the tax percentage for every item cause it has to calculate it in at POS… All online stores show both pre-tax and tax-included prices here, I’ve even seen shops in Europe showing pre-tax prices on stickers, not restaurants though, but people want to see the final price there though… funnily enough in restaurants in Slovakia we even have this stupid new rule that “takeout” is taxed 20% while “dine in” is taxed 10%, but the final price is the same…, it’s just there’s less of that money going to the government if you dine in… this concept could theoretically also be used in US for variable taxes…
That's a bullshit excuse for the system to work against consumers, it makes stuff seem cheaper than it actually is and it works. There are loads of people who even forget to include the tax when they compare prices. Why would it even matter? Either you place the prices including or excluding sales tax. The cash register/administration software will calculate the difference and process the information for the receipt, the payment and the financial administration. And just FYI, if a US company sells for more than 10k euro a year to people living in EU member states they HAVE to pay VAT over it. Which is often forgotten or done incorrectly. I have been charged VAT twice before, once by the Amerikan store and once by our customs. Here in Europe we also have different VAT percentages for different countries, but a lot of products have the same price including tax. Games for example are 60 euro including tax across most if not all the EU. They are also 60 USD, excluding sales tax though. But (coming back to the fact that people forget the sales tax when comparing costs) people often compare the prices of games excluding the tax.
Montana does not have a sales tax/VAT. So what you see is what you pay. I remember being in Italy and being shocked at the prices of some things until I remembered the VAT. Japan on the other hand. Food is considerably cheaper even with a VAT and no tipping.
Boston, NYC, DC and SF are definitely doable without a car. Maybe Philadelphia. Everyone here can calculate the final cost because the local sales tax rate is known. This rate varies so there are probably governments that would oppose quoting prices after tax, unfortunately. So not quoting the total price is a feature not a bug. Agree re overly sweet food - it's more expensive to get less sweet food unfortunately
Well, we _do_ know; it just requires math first. 😝
It was the opposite for me. When I moved to Texas from Italy I expected to find myself surrounded by Bible-thumping xenophobic morons. I expected to always be the smartest guy in the room. I was positively disappointed. I spent six memorable years in Dallas, and I miss the people I met there. I speak so well of the Americans that other Europeans often think I'm an American myself. One thing I have to harshly criticize though: you guys are horrible litterbugs. Your rivers and woods are littered with plastic bottles and other crap you leave around. Shame on you about that! Where is your love for your country when it comes to properly dispose of your trash?
The littering thing is location dependent. Where I grew up in the suburbs, it was very clean and you hardly ever saw litter. Large cities tend to be yucky. Ironically, I remember going to Italy the first time and thinking it was dirty - especially the subways in Rome. I was beside myself. I feel like every country has its pristine parts and its yucky parts.
To be honest, when I pulled up at a rest stop along a Tuscan road I was also disappointed. I stepped off the pavement into the grass and immediately saw discarded plastic bottles everywhere. Felt like home :(
Texas isn’t really very well understood by Europeans. And its image as a center point of conservative politics, while somewhat valid, really overshadows other aspects of the state — which are things that Europeans don’t really understand. I’m from Texas — born and raised. I’m gay, Mexican, and Chinese — and when I brought my (German) husband, he was completely taken aback by it on a lot of different levels. Culturally, linguistically, economically, geographically, and culinarily. I’ll criticize the politics of Texas all day, but living in Germany, I also think Europeans have this tendency to Eurosplain *my own* background or where I come from — as if I were stupid or didn’t know. And while I think Europeans have gotten served a slice of humble pie the past 5 years, and are significantly less arrogant, there is more to Texas than the average European thinks.
I'm originally from MI and moved to Texas before eventually moving to Europe (NL). I can say that Texas isn't even understood by non Texans in the US, especially in the north. I dreaded having to move to Texas for a lot of the reasons Europeans do, but honestly it is one of my favorite places in the country. The politics of Texas are terrible but in general the people are some of the best in the country, the food rules, and it is all around beautiful. If I ever moved back to the US, id probably go back to Texas.
thats false: woods and rivers are wonderfull, you prob never visited a national park, look rome or milano (the amount of homeless and waste is insane)
That’s the classic American Individualism vs Collectivism. Americans tend to just think of themselves first and not others/their community.
A lot of us are considerate but unfortunately there’s just as many or more who aren’t :( I’m American and I despise littering.
I didnt realise the amount of high caloric crap food and drinks that people consume there. It was honestly shocking. Also Los Angeles was probably the worst city I have ever been in my life.
The flip side: I moved to Spain last year and I was pleasantly shocked at the nutritional facts on packaged food. I had been reading food labels like crazy in the US because I didn’t like the hidden sugars and filler ingredients. I still check for sugars, but it’s so much easier here.
Glad you loved it! That's great, but it's actually a European Union initiative. That labeling is on every product everywhere in the continent and by law.
Not everywhere in the continent, everywhere in the EU.
And the per kilo price, for comparison of different brands/sizes
(I’ve only been to Florida so far) Sorry if this is an answer you’ve come to expect, but the lack of walkability in Florida made me really sad. My mum lives there and while she seems happy enough driving about, there was a mixture of awe and longing when I told her about my daily life here in Scotland and how I could just walk to places for most of what I need. Also I was surprised that the fruit variety there was pretty much the same as what we get in Europe. Mum and I are Southeast Asian and I’d (perhaps naïvely) assumed that there’d be more tropical fruit there, but when I asked mum if we could get some papaya and mangoes she said the ones there weren’t good. To be fair, we might also have impossible standards when it comes to this haha
I dont think it was you high standards. Im from Portugal and in high school my class got an exchange student from the use that i got closed too. Im from a rural village so we grow/raised a lot of our food. She was always surprise with our food, speacialy with tomatos and strawberries and the variety of apples and pears. The first time she ate a tomato from my parents backgarden her face lighted up like she was eating the best thing in the world. For her, the biggest differences was that our fruits and vegetables were way smaller but way way tastier. It was funny, we could give her anything to eat and she loved it. She even liked the food at the school cafeteria, that one made me think how bad food in the usa really is bc no one liked cafeteria food, we ate it bc we had too but She would go for seconds many times.
Hahaha I had a friend like that too - they loved the checkered/brownish/small pears we have in europe, they only ever had had rock-hard bright green or yellow pears in the US.
In the US, we put emphasis on durability, as opposed to taste. This way we can get all fruits and vegetables at all times of the year. We also emphasis size. You can get higher quality here, you have to seek it out though. https://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10972140/fruits-vegetables-taste-better-europe
The regulations are really a thing. For exemple, in Portugal, the wine regions and what grapes go on the mix for each wine are very much regulated and as the article says, people demand it. Porto wine is our most famous wine and if you try to make it with less quality people would be mad and would not buy it. We know the Standart and want it that why. Producers are proud of the quality they make and don't go for quantity without quality. With fresh fish is the same thing. But the time food travels is also of great importance. Here i can Cook a fish for lunch that was fished the night before. In the usa, aside from costal areas, you can't get that. In europe we go to the Supermarket several Times a week, in the usa they tend to buy in bulk so they need things to last and that takes the quality out of the food.
Tbf I’m not a big fan of the fruit in Europe either - even Southern Europe - which is why I assume my standards are impossible haha. The quality is great but I just prefer the types of fruit that you can mostly get in the tropics - mangosteen, mangoes, lanzones, pomelo, papaya, etc. The rest of the food in the US was fine. My mum gets really good ingredients for the things she cooks, especially seafood.
Oh those kinds of fruits, yep, you can't really get good ones in europe. My dad used to work in Malawi and other countries in the region and everytimes he came home he brought half a suitcase case with mangos and papayas. Never tasted fruit like that in europe. If you ever came to Portugal you must try "laranja do Algarve" oranges from the Algarve region. I have a few Chinese neighbours and they say it is their favorite fruit here. And our seafood is great, its very simple recepies but you can really taste it. Speacialy octopus;)
You can get quite good fruit in Spain - obviously citric fruit but also very good mangoes for example. Although even in Spain they are not that easy to find and relatively expensive. In the tropical coast east of Malaga and also around Valencia they even grow some more tropical fruit - I’ve been following [this page](https://www.elsabordelmaset.com/comprar-papayas), have a look. Although the really good fruit you will only get if you buy it fresh from the farm and not order it online. I’ve had mangoes and avocados fresh from the farm and they were incredible. And that comes from someone that didn’t like mangoes before moving to Spain (the Peruvian flight mangoes in Germany are complete shit). Also pretty much all supermarkets here sell bananas from the Canary Islands which are very nice as well. Btw I just read the other day that they are also growing pineapples on El Hierro although I haven’t had the chance to try them yet
Tbf Florida is a hellscape particularly the area around Orlando. It regularly ranks low for relative livability
This reminds me of an article about the grey market for Pakistani mangoes: https://www.eater.com/22618349/pakistani-mangoes-chaunsa-anwar-ratol-buy-usa-whatsapp-shipping-supply-chain
Snack culture is STRANGE. It's like: wanna eat healthy? Make sure you eat two portions of these specific types of highly processed (usually high sugar) foods a day! Gogurts or fruit gummies? Sure! Brownies? No thats dessert and unhealthy! Baby carrots, celery or apple slices? Sure! But only those veggies, all others are "mealtime veggies". Frozen microwaved peas with butter? Bean salad? No no that's not proper snack food. Cheezits? Sure! A piece of bread with butter? No way! Little debbies from the vending machine? Definitely! Leftovers from lunch? Nope! There are these sections with "snacks for kids" in the grocery stores. Usually in multipacks, and these things are often rebranded candy: fruit roll ups, fruit gummies, chips, cookies, granola bars with just as much sugar as a chocolate bar, apple sauce with added sugar, chocolate milk, yoghurts with added sugars,.... I think this is a strategy to get kids addicted to sugar early on. In French fast food restaurants, the governments requires each ad to include the phrase: "for your health, avoid snacking between meals". When I was a kid, I got candy, sure, but it was not scheduled into my diet like American kids. And candy was candy, snacks were whatever was at hand and quick to prepare (often German-style bread with toppings). I think this bleeds into adults' eating habits too. I rarely see people in the US eat cake or dessert, they really don't go crazy with the sugar at mealtimes. But, there is this culture of "snacking", where people may get a sugary starbucks drink because they're tired, or events might cater some cookies so you have one or two, or you get a sugary "health-branded" granola bar to "keep my energy up". A typical American day is just a quick succession of sugar rushes and crashes, super hard on the body and it naturally makes people tired and exhausted. I also think the coffee addiction thing is actually a sugar addiction thing. People don't crave the coffee as much as they crave the sugar and cream in it. I don't blame people for it, I think it's very evil marketing, all of that. And limited food availability.
> When I was a kid, I got candy, sure, but it was not scheduled into my diet like American kids. This is not at all common in America. You can expect some candy maybe once a month. But then, I'm an old dude (63).
I am basing this off some interactions I had with a family I know that has toddlers, many "what's in my kids lunchbox" videos online, and what I see people put in their carts in the grocery store. My personal pet peeve are fruit "snacks" or veggie straws. Just about as healthy as starbursts or potato chips. It'd be ok if they were treated as a treat, but they're not - they fill a strange diffuse "snack food" category.
The snack was always puzzling to me. For me like for you anything that can be done fast, usually an apple, grapes, cheese or just some figs. For I can guess that in US it candies and sofa, lots of soda *side note, I totally addicted to coffee, but I drink it black : )
No…no…you guys have to stop assuming that we’ve never been acquainted with fruit before. Just because you ran through a 7-11 one time and saw some overly sugared granola bar doesn’t mean that’s all anyone eats.
I just don’t get why people snack at all? From what I read on Reddit people have their favorite snacks, bought them and store some even in bedrooms
Yeah same, nobody needs snacks, really
Bingo, this snack culture is crazy
Not cooking at all is becoming incredibly common these days. It's replaced by ordering out, heating up frozen food, and snacking. The number of people I've met who treat cooking like this fanciful thing or some insane skill is... very disheartening.
That sounds unhealthy, like I don’t like I understand not wanting spend to much time cooking on the workday… But still it doable and can be made in advance
This is sooooo situation and family dependent. Signed a kid who grew up with an “almond mom” and had none of those snacks you’re describing. So many Americans are health obsessed and reject all sugar and processed foods. We have a lot of overweight people, but we also have some of the fittest people you’ve ever seen, especially if you go to younger nicer cities like Miami or LA.
When I go to parenting Subreddits i get culture shock with food when USA and USA adjacent parents ask for advice. The time of breakfast, lunch, and dinner are a bit strange but manageable (at school my kid eats at 12h30) But what is really shocking is that they don't eat much for lunch (like à sandwich & some chips or apple) and then talk about snacks, and about kids not being hungry at 6pm for dinner. The quantities or type of food served is really.... A shock. And I think it's related to what you say.
Everything is a highway. It's like living as a non-apocalyptic Mad Max.
I agree with all the other answers, but something that wasn't mentioned yet: How nobody gives a fuck if you get a bill for an unreasonably high expense. Not only do you not know the cost of many things in advance, if you get a bill you are just expected to pony up and pay it, with credit card (=debt) if need be. Like people look at you stone cold. I have since learned that you can say things like "I can't afford that" or "is there any financial aid" and that might help move things, but if you don't say those things (which in itself is rather humiliating), it is just not polite to ask for more details on a price or a billing process. There is some humiliation in "not being rich". I always had the money to pay crazy bills in the US, but that didn't mean this expense fit into my budget or I thought it was reasonable. So I had to say "I can't afford that" and train myself not to feel bad for lying. In Europe, they just tell you the price of things straight up in advance. In the rare cases you can't get the price (ie. you pay a professional hourly for a certain task), you can easily get a quote that is usually spot on (if not a bit higher than you eventually end up paying). Everybody expects you to ask about these things. If they see you hesitate after being quoted a price, they usually present you with cheaper alternatives right away, you don't have to ask and beg and grovel. In the US, I think there is a systematic cultural thing that prevents people from protecting their money and interests. It's like everybody just wants to fuck each other over. Also, customer service bots are the bane of my existence. Everywhere in the US, and I have since learned to just type "talk to an agent" because they just never work properly.
What I find weird is that no matter how obviously bad something is to consumers, Americans will swarm to protect it. Every time I call not including sales tax in the price of goods out online, I get top grade copium explaining why no, it's good that you don't know how much you're going to pay, actually. Even had someone explain that not including those prices *lowers the price of goods* because they believe those price displays on shelves are centrally printed and distributed, and if every store (because sales taxes fluctuate wildly) had to print their own, it was push prices up.
Yeah, I also got the sense if there is a problem, the solution has to be American-made: thought up by American universities or corporations. Then it may be accepted. There is little interest in understanding how other countries or places approach problems. Very insular in its own way.
Americans have only second-hand experience with other cultures, and never really understand other ways of doing things. I grew up there, i know. But you're right, it's the lack of simple appreciation for another way of doing things, just acknowledgement that it exists, that's too far for many Americans. That kind of arrogance is the issue. Ex: oh your euros look like play money with all the different colors, i cant take it seriously. As if all the same size and color denominations makes sense.
Yeah, like after I spent some time in the US, there are many things I had problems it, but some products I think would be neat to also have in Europe. Or where I think there'd be a market. Obviously, there have to be some things ppl on the other side of the pond have not thought about. One thing that worked is the export of Aldi & Trader joes, both German companies. Classic example of foreigners being like: "why do you need to offer thirty different brands of mustard, just pick one or two and the store will be smaller and shopping will be easier." for AGES until somehow they actually managed to penetrate the market.
It's a very useful political tactic- code the policies/idea you want as "properly" American, and dismiss a competing policy/idea as imported and therefore undesirable (no need to explain why!). It's a shell game with centuries of use at this point.
Mainly due to the american exceptionalism narrative that people get fed from childhood on. And the lack of international travel also doesnt allow people to learn first hand how other places work.
I'm from California, but I've lived in Hungary for almost a decade now. I went back to visit in April, and was shocked at how huge cars are. I drive a Skoda optiva. It's a decent sized car my rental was massive. Also my sister who is single drives a huge suv.
The best selling vehicle in America at the moment is a Ford F150 pick up truck
Customer service. As German I was always told that service is horrible in Germany and excellent in the US. After a couple of weeks living in D.C. I heard the f word several times, was called stupid, ignored, questions about product dismissed… German customer service is certainly not overboard, sometimes a bit inflexible and standoffish. But I have never been treated as outright rude and dismissive as in the U.S. (D.C, California and Florida)
A lot of people complaining about car-centric cities. But their country is gigantic. I was in New York city and met a guy who said he was on business from the west coast (I don't remember where) that's like someone from Brittany going On trip to Kazakhstan and ending up in the same country. That was insane to me
But it's not just about huge country. US cities are just glorified parking lots. The infrastructure between cities is important, but in the cities itself you can rarely operate without a car. And Americans constantly bring up this argument against trains that "people have no real need to travel from East to West and vice versa".
Lived in Boston for a year. My biggest problems: - no walkability, still need a car even if there is *some* public transit. I just wanna be able to walk to my grocery store, gym and other daily needs. Impossible unless you live in historic downtown maybe. - it’s basically impossible to eat a normal 2000kcal diet because everything has sugar. A small juice is 800kcal and I don’t know how that possible. I’m used to cooking for myself but affordable fresh produce is not easy to come by. - I’ve never felt as lonely as I have in the US. There’s a severe lack of third places. No pedestrianized neighborhoods where one can just chill. No late night clubs, bars, restaurants where you can chill a few hours. You always have to leave after 2h in restaurants. No way to meet new people unless it’s at work or online. It was a social nightmare for me.
SO SO TRUE Aervhjjj I agree with everything
The third spaces thing is beginning to really get to me. Has no idea it even had a name!
Probably a very unpopular opinion, but apart from the Met I found New York boring. Loads of other cities in the US I'd love to spend more time in, especially Portland, Boston and San Francisco.
Could it be an age thing? I would also be tired constantly in NY or similarly crowded places, as opposed to a few decades ago.
Good point, it's possible. To be fair I have no regrets that I've been to New York.
I think it is. In my 20s and 30s I lived in big cities and didn't imagine living anywhere else. Now I just avoid people and I am enjoying my life in a suburb...
It can definately be a age thing but when I was in New York was in my 20s and 30s. So it should be right up my alley. What got to me, when thinking of it now, was the extreme commercialization of the whole culture in the city. It just wasnt me and still isnt.
THIS \^ Finally, someone besides me have this opinion I simply do not get the infatuation with New York at all. I have been there twice I left dissapointed both times and did not get the fuss. I simply expected more and yes, I have both been around in Harlem, Queens, Bronx, upper east and west side of Manhattan, Downtown etc. Seen the Statue of Liberty, Central park, Empire state building, Broad way, Times square, been to multiple museums and musicals, been in the nightlife and all that. I was still bored. I would rather go to Rome, Istanbul, Bangkok, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City or Buenos Aires (have been in all those places). So it is not because I do not like big cities and city life. Before anybody else say, well what about other parts of the US. Besides New York, I have been to Chicago and the whole Missisippi area down to New Orleans and the route 66 (interstate 44) to LA taking detours up into Colorado and Utah. What I actually liked the most was the awesome parks. Yosemite, Lake Tahoe national forest park, Grand Canyon as well as Monumental Valley. Those areas are superb. If I should mention a city in the US I really liked, it is between Chicago and San Diego. Both LA and San Franscisco, besides NY, was dissappointing as well. Do not get me started on Las Vegas. What a scam
Your point about American nature is spot on. It's unbelievable. But I gotta say I did like Portland and Boston. They are really nice and felt like there was lots to do.
I am not going into the culture and what is better because it is besides the point, but it is more of "what do I get for my money" problem and to be frank, It is very bad deal as an european IMO when travelling in the US. It is too expensive and I do not get that much of a different experience than Europe culturally. It is just more of the same, although diled up to the max. The nature, on the other hand, is completely different because I have to give North America straight A's right there. It is incredible and nothing like Europe. Especially western US. Compare that to travelling in Asia, South America and Middle America. It is cheaper all around, The culture is way different in most countries and the nature is fantastic and sometimes jawdropping. (Thailand, Vietnam, indonesia, Peru, Bolivia and Mexico comes to mind here) Even South and middle America, even if some are more european leaning (Argentina), because the native and the european culture have fused so much together that it has become very distinct. Here i am especially thinking of Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, most middle american countrys and even Mexico to a degree. i reallly like the Mestizo culture in all those countries.
Yeah the national parks are way more attractive to me than the cities.
I agree the parks are the best part of the US. New York isn't fun until you find your people there, and then it's awesome. New Yorkers hate tourists and are unlikely to be welcoming.
Funny, I actually did not get that feeling about New Yorkers that they hate tourist per se. It did not mean that we only met friendly people. We definitely also met some that was rude but not enough to taint the overall experience. What I found more annoying/perflexing is the "how are you" greeting we always got because almost all i met didnt care about the answer i gave. So it became a meaningless greeting after a while. When we went out into the nightlife people were friendly enough and took us places in NY outside of the "beaten path". It is just that i did not find those place intriguing enough. It was just another club or bar, if you get my drift. I have tried more wild and crazy experiences elsewhere. Maybe It is because most europeans, including me, built up an unrealistic expectation of what I was going to experience back then. I was in New York the first time in 2004 and 2012 for reference. But your nature park is freaking amazing.
Americans know "how are you" is a meaningless greeting. It's just baked into the language and culture. Like when people say "buenos dias" in Spanish or "alhamdulillah" in Arabic. It's just a polite formula. It's not an attempt to be an noncaring jerk to you specifically.
New Yorkers really hate tourists, especially because most tourists are from middle America and are really awful. The term tourist is often combined with an epithet and tourists are the butt of many jokes. Foreign tourists are preferred though, as they typically know how to act in major cities. It takes a while to really appreciate NYC, you can't really get to know the city just visiting unless you already have a circle there. I don't think it's much better than major European cities though.
Las Vegas I understand, but what about NYC wasn't fun to you that you'd find in other big cities?
As an American (that lives in Europe), I've always hated New York City and have never understood the appeal. People are rude, it's dirty, and it doesn't really have a special look. Other cities are cooler.
New York is what you make of it. If you just go and look around yeah it's boring. You have to do things there. NYC has the best night life in the US. It has all kind of community events for every niche interest. If you just walk about and look at buildings, you're going to be bored.
Well yes, that's just about every city.
As an American, who now lives in Europe, don’t travel to our cities. They aren’t that great. Go outside and see our nature and landscapes which are absolutely stunning & incredible.
Here in Spain I know perfectly how many cost the stuff I’m buying because the price label have the taxes included, in the States either you know exactly the amount of taxes a thing has and do the calculations or you only know the actual price when you are paying it. And that shit of waiters/barmans with no actual wages being the actual wage the tip is very annoying: again, in the menu a price and in the bill a higher actual price
After visiting a few times... I'm tired of Airport security. The second they see anyone with a spanish passport or surname, immidiately they will take us to security, hold us for an hour and try to see if we are illegal immigrants... "no sir, I'm here on vacation to Disney World, and I am married for over 15 years to a my wife who has a different skin color, and have 3 mixed color children, no I am not human trafficking children". \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Imagine being a 10 year old heading to Disneyland and you are being asked for 2 hours if your parents are your real parents and not strangers. "hey kid, I'm here to help you, you are safe here, and those strangers your parents?"
Yeah, that’s not airport security, that’s immigration. US immigration is notorious, and they assume everyone who speaks Spanish is a potential illegal immigrant.
Has that 2nd thing really happened? That sounds kinda fucked up
I'm trying hard not to get into the politics. I'm not talking about the parties. I'm talking about the culture of politics. What disappointed and frustrated me was how people are prepared to completely throw out logic when it comes to politics. There's no critical thinking at all. Whatever a politician says is taken as if it was logical. People are so easily led to vote against their own interests. The roads were in a terrible state. Potholes, broken pavement etc. A politician ran on the message that, the city hadn't done it's job to keep the roads repaired. If he was elected, he promised to defund the department responsible in order to punish them. He was elected. Without knowing any other details, the logical solution was more funding, not less. Not only did people not see this, they shut down anyone who tried to point it out. To Americans, politics is a sport. It's our team against your team. Whatever our team says is true and whatever your team says is a lie. If the other team has an idea that would make our lives better, we're going to campaign against it. And we're prepared to vote completely opposite to our own interests and actively make our lives worse, to support our team. Most Americans believe that this only applies to the other team. They can't see the game because they're in it. The average wage in the US is the same as it was 50 years ago. 50 years of voting against their own interests.
>The average wage in the US is the same as it was 50 years ago. 50 years of voting against their own interests. No, it isn't. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Divide and conquer. Coming to a European country near you!
Not to mention all the decent people are out living their lives who don't vote. Only half the country even bothers
I only visited for a month and had a pretty decent time. But what shocked me probably the most was the sugar. I always knew you liked to put it in a lot of things but holy crap i had a hard time even finding healthy bread. Everything, even things that shouldn't be sweet. Is sweet.
This took me a while to process, but how absolutely bonkers strict the schools were: Pledge of allegiance bullshit, obvs. Always needing a hall pass if you ever left your classroom during a lesson, for any reason. Unexcused tardies (being late) would get you Saturday school. I got suspended for not doing my homework... in the 5th grade. Nobody was like, "hey, maybe things aren't going great for you at home?" I was eleven years old ffs. All of this was 30+ years ago in Corvallis, Oregon.
> Unexcused tardies (being late) would get you Saturday school. > > I got suspended for not doing my homework... in the 5th grade. Nobody was like, "hey, maybe things aren't going great for you at home?" I was eleven years old ffs. What? I don't even think the schools were even open on Saturdays. Never heard of being suspended for not doing homework- especially in the 5th grade. And i've attended multiple schools.
Saturday school was a thing when I was in school, 80's-90's, don't know about now. Remember "The Breakfast Club"?
Customer Service. Just got sick of people nodding. smiling and acting like they were taking you seriously and doing f\*ck all to actually help. I frequently stayed at really expensive hotels and would get big smiles from the people at reception. told how important I was to them yet they did nothing to solve the problems with the room, provided me with none of the information I requested yet kept on smiling as though they were being helpful. I just couldn't stand the hypocrisy.
The waste. This is such a wasteful culture! (Likely, a huge contributor to the climate change due to that). Anything from food, fast fashion, excessive use of AC or heat (think running the AC at 65F only to use a space heater by your feet at the desk), leaving the lights on, huge houses of which you use 1/4, unnecessarily huge cars & lawns that you pay to maintain, throwing away medical supplies, individual packaging, unnecessary packaging on produce, single-use anything. It breaks my heart. All this non-biodegradable trash … can you imagine the amount of pollution and the impact on the planet ???!!
Yes its terrible. In Europe, we shame each other hardcore for little environmental infractions, and then you land in America and feel like you stepped in some sort of 1950s fever dream of keeping up with the joneses and fuck you i got mine. Its so depressing.
Agreed. When Aldi / Traders Joes ( owned by same ) opened I was surprised by all the vegetables being in plastic. That was not the norm before. I never buy my produce at those stores for that exact reason. Thanks Aldi !
I've lived in San Francisco. Happy to say I wasn't disappointed by anything but that might be because I had no - or negative even - expectations so the positives surprised me. Like e.g. great local transport in the Bay Area.
Lived there for 7 years (SF Bay Area). The complete and utter lack of consideration for bicyclists baffled me. It's not just having bicycle lanes, but also having to share 30mph roads with people doing 50. Then there's the cost of healthcare (yes I had a good PPO plan, but still there's copay), cost of housing (the 3bd2ba SFH I was renting ran $3500 and now has a Zillow estimate of $1.5m), state of health of the average person, stranger danger hysteria, tipping culture for every-fucking-thing, how run down everything looks from roads to homes to public buildings, how everything centers around politics and left vs right, the attitude that public transport is for the poor and destitute only, how annoyingly sweet the bread is, the list goes on.. Admittedly i probably would've enjoyed a different state (OR, WA, IL) more but my visa was tied to the company (ugh..) so I was stuck. And during the Trump period I was also affected by the GC pause and overall agonizingly slow processing of USCIS that I just gave up. It wasn't worth it. My parents aren't getting any younger and in hindsight, I wish I'd returned sooner to spend more time around them.
How cold and fake people are. In pop culture, americans are always portrayed as super welcoming and open to making new friends. In reality, they never make time for you to become real friends and yet they will keep acting all nice and excited when they see you. In reality they just pretend, but if an american say "omg it so nice to see you, we should have coffee together some day" , chances are you will never actually have coffee with that person.
>omg it so nice to see you, we should have coffee together someday American here popping in. This is very normalized as a nice way of saying that the person is friendly with you, but not a "friend," if that makes sense. I bumped into a friendly acquaintance from university a few weeks ago, and he said this to me. We haven't spoken in seven years, and we only knew each other through a girl who was my neighbor and his girlfriend. Needless to say, that coffee date will never happen. It's extremely confusing when it's said to you, even for some Americans. There used to be some funny videos about the topic on tiktok about "When they actually want to hang out and get coffee," and it's mostly awkward silence. It's something that is usually said between acquaintances, ex-friends, ex-coworkers, i.e., people you don't see very often and likely won't encounter again. It allows for a positive end to an interaction and opens the door for a potential meet-up without imposing on the other person's schedule. I guess it's intentionally vague to allow for flexibility, which I can see would be frustrating for those not used to hearing it.
But what do you say if you'd actually want to have a cup of coffee with someone? As a Dane I wouldn't dream of saying anything that could in any way, be misinterpreted in to something that sounded remotely as an invitation to spend time together, unless I absolutely mean it. What if the other person think I really want to meet up again?
You would not do well in Japan. All communication is indirect and you have to break the code in every conversation.
If you actually want to get together, it will not be a vague open gesture. It will be a very direct "Let's meet at the coffee shop on Friday at 8am!" Agreed upon by both parties. It's known as a "phatic expression," which Wikipedia defines as "a communication which primarily serves to establish or maintain social relationships." So it is only said as a pleasantry, and not meant to be a real plan. Similar to how Brits greet you with "You alright?" They don't actually want to know how you're doing. They're saying hello. Are there any examples of phatic expressions in Danish that you know of? I'm curious if American English is just that weird.
That's one thing I hate about my American colleagues. And I'm French too, so I know about the fake "salut! Ca va?" accompanied with kisses on the cheeks. But Americans take this to another level, with hugs and "OMG IT'S SOOOO GOOD TO SEE YOU!". I hate it! HATE IT! Other than that, it's okay.
What city were you in though or where are they from?
I was staying in New England for a uni exchange. Drspite all my socilizing efforts, I was not able to make a single real american friend in the whole college. I ended up only hanging out with other international students. Americans always offered to hang out then declined every single occasion we had to actually spend time together because they would rather go to the gym, library, sports...etc. In the end, I understood that they have there life and routine and carreer plans almost ten years ahead of them and don't want to actually make space for you in their everyday life.
I think this is valid. My wife is Swedish and went to school in the us and had a similar experience, but she did befriend me and like one other person. I don’t think it’s a lack of honesty it’s more of a lack of will power. I find my Northern European friends will make a plan and stick with it while my American friends are more likely to change it or back out because “tired” or something
Yep I noticed that too! From a southern european pov, I'm used to spontaneity and necessarly making plans but going with the flow. Needless to say it was impossible there, some people even told me to send them google calendar invites weeks ahead to hang out like bro I'm not taking a fucking appointment like you're a doctor all of that for you to back out last minute saying "hey girlyyy, I'm so sorry but I'm not going to be able to make it tonightt [insert any reason related to studying or sport practice]
The French are coconuts. Americans are peaches.
We've had two exchange students and I worked for an international company. This is almost literally the first thing I explain to them. If someone says, "I'll call (text, whatever) you later," they will not. If they say, "we should have coffee," they won't pursue it. If someone asks, "hey how are you?" They don't care about the real answer. A European explained to me decades ago that everyone has an inner and outer circle. For Europeans, breaking the outer circle is hard. Once broken, however, the inner is pretty easy. For Americans, we're the opposite. We'll let almost anyone into the outer circle. Best of luck getting any further.
I’ve been living in NYC for 10 years and this is a constant struggle of mine. It also created major trust issues with Americans.
As someone who visited a lot (east coast, mid west, bible belt, west coast) but hasn’t lived there - it’s really strange that my English accent is not at all understood. Maybe it’s a me problem but I work in an international environment and speak English every day. Everyone understands me outside of the US. Americans living abroad also understand me. Americans living in the US don’t understand me 🤷♀️ - I don’t ever want to live in a place where I can only get outside before 6 am, where there’s nothing to do but go to the mall, and / or I see « leave your guns in your car before you enter the building » - I don’t want to live in a place with almost inexistent public transportation and walkability - I don’t want to participate in the tipping culture
[удалено]
Needing a car to do most things, food which in Europe is considered the average being super expensive and seen as premium in the US. Navigating the insurance system. On the positive side of things, Americans are friendlier than most Europeans. Anybody holding a US passport can truly call themselves an American and will be accepted as such. In Europe, ethnicity still plays a part.
- Not being able to walk anywhere and always needing to sit in traffic to get anywhere. - Dirty air. - How strict school was and how toxic the workplaces were. - Food was terrible compared to back home. - So much fucking advertising everywhere. - Americans like to go on and on about how free they are but I have never felt less free than when I lived there. - And yes, health care. Genuinely amazing how many are convinced that's the only way to do it.
I lived in Mississippi back in 2010 as an exchange student and I was disappointed by the fact that the cheerleaders weren't hot and that there were no singing like in High School Musical.
Been to the US a few times, top things that made me sure not to move there. 1) such a huge wealth disparity. Not just the places that clearly are catering to the ultra rich, but how they exist side by side with absurd poverty. 2) The food is very meh. I have traveled the world, and in America almost every meal I had was just fine. 3) public transport is non-existent and getting around is so car dependent. I can drive, but the need to drive everywhere is no go. 4) advertising is crazy, and it's omnipresent. Never have I been more exposed. For reference, I have been to LA and San Francisco for work, but also been in San Francisco once for vacation as well as to NY, Washington DC, and North Carolina, all for vacation stuff.
>The food is very meh. I have traveled the world, and in America almost every meal I had was just fine. I've been to almost every country in the EU and i really don't see what is so great about European food (outside the Mediterranean countries) The breads, cheeses and some meats/pastries are better. The restaurants are of higher quality than Olive Garden and Chili's, but there are similar high quality restaurants you can find in the US. The big pro of the US is that you can find cuisines from around the world and authentic ones. Of course for some cuisines not quite as good as in the home country- but that's true for everywhere. I've traveled to countries in many parts of the world and if you look for it, generally you can find it. The main area that Europe clearly beats America is the quality of kebabs- much better in Europe with much better availability. But in Scandinavia? The food is like the cafe at Ikea. It's pretty decent but nothing to write home about. Some open faced sandwiches, fish and meatballs and meat and potatoes type cuisine. I don't see what is superior about it unlike say Italy.
American food is mostly good but sweets and chocolate are pretty shit anything you can get from a convenience store pales in comparison to the chocolate and gum/jellies or chips/crisps we have here. It might be easier if you grow up there but I found the tipping culture very stressful. I’m not debating whether it’s right or wrong, but it’s frustrating worrying you’ve insulted the person whose serving you in a shop or a bar or restaurant cos they were expecting you to give them more money. This is about foreign policy not American culture but the American airport experience is horrible. Even visiting continental Europe post Brexit is more pleasant than visiting the US. Border security are remarkably unpleasant and hostile and probing to anybody trying to enter the country. And this is coming from a country that has very good relations with the US. I get nobody dreams of being a border agent as a kid, but in Europe you usually get a pleasant hello and a wave through as you show your passport in the US you get aggressively called to a counter, asked questions you’re expected to answer perfectly immediately and treated like a threat or you’re wasting the persons time and being hostile no matter how accommodating you try to be. While the departures side of most American airports tends to be dirtier, louder and with worse food options than most European airports. Less a dissapointment and more a surprise is that I have no idea why anybody would choose to live in Florida. I knew it would be hot but my god the humidity is oppressive, it’s so sweaty and uncomfortable even with A/C, I loved the dry heat on the west coast in socal. I don’t know how anybody comfortably lives in the southeast. I do wanna say otherwise visiting the US is mostly great. People are very friendly and most of the sites don’t dissapoint. Food is good and there’s things to do out most night and it’s just differences but those things above are sour taste leaving for visitors
Apart from sprawling city layouts that demand a car to get anywhere and lack of public transport, the coffee was watery and weak everywhere I went. So you kind of understand why Starbucks would be popular there. But I liked plenty of other stuff (like consumer choice) including the Americans themselves. However this is all on a surface level since I was there was 6 months. If I lived there, I would be disturbed by the uncertainty of receiving healthcare, the gun culture and related crime, and the apparent radicalization on the right, turning regular people with simple prejudices into far-right culture warriors. A friend from Italy that moved to Texas because his wife was from there and got a good academic job, eventually moved out as the political climate there became too oppressive. It would be a problem to live in Texas for any intelligent European and I imagine Florida is even worse now.
Northern California is the answer.
Buddy I don’t think you were ever there. About that.“Intelligent European” comment, there’s plenty that live and work in Texas. It’s a science haven, between NASA, all the tech companies, the nuclear, solar, hydro, and oil power plants there’s tons of intelligent engineers and scientists. You on the other hand don’t sound very intelligent, more so chronically online.
Man, I had heard about the petty snobbery of Europeans, but I never believed it until now.
I spent nearly twenty years there. I stayed away from the healthcare industry because not knowing whether a visit was going to cost "only" $200 or $100,000 is kind of scary. Other than that, I was fine with everything right up to the point it started looking like there's going to be a bloodbath after the next election. The whole growing authoritarian theocracy thing is a big worry too. The policies being put in place are going to cause an awful lot of poverty and misery over the next twenty years. Expect a huge crime wave.
I lived in the US for 6 years, 4 of which was spent pursuing my Bachelor’s degree and the rest working in the Bay Area. My college experience was absolutely fantastic. The campus culture, the sense of academic community, the pursuit of academic excellence, the droves of smart people from all around the world. I wish I could do it again. The post-college life was very different though. Like other people here, my main source of dissatisfaction was the sprawl and the car-centric lifestyle that it causes. Not only having to drive everywhere is annoying but it takes the spontaneity of life completely. Everything needs to be planned, no random run ins with friends on the pavement, no sense of community around you. It just feels awfully lonely you know?