# 16 People On Things They Couldn’t Believe About America Until They Moved Here **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 15, 2013, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954 "2013-11-15T01:24:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/41 "2013-11-15T16:16:06Z")
Montana is the US’s sss (that never comes out right) 5th largest state. It’s the size of Germany. A thousand mile road trip is no big deal. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/42 "2013-11-15T16:28:52Z")
Interesting link - [mapfight](http://mapfight.appspot.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/43 "2013-11-15T16:46:01Z")
I’m from the UK, which is probably one of the more similar countries on Earth to the USA. So things like vast well-stocked supermarkets were no culture shock when I have been in the USA (heck, we even have Walmarts over here now). The two things that surprised me even though I was expecting them to some extent, though, were (1) the portion size and cheapness of the food, and (2) how absolutely impossible it is to get anywhere on foot. Many places simply have no pedestrian footpaths at all. You can’t get from one place to another just across the road because there’s a big divided highway in the way. You have to get in your car and maybe drive a mile up to an intersection and a mile back down the other side just to travel a net distance of 100 yards. Edit: yes, also the thing about what is considered “old and historic” in America. Many people here live in houses older than the United States. The flipside of this, of course, seems to be that things are considered past-it and in need of replacing much sooner in America. I drive a 12-year-old car, which I gather would mark me out as some kind of borderline destitute in America - but hey, it runs, and I don’t need to worry if I ding it or use it to cart crap around because I’m never going to sell it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![FlyingRat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/59ef9b/32.png) [@FlyingRat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRat)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/44 "2013-11-15T16:49:58Z")
The bit in #6 about turkeys being a “chicken-y explosion of wonder” made me laugh. 😃 When we lived in Thailand, our SCA friends (most of whom were young, college-age guys) definitely felt this way: turkeys are less easy to get there (unless you live in a big international area like downtown Bangkok) and are far more expensive. We did a couple of turkey dinners and they were a huge hit, to the point that one poor guy ate way too much and had to go to the hospital with severe stomach cramps. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/45 "2013-11-15T16:58:50Z")
> [@Pixel\_Dent](#): > > I believe that except what’s up with sweet butter? I just checked the ingredients on the butter in my fridge and it said “cream, salt.” Where would the sweetness come from? God know. This was in restaurants where they serve the butter in a little dish. It was often soft/whipped, so they must have mixed it with something. It tasted very odd. Another thing I didn’t believe until I got there: we went to a high school play (as guests of a friend’s Aunt in Chicago). I finally realised that all those high school films are totally true to life - you really do have corridors full of lockers, petrol pumps in the car park, boys wearing baseball jackets with the school name on the back and football pitches with terraced seating and flood lighting. It ticked every high school cliche I’d ever clocked in The Breakfast Club or Grease. Felt like being in a film, I loved it. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/46 "2013-11-15T16:58:55Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I drive a 12-year-old car, which I gather would mark me out as some kind of borderline destitute in America - but hey, it runs, and I don’t need to worry if I ding it or use it to cart crap around because I’m never going to sell it. 🙂 In areas of the US that receive snow in the winter, the use of salt on roadways tends to rot car bodies. I had a 1988 Acura Legend that lived its entire life in the upper midwest, where we see lots of snow and plenty of road salt. In 2003, I decided to sell it because the rear bumper had fallen off due to a complete rusting away of the attachment points; the rest of the paintwork was in bad shape too, with a lot of holes and blisters in the sheet metal… The salt also rots everything else on the underside of the car: exhaust systems, bolt heads, suspension components, and so on. Eventually the car can become a major pain in the ass to work on and maintain I have no doubt that in places like Arizona and southern California, cars of similar age probably still look and run great. ---
**Author:** ![Alpha\_Twit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alpha_twit/32/265_2.png) [@Alpha\_Twit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alpha_Twit)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/47 "2013-11-15T17:18:10Z")
#14 on the list commented how good we’re doing preserving our nature. True we have our national parks system and some mostly effective litter and pollution controls in place but I would have put us middle of the pack at best among the more developed countries. You don’t have to go very far to find examples of what wrong with our environmental efforts. Maybe I need more international travel to see how good we’re actually doing. ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/48 "2013-11-15T17:23:46Z")
One thing I got out of most of those responses was that they apparently never went beyond whatever city they were in and visited the sticks. ---
**Author:** ![Pixel\_Dent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@Pixel\_Dent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixel_Dent)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/49 "2013-11-15T17:40:35Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > God know. This was in restaurants where they serve the butter in a little dish. It was often soft/whipped, so they must have mixed it with something. It tasted very odd. Ah, that makes more sense. I know what you mean now. Yeah lots of restaurants serve various butter based spreads with things like hazelnuts, pumpkin, and what not. Those definitely can be sweet. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/50 "2013-11-15T18:07:22Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > Interesting link - [mapfight](http://mapfight.appspot.com/) I work with a lot of Scandinavians, and the shift in scale throws many of them when they first come here. I have a quick comparison I use to try to help them establish a new perspective: this city (the metro area, actually) is more than half the size of Denmark, and has a higher population. > [@SanVito](#): > > I finally realised that all those high school films are totally true to life - you really do have corridors full of lockers, petrol pumps in the car park, boys wearing baseball jackets with the school name on the back and football pitches with terraced seating and flood lighting. I’ve never seen gas pumps at the school itself, but it wouldn’t surprise me. The other stuff is all common enough. Even tiny little schools that can barely field a football team at all generally have bleachers at the football field. The area under them tends to be less private than the movies would have you believe, though (not to mention messier). ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/51 "2013-11-15T18:08:51Z")
> [@Alpha\_Twit](#): > > #14 on the list commented how good we’re doing preserving our nature. True we have our national parks system and some mostly effective litter and pollution controls in place but I would have put us middle of the pack at best among the more developed countries. You don’t have to go very far to find examples of what wrong with our environmental efforts. I’m guessing that person wasn’t talking about overall environmental efforts like rercycling et al. Rather I suspect his reaction was a side effect of the United States being huge. Relative to a built-up and more densely populated Europe, our National and State Park system or even just the managed wildlands of the BLM are immense. 27% of the U.S. falls under some category of protected area - 1,000,000+ sq. miles or ~five Frances ;). ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/52 "2013-11-15T18:44:53Z")
Flip-flopping the OP, what about Europe. No, or at best rare, free toilets. We were there for 28 days and probably spent $60 on peeing. It was .5 euros a leak, if not more. One place in Hungry wanted a euro, about $1.35. This was a good surprise, the number of really attractive young ladies. I thought Italy was a girl watchers paradise. How long it took to get anywhere on the highways. Part of our time was spent on a tour by bus (Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Krakow, Warsaw). It was kind of fun watching the scenery but it seemed to take forever. Another great thing that I sort of already knew but wasn’t ready for the reality of. They got old stuff that’s incredible. In the US a 150 year old church is a tourist destination. In Europe it’s still called the, “new church,” by the locals. You have to pay for water with your meal and no refills on coffee. When you order lasagne, for instance, you get lasagne. No bread, no garnish, no veggies, no nuttin’ else. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/53 "2013-11-15T19:04:29Z")
> [@Pixel\_Dent](#): > > I believe that except what’s up with sweet butter? I just checked the ingredients on the butter in my fridge and it said “cream, salt.” Where would the sweetness come from? IIRC, “sweet cream butter” is made from cream that hasn’t been cultured (i.e., soured), and thus is sweeter in taste than butter made with cultured cream. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/54 "2013-11-15T19:21:11Z")
Regarding poor public transit, a lot of the US has a lot of suburbs and sprawl. This tends to spread everything out which make public transit less efficient. In some places public transit is seen as something used by poors to get from their welfare office to their drug dealer and neighborhoods can get rather NIMBY about it. Right now they are trying to get high speed rail in California, but a lot of weathy locals are going apeshit about it. Nobody in Palo Alto wants to live next to more train tracks and people fret their tax dollars are going to fund some state boondoggle. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/55 "2013-11-15T19:22:54Z")
Double post ---
**Author:** ![SmellMyWort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/56 "2013-11-15T19:35:28Z")
Very interesting. While some did, I wish all of them would have said where the person was from and where they were in the US. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/57 "2013-11-15T19:56:40Z")
“Americans think 200 years is a long time. Europeans think 200 miles is a long distance.” ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/58 "2013-11-15T21:07:02Z")
> [@Nawth\_Chucka](#): > > Here you make w/ the funny-haha, but seriously [they have been fed candy](http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/10/news/economy/farmers-cows-candy-feed/). Scary - makes me wish that instead of some of the farm ‘land banking’ in the lands right around the Mississippi River they would just hook the smaller farms together and run cows on grazing land again. Do the round up and branding of the calves, and then the fall round up and separating out the ones to go off to market. I know that if we had more grass fed beef available instead of grain fed I would prefer to buy it. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/59 "2013-11-15T21:55:47Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > I’m guessing that person wasn’t talking about overall environmental efforts like rercycling et al. Rather I suspect his reaction was a side effect of the United States being huge. Whenever I would show Czechs photos of the north shore of Wisconsin, they’d say “Oh, that’s a national park, right?” They couldn’t believe such wilderness could exist otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954/60 "2013-11-15T22:00:59Z")
> [@Floater](#): > > My experience (from the general San Francisco area) is “Yes, you can”. I was amazed at how much people were drinking and still drove home. Of course, you _can_ drive drunk in America (or anywhere else, for that matter). It isn’t physically impossible. You’d just better pray you don’t get caught and/or kill yourself and/or someone else. It’s strictly illegal and the laws are enforced as efficiently as possible. The situation is completely different in Russia, where drunk driving may be illegal but nobody gives a good goddamn. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/16-people-on-things-they-couldn-t-believe-about-america-until-they-moved-here/673954.md?page=4)