Green chile. Those that haven’t had it, you don’t know what you’re missing. Pretty much everybody I’ve ever known that came to visit or live for an extended period of time went away addicted to the stuff. Pure bliss. I think I’ll buy 50 pounds this weekend and freeze it, as I’m going back to my college town, which is about an hour from the famous Hatch.
When I had my year in Germany, I missed -
The San Diego climate.
A cohesive university campus (I lived on campus at UCSD) instead of the traditional Continental uni in which the buildings and departments are spread throughout the town.
The beach.
Shops being open beyond working hours, though for a student that’s not so much of an issue.
American diner-style breakfasts, for example, egss, bacon, and cereal or toast.
Art galleries. My town in Germany was fairly small; my uni town back home of San Diego and my home town of Los Angeles had much more going on there.
Any California expat in Europe misses Mexican food.
God I don’t mean to sound like a whiner, but you asked.
To be fair, I was very happy during that year. ONe of the big reasons for that was the emphasis in my subject area seemed to be more aligned with my interests, than my department back home. It was also very gratifying to experience immersion in the German language. It is so much easier to learn the tricky bits, like what preposition goes with what indirect object, when you see them on signs every day. And, although there was a large group of us frim the Universithy of California, we made a lot of friends among the German students and had a lot of fun.
I loved German food, as well as numerous aspects of life in Europe that result automatically from the geography.
One last minor thing. I loved the coinage. They still used deutsche marks, and the coins went from .01DM all the way up to 5DM comprising a range of seven or so coins that were all actually used, and you could receive in change at any time. The nice thing about it, though, was that even when you got pfennigs back in change, there would be so many things you could buy with just a couple of coins that you didn’t have to reach for your bills virtually every time you bought something. So it was easy to get rid of pfennigs along with other coins you were spending. It seemed terribly exotic to be able to buy a sit-down meal in an Italian restaurant, and when it was over, hand the waiter two 5DM pieces, and receive two or three marks back. The waiter would walk among the tables with an old fashioned large zippered coin purse, putting coins in and giving out smaller amounts as change. By that time, 1978, we were already forced to use notes for almost everything in America; the awkwardness of paying for anything of consequence in coin had already been a joke in a Woody Allen move.
I miss being able to get a monster burrito the size of my head.
Even more than U.S. supermarkets, I’d miss U.S. drug stores. I can’t stand the little “boutique” drug stores in Europe, where you have to ask the pharmacist for things like aspirin.
And drinking fountains. Why are they so rare everywhere else?
You can still smoke 'em if you got 'em in certain cantons in Switzerland. It was very strange.
You should visit New York, stat. 
I’ve lived abroad twice as a student, once in Britain and once in France. I love Europe, but both times I missed the NFL, blueberry muffins, brownies, Cheerios, and autumn leaves.
Sidewalks.
I have been an expat in Tbilisi, Dubai, Prague, Wellington and a few other short-term locations.
In Tbilisi I missed electricity and heat as we had little of either one in winter of 02-03.
Dubai has been the easiest and nicest place but the driving is downright scary.
In Prague and Wellington, I miss the sun.
Overall it is the little things: certain foods like limes, pretzels, hot sauce, a general lack of efficiency esp in Prague and Tbilisi. Finally, prices… everything in America is incredibly cheap.
It 12:01am was January 1, 1998. I went to my favorite pub that night, where many people often smoked cigars, because there was a cigar shop a few doors down the street. I carefully timed my last pub cigar and lit up at 11:30pm.
I missed it for a long time, but now I’m glad as well not to smell like smoke whenever I go out to a public place.
(BTW smoking is mostly illegal outdoors as well now)
When I lived in Hungary for a number of years, the common thread among American expats, for some reason, was missing Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and American-bought Marlboro cigarettes. The odd thing is, I don’t think since I’ve been back in the US I’ve ever even eaten Kraft Mac & Cheese, but all us expats developed a yearning for it over there. Every time one of us would hop over to the States, we’d bring back mac & cheese and American Marlboros.
I also had a strong craving for American microbrews, especially the hoppier varieties which are pretty much unheard of in that part of Europe. For some reason, I would even crave Sam Adams Honey Porter and Boston Lager–they’ve always held a sentimental place in my heart.
Good American-style thin crust pizza, either Chicago-style cracker crust, or East Coast style Italian-American hybrids. There were a lot of real shitty pizza places out in Hungary. And, as mentioned above, barbecue and a proper hamburger.
Surprisingly, I could find decent Mexican food–at least ingredients–in Budapest shops. This spring when I was there, I was not only able to find masa harina (for making tortillas and the like), but a couple of specialty stores actually stocked huilacoche (corn smut/fungus!)
The thing we expats craved the most was English-language books, which became communal property in our circle, and English-language programming, especially stuff like the Daily Show (which, now, thankfully is available via Hulu on the internet.) Oh, and good rock music. Other than that, I didn’t really miss that much. In fact, there’s quite a lot I miss about life there now that I’m here…
I was rolling my eyes at the statement that “As to bagels, all bagels are bad once you are 80 miles outside of NYC and most are bad outside a 5 mile limit tops.”, and I’ve lived there. But then you pull this Lender’s stuff? Bleargh! I haven’t had one in years, but they are TERRIBLE! Every full-service grocery store here makes a passable fresh bagel - No one needs to go the Lender’s route…
Joe
I think it’s interesting that the majority of what’s missed is food - particularly mexican. I’m surprised that more day-to-day living experiences (like those listed in Spectre of Pithecanthropus’s and Renee’s) posts aren’t missed.
Erm, but you get all those things in Britain, aside from the NFL (although there’d certainly be a few bars in London that would accomodate your NFL withdrawals)
That one’s available in Glasgow, dunnow about Dublin (it’s not in Spain).
The one thing I absolutely miss about the US is barbeque. I have to get it from Hard Rock Cafe…
There’s UHT in most of Europe, although in many countries it’s kind of hidden with the “special needs milks” - they tuck it away with the soya milk. In Southern Europe it’s the normal kind, lasting more than normal American milk.
I missed American washing machines and dryers, I don’t know if it was a combination of different water and different soap, or the machines themselves (I had brand new machines in my apartment in Italy) but my clothes always felt just a tiny bit … not clean to me. Not they seemed dirty, more like “different than exactly clean.” It made me feel especially stereotypically American in a not-very-good way, like “I need a washing machine that wastes eleventy million gallons of water, and detergent with environmentally toxic additives, and fire that baby up with more electricity than nature ever intended one person to use at her own whim, and THEN, gosh by golly, my clothes will be clean! God bless America!”
Also sirens … the police sirens and other sirens you sometimes hear on the street don’t sound the same, and this was one of those weird things where I think I was psychologically projecting stress or whatever on the sirens, because I wouldn’t feel homesick or anything, and then I would hear a police siren in the distance and it would drive me absolutely out of my mind that it didn’t sound “right” to me.
Or … another thought is that sirens in general are annoying, but as an American I had become adept at ignoring the American siren sound, so the non-American siren was especially intrusive.
And I wasn’t as good as Spectre of Pithecanthropus about the money … I never got great at making change come out even, and I would always end up slogging about a million coins that weighed a ton. It would probably be better now with the euro.
If by over there you mean here then that’s not true. You can buy all sorts of dressings, sauces, gloops etc. Maybe not the exact brands you are used to.
For people who haven’t visited Ireland, unlike much of Europe and the rest of the world:
globalised brands are commonplace,
supermarkets are well stocked,
the tap water (in Dublin at least) is drinkable.
We have lousy, expensive Mexican food.
I think I’m going invite a family of Mexicans to Ireland to help me start up a decent, reasonably priced restaurant. That’s one thing majorly lacking in Dublin city.
Friends of mine who live abroad crave the stuff they’d never or seldom get while at home. Tayto crisps, Frosties (a cola flavoured candy), Irish Cadbury’s and the like.
I cannot even get a good bagel most of the time in New Jersey, I never found a good one in San Diego when I was there or anywhere else. All bagel chains are not selling good Bagels, they are to Bagels what Pizza Hut or Dominoes is to Pizza.
My Grandmother use to live in Jewish neighborhood in the Bronx. I got spoiled by what a good Bagel should be.
You’re from Arkansas, too, aren’t you? Nice people there, honestly. I always thought, growing up, that I’d move away to a big city and never look back, but now that I’m an adult, I recognize the value of a nice place with nice people. It’s nice. I miss it.
If it helps, I felt similarly about American washing machines, until I figured out that the soap formulations, and specially the softeners, are way different.
In Europe softeners tend to come in liquid form and go in with the wash; in the USA there’s these perfumed sheets that go into the dryer.
The perfumes used in soap are different too. Some are the same (“lemon” and “pine” are popular on both sides of the Atlantic), but not all.