I could do that. Go to the post office in the middle of the night in York, S.C., population 6,000.
The place also had a grocery store and a Wal-Mart SuperCenter, both open 24 hours (the W-M serviced the entire western half of the county).
Things this Briton found strange in America:
Total lack of beans on toast.
The whole breakfast thing. Pancakes with syrup on the same plate as bacon and sausage??
Ickle, tiny rashers of said bacon.
How expensive grocery shopping is. Basic foodstuffs (bread, milk, cereal) are bloody expensive. Junk food and soda are cheap - WTF??
Jerky. As I said to my wife while spitting some out of my mouth, “Why do Americans eat dog chews?”
Roadside rehabilitation signs. I thought it was an AA drive through or something.
The fact that young kids and older people understood my accent perfectly but my wife had to translate whenever I tried talking to anyone between the ages of 9-21.
Electric outlets that don’t have on/off switches.
Little beers. (I forgot that our pints are bigger)
Oregonian drivers.
Lack of electric kettles.
Something I saw in a store - Jowl bacon. :eek:
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Miss Gretchen *
[li]The Interstate highway system - my god, it just makes so much sense: east - west routes are even numbered, north - south are odd, exits are marked with mile numbers, the uniform standards of highway dimensions. Man, you guy sure can put a highway system together![/li][/QUOTE]
re the part I bolded - they’re not marked with mile numbers everywhere. In New York State, for instance, exits are numbered sequentially. Getting from exit 11 to exit 12 on the NYS Thruway is either 11 miles or 20-some. But most states have figured out that numbering by the mile markers makes more sense.
I’m an American who’s spent a couple years in Europe. The biggest difference that I’ve noted deals with the city center. In Europe, all the malls, restaraunts, and movie theatres are downtown, usually located in a section of the city that’s off-limits to cars. In the US, it’s just accepted that city centers are either the business district or else the ghetto. The suburbs are just so far away from the cities in America.
Most grocery stores offer generic brands at very low prices (bread at Walmart is fifty cents per loaf). The companies that make brand name products have to spend a ton on advertising and then raise prices to pay for it. It’s especially true for cereals. Half of the commercials during kids’ cartoon shows are for cereal.
Kal:
What on earth is that?! On second thought, I don’t want to know…
I dip my bacon & sausage in the syrup! Got a problem with that?!
Why do they need a switch?
Your pints are warmer too!
Put kettle on stove. Turn on same.
Four words- Steak and kidney pie (oh the humanity) 
I wouldn’t want it any other way.
As a Brit last in the states about 8 years ago I will say :
The lager (not beer, remember we drink the warm stuff, usually chilled to a point these days but with a little texture). And I thought the British Budweiser was insipid, yeesh!
Steak for breakfast - odd but nevertheless a bloody good idea, same goes for bacon, pancakes and maple syrup.
And the most annoying thing, the number of goddamn ad-breaks and the length of them on your guys TV, ow. Yes u make good progs at times but it takes twice as long as needed to watch them.
Biggest plus, as said above, anything, anytime for very little, oh yeah and your gas prices, shit we pay too much in this country. Can’t even work out the litre, uk gallon, us gallon conversion thing but trust me u get it for like nothing at all!
All in all I am coming back and I’m staying, watch out USA.
Merrin
I have been to America precisely once, last October, and so some of my comments may be because of September 11. Pobably should also say that I was pretty well exclusively in New Hampshire (apart from a couple of day trips elsewhere and 8 hours in LA airport)
- Patriotism like I’ve never seen before in my life.
- An obsession with bowels - whole shelves dedicated to things that will block you up, loosen you up - you name it, there’s a product that will do it.
- Advertising for prescription drugs on TV (we leave the selection of our medication to our doctors - we don’t go in and say I need XYZ).
- The New Hampshire Liquor Store. A freeway exit, in the middle of nowhere, for the sole purpose of buying booze and gambling.
- Options when ordering food. You can add any of 100 different things, and get them to leave off about 30. I just want my lunch - I don’t want to have to tell you how to make it.
- Alcohol in the supermarket.
- People carrying guns bigger than I’ve ever seen in my life.
- Some guy pulling over on the highway, getting out his gun, and traipsing off into the woods.
- The money is so boring. It all looks the same. No colour to it at all.
- Outback Steakhouse. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life.
- Traffic stopping on a 3 lane highway because I looked like I might want to consider crossing the road.
- Driving - have they never heard of speed limits? Or safe distance between cars?
- A NH tourist book which listed under “things to do on a rainy day” such exciting activities as “check your email” and “visit the library”
On a sadder note. Waste. There is so much waste. Restaurants server more than you can possibly eat, and throw the rest out. Everything is bigger than necessary, and the rest is thrown away. Cars are huge and guzzle petrol yet they only transport one person. Everything was hugely extravagant, and although I loved it, I was acutely aware of how much was left over and tossed aside.
And then there’s the saloon in Prairie, Idaho, which is the saloon that time forgot at a crossroads so far off the beaten path that the world has forgotten it as well. The handful local folks are super friendly. The only thing you have to watch out for is falling into the gaping holes in the ground along the road outside of the bar (old volcanic stuff), or missing a turn and driving off a canyon cliff, or running out of gas.
As a joke some friends abandoned me there. The joke was on them, for it was such a nice place that I did not want to leave. It was like walking into the ninteenth century.
You’re kidding, right? :eek:
I’ve seen a hand gun precisely once in my life. No-one was holding it, but I almost pooed my pants just the same.
Now THIS I can understand. 
Nope, Wal-Mart (and K-Mart, and many other similar places with sporting goods departments) really do/did sell guns. I believe in the past couple of years this has come under some amount of fire, so I’m not sure if they all still do. Also, this kind of varies greatly depending on what part of the country you’re in. Yeah, you might be able to carry a holstered gun down the street in parts of the rural West, but the same thing would get you immediately arrested in, say, New York City.
Booze sales in grocery stores never seemed odd to me; many places, though, its only beer and wine. I guess since they’re arguably more of a food than a bottle of Jim Beam.
Well, you were here after 9/11, when the patriotism was going into over drive…There were/are 1000x more flags, bumperstickers and so on then you would have seen in August. It was also hunting season; I’ve never seen a person with a gun here any other time of the year(you know, less it was some idiot from MA tresspassing on our property off-season which has happened more than twice) I find it a bit disturbing that they sell guns at wal-mart too, though.
About the beer…supposedly NH consumes more beer per capita than any other state(hey, were you in the mountains? I think I know which Liquor store you mean. Big red building?) You read the interesting things to do in the state, right? :rolleyes: I don’t drink so I’m bored a lot. There’s a sign in our town that says “Spend the day” and all the locals wonder what the hell a tourist is supposed to do to amuse themselves all day.
Narrad:
I can assure you that the Euro/Aussie horrified fascination with guns for sale just makes many Americans puzzled. I bet almost every sporting goods department in the United States has guns for sale.
What I don’t understand (really, I don’t, please answer) is the conversations I have with people from these “un-gun” countries:
“You have guns for sale all over the U.S.!!!”
“Yep. Don’t people hunt in your country?”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“Guns.”
“So, you’re saying that the difference is that people can buy guns for hunting with a criminal background check?”
“Yes.”
“Oh…”
Narrad:
I can assure you that the Euro/Aussie horrified fascination with guns for sale just makes many Americans puzzled. I bet almost every sporting goods department in the United States has guns for sale.
What I don’t understand (really, I don’t, please answer) is the conversations I have with people from these “un-gun” countries:
“You have guns for sale all over the U.S.!!!”
“Yep. Don’t people hunt in your country?”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“Guns.”
“So, you’re saying that the difference is that people can buy guns for hunting with a criminal background check?”
“Yes.”
“Oh…”
Large portions at restaurants. My wife and I most of the time find something that we can split. Usually comes out that it is enough for both of us. However, we were in Italy, last December, and we did the same thing and learned a good name for it One for two. My point is that it is true in more places than the U.S.
Patriotism - what do you call it when the French get their bowels in an uproar about McDonalds ruining their cuisine?
Safe distance between cars? Have you ever had an Italian come up behind you and blow his horn and if its nighttime start blinking his lights? Strangely I learned to like the idea and get the hell out of their way.
Breakfast. Yes the worst thing about going to Europe is breakfast.
Prices at grocery stores. My god, I about croaked in every English and Italian grocery I visited. Plus they didn’t have anything to choose from. I felt like just going in and handing them some money.
Come to Mississippi and all you’ll find is beer in the supermarket. And believe it or not we don’t have people running around with guns, except during deer season, but that is explained by being part of our religion. And the only reason you don’t have Wal-Mart selling guns is because you don’t have Wal-Mart.
Let’s just make the U.S. like Europe and Europe like the U.S. and then we won’t have to spend so much damn time traveling from place to place.
Strange…I’ve lived here all my life, in the rural midwest, in NYC and in Dudley Square in Roxbury (the most ghetto neighbourhood in the most ghetto section of Boston), and I’ve never even seen a gun in my whole life.
Amen. In the Deep South, the only two excuses for missing Sunday morning service that won’t earn you hellfire and damnation are “I was deathly ill” and “I was in the woods huntin’.”
I don’t know exactly where the liquor store is, but I took a photo of the road sign I thought it was so funny. I was staying in Londonderry with my parents who had recently moved there from Australia.
We actually managed to find things to do for most of the time (even if my dad’s idea of a top night out was watching the planes land at Manchester airport - another thing I was amused by - rows of cars lined up just watching planes land).
One other thing that I really liked (and I’m sure you’ll all think I’m silly) was there were squirrels in my parents yard, and I’d never seen a squirrel before. They’re very cute. (There were heaps of other creatures I’d never seen before too…)
There are liquor stores along I-93, just past the Hookset tolls. You can buy beer and wine nearly anywhere in NH, but hard alcohol is only available at State Liquor stores.
There are many liquor stores off the highway, but those two are there because NH has a huge amount of tourist traffic, going to the Lakes Region and the White Mountains, and that is an easy way to sell to vacationers.
Most “un-gun countries” make it very difficult to obtain a hunting rifle. In Japan you need a licence, for which you need to pass a written test and medical test (mental stability, drug use) as well a skill test at a shooting range. And under no circumstances can you own a concealed weapon.
Anyway it’s not the ease of purchase that shocks me, it’s the casual attitude towards guns and gun ownership. It’s very disturbing when co-workers start discussing the merits of shotguns vs. handguns (or whatever) for defending your home against burglers.