The OP.
Ha! I kill me!
I’ve never seen a bidet in a US hotel room.
We have “round-abouts” here is the states, but when I was in Guernsey they had “filters”. It was a type of 4-way yield, the first car to the intersection had the right of way. It worked but I always said a little prayer when approaching one.
In Europe they use a totally different electrical system. Higher voltage and therefore different plugs. Didn’t bother me, but drove my wife crazy, even with adaptors.
And we don’t have Mt. Everest 
A decent cup of tea.
St. Michael’s Fruit Gums
Available only at Marks & Spencers (it’s their house brand).
Wish I knew who makes them so perhaps I could find them elsewhere. Everytime someone I know is going to the UK, I BEG them to bring me a bag or three.
A Scotch Whisky distillery.
Silk Cut cigarettes. Used to be able to get them here in the States, but they stopped importing them after the big tobacco settlement. Damn shame, too. Some of the finest ciggies known to man. hack, cough Where’s my smokes? hack, cough
Automobiles that are not festooned with redundant safety features that add weight and expense while simutaniously cutting performance.
If you have enjoyed reading this post half as much as I have posting it, then I’ve enjoyed posting it twice as much as you have reading it.
There might be some specialty stores that carry the following things, but usually they are not available:
Real bread, like this stuff: http://www.hueber.de/lerner/daf-beitraege/images/8vollkornbrot.jpg
What Americans call bread is toast here.
Sugar beet syrup
Kinder surprise eggs
Fanta soda
Malt beer
Frigo Brause (fizzy stuff)
Real pretzels
Sausages that taste like sausage
Good selection of chocolate
- This is what I came up with right away, there is a lot more of course.
I might sound a little biased, but I had to go through 10 months of eating basically the same 10 meals when I was in PA.
Thorntons toffee.
The people at Brynda’s work love it. Everytime we go back to England, or anyone comes over here, we make sure they bring several bags. Brynda took some into work yesterday after we got back from our honeymoon and she said it was all gone by lunchtime (admitedly there are a lot of people who work there).
I used to think I could not find decent mints either, but I have found a shop that sells Trebor Extra strong mints (they are expensive though, about twice the usual price).
Rick
MattK, what’re you talking about? I can get that kind of bread at the meat market I visit weekly.
'Course, it’s in a German-intensive meat market in a German-intensive area that has newspaper machines that sell Wochen-Post (and apparently Detroit is where it started). That couldn’t have anything to do with it, though. :cough: :o 
You know, from the number of times I’ve seen this, you’d think that every English person kept a packet of loose leaf Darjeeling and Grandma’s Wedgewood tea service in their desk drawer.
I haven’t spent a lot of time in the UK, but when I was there I recall being offered 1) the same old pot of hot water and a tea bag I’d get in most US restaurants or 2) a mug and directions to a large urn full of viscous brown stuff that had been brooding on its wrongs since early that morning.
Amarula! www.amarula.com (caution: site will ask for your brithdate to make sure you are of legal age) The taste is not unlike Baileys, but is more fruity.
It’s a South African liqueur that used to not be available in the United States. It’s only recently (in the past year or so, I believe) that it’s been available here.
Funny – I’d always thought exactly the same thing about Germany. That is, I figured y’all eat:
-Sausage
-Sauerkraut
-Mustard
-Pretzels
-Beer
-Chocolate
and not much else. Given that I’m vegetariana (well, pescomielolactoovovegetarian ) and hate sauerkraut, I figured I was screwed if I went to Germany.
Good bread, however, would help.
Another thing you won’t find in the US: good Cadbury bars. The ones in England are sublime; the ones here wouldn’t be fit for candlewax.
Daniel
Lion candy bars. YUM!!!
You mean like the Fanta soda that’s available in supermarkets all across the South?
I stayed at a Bed and Breakfast in the DC area a while back that had a bidet in it. The friend who was with me thought it was a water fountain. He drank from it too. Of course in my cruel heart mode I had to tell him what it was really for after he drank from it. I don’t think I had laughed so hard in quite a while.
Dairy Mary
Well, at least my mom’s cooking is pretty diverse, and only a fraction of it would be considered authentic German. I actually had a list of things that I wanted when I came back from my exchange year, so the first two weeks at home, I got only my favorite foods. Mhm…
What I got in PA was pretty much this: lasagna, pizza, mac&cheese, chicken, hot pockets. Now repeat this for several months with the occasional fast food and candy thrown in. My host mom had a sign in the kitchen that said: “Make yourself at home, cook a meal.” Great.
The first seasons of Futurama and Family Guy on DVD.
Kalashnikov brand vodka. It’s made by what I believe is one of the better (or at least more well known) distilleries in Russia, and is available in Germany at least, but not in the US.
It comes in several different shaped bottles including ones shaped like a Soviet canteen and an almost life size one shaped like the rifle itself.
Almost every AK-47 owner I know wants a bottle or two as a keepsake/investment, but apparently that’s not enough to get anyone to import it… I’ll pay a finder’s fee to anyone who knows a distributor in the US who will get it.