A few weeks ago, I posted a thread in which I expressed disgust because it’s seemingly impossible to get good tea in the US, while the UK has amazingly wonderful tea.
So, non-US dopers, what do you want/miss that’s available in the US? (I guess this question could be extended to regions within the US, too.)
Things you can get easily in the US that you can’t in Australia
Mail order electronic components and gizmos
a decent range of computer games
supermarket ice cream with lots of good flavours
frozen juice concentrate
Access to Amazon and Ebay is a plus as well.
I agree completely about the tea thing. Everything in the US is
Orange Pekoe from South America. I used to get care packages of tea and cadbury chocolate from home. Finding a good teapot and a tea strainer was a real challenge in Boston.
Inexpensive Electronics - the Sony discman I bought online from Bestbuy (and had brought here with a friend) cost $80. At the SonyWorld here, the same thing costs almost $200. Don’t even get me started on my PDA…
Hershey anything - It’s available, but hard to find. And more often than not, the expiry date is tomorrow
Cheap broadband - this is based on what my US-based friends tell me, and I don’t doubt them.
I’m from Australia. I want an I-Pod, but I haven’t seen one around here. I haven’t been looking though, and I’ve seen ads, so imagine they’re available. They just don’t seem to be as widespread as in the U.S.
And I found a U.S. candy store in Sydney that sold Butterfingers. Mmm… I wish they sold those here.
Things in the US I can’t find here would be… anything a normal person would be able to afford. Everything’s available here but at around three times the normal price. Maybe if we were a little closer to civilization…
As an American who loves these boards for their diversity may I interject a few things…
Steak…SUV’s…Wide Roads…Butterfinger’s
Ahh the things we Americans take for granted. On the flip side, when I was on holiday in Europe I backpacked with my wife in 1994 we flew into Heathrow and made our way onto the main continent and up to Finland to essentially start our trek to Rome.
By the time we left Amsterdam, and headed to Belgium and then on to France we were marveling at all the Small Roads, small cars, good chocolate, and country dining… I guess the tables turned for us, even if it was only for a few months.
Then again, I absolutely adore driving across my country, it is four days of some of the most amazing scenery I have ever experienced. And the Steaks from Colorado…UUHH GOD THEY ARE GOOD!!!
Can’t find it at any beer store in Toronto area, you can find other Schlitz products but not the malt liquor. It may not taste great, it may be dirt cheap, and I may not be able to buy it in the states, but the comedic value of it is great. If you’ve ever seen the movie Double Take, (which I pray you haven’t, it’s a horrid movie), there’s one good scene involving Schlitz Malt Liquor. And that scene is a huge joke among my friends and I, it can be recited line for line.
My sister is a French teacher and she used to get over to France fairly often (taking the kiddies on summer field trips, usually). One of her dear friends over there, whom she met in college, became addicted to – drum roll – Sugar Corn Pops while she was going to school in Moorhead, MN! So when my sister goes to visit, she packs 2 family-sized boxes of Corn Pops in her suitcase as a present. Apparently, it has raised a few eyebrows going through customs.
You misspelled “KC MO”. I’m in a Pacific Rim city and have easy access to several dozen different kinds of tea. (And yes, there’s at least one English import shop where I could get UKish tea if I wanted.) So there’s definitely regional differences in availability.
I travelled through CA and never came across a decent cup of tea. Coffee aplenty, but hotels and restaurants never seemed to offer a nice easily-available cuppa. Specialty shops maybe, but it’s not the same as having access nice tea in every home, restaurant, cafe and hotel.
<shrug>
What do I want that’s available in the US?
– cheap booze–from the supermarket or gas station!
If you want good tea here in the US, I recommend www.teasource.com. I heard about it here on the SDMB and it is wonderful. The guy who owns it is Bill Waddington, who can occasionally be heard as the tea expert on NPR’s cooking show The Splendid Table. This is loose tea, mind you. I can’t really help you if you insist upon bags.