h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm curious about Europeans impressions of visiting the United States. I'm especially interested in what surprised you.

This is part of my effort to figure out what it's like in Europe by taking your impression of the US and extrapolating back.

Exits on Freeways from both sides - in Europe, the exits are always from the slowest lane.

Noses on trucks - European trucks all go straight down at the front, so that the windscreen as far forward as any other part of the truck.

Turn right on red.

All-way stop junctions - it would never work in Ireland.

Light switches that have up = on instead of up = off.

Light switches at waist height instead of nose height.

Using house mailboxes for sending mail, instead of posting in a post box down the street.

Not cooking food.

"Entree" meaning main course, instead of "starter" as it does in French.

Free refills for soft drinks

Paying in restaurants by credit card and the waiter never, ever checking the signature on the docket. It's not valid here unless the signature has been checked, although most places use chip+pin machines now.

Grown men wearing bow ties with ordinary jackets. Here a bow tie is only ever worn with a full "monkey suit" of black trousers and dinner jacket.

"in Europe, the exits are always from the slowest lane"

Not on the M8 through the middle of Glasgow, they ain't. Terrifying bloody road, particularly if you're driving it in a company car that's double the size and three times the engine capacity of anything you've ever driven before.

B

At my law school, the dean is trying to bring the bow tie back into fasion. I don't think it'll work.

>> Light switches that have up = on instead of up = off. <<

Funny what you get used to. It even enters the language,
as 'turn up the lights; turn down the lights'.

The only rationale for off being up is some miniscule
advantage offered by gravity in a rush to re-illuminate.


~jwf~

As an English European I felt incredibly at home in the teeny tiny bit I visited on the East coast...Philadelphia up to Vermont.

More at home than I could expect. People liked my very direct way of expressing myself..more than here a lot of the time.

I was quite surprised by the slow speed limits though.

Oh and I learnt not to say, 'Can I have 20 Marlborough in the shops' (I didn't smoke roll ups then).

The woman thought I meant 20 packs.

Doorknobs instead of door handles. Windows that are opened by pushing up rather than by pushing open like a door. The amount of cars with only one headlight. Lack of public transport. Cellphones with an areacode...

The ginormous size of portions of food.
The brilliant customer service.
The number of obese people.
The dizzying variety of foods available in the supermarkets.
Difficulty in navigating once off the freeway - directions given in terms of the road number, rather than likely destination.

No pavements (that is sidewalks to you) or crossing places for pedestrians. I needed something from a shop I could see from the back of the apartment complex, but there was no safe way of getting there on foot. Or anywhere, really. This was in Florida, but also remember the lack of sidewalks in silicone valley too. And the turn right on red thing too that nearly got me killed a few times when I did attempt to walk to places.

The scale of kitchen appliances - they were *gigantic*. You could have fit every piece of crockery I owned in the one in the apartment I stayed in.

The size of the portions in restaurants - I usually ordered off the kids menu and *still* couldn't finish it all, and on a related note: doggy bags.

You could have fit every piece of crockery I owned in the DISHWASHER in the apartment I stayed in.

People having business calls at 6:00 am

10 days holiday (vacation) per year

People's ability to turn on and off the charm or just their attention

Their ignorance of the UK, (where it is, that we don't accept dollars in every shop)

The utter vileness of the tea

The amount you are expected to tip

The space between buildings - it's not a place for walkers

The shiny whiteness of (successful) peoples' teeth

The sunshine (ok, I went to Arizona and California)

The prevelance of single storey buildings

The fact that Christianity is a social norm

>The brilliant customer service.<

Yes I noticed that..and also a kind of equality of encounter about people serving you like in petrol stations or shops and cafes. Not like 'serving' Hard to explain.

I found the people incredibly hospitable in the part I visited.

Could people say which bits they visited please? Each state has its own laws...and of course traditions.

simposts

>> The shiny whiteness of (successful) peoples' teeth, the way they bare them at you when you meet while forcing eye contact on you; the contrast with their tans

How incredibly well groomed American business people are, they all have beautifully cared for fingernails

How tiny Chinese American women are

>> also a kind of equality of encounter about people serving you like in petrol stations or shops and cafes. Not like 'serving' Hard to explain.

That's true of Scotland too, Effers; I suspect England is the weird one out in that respect

Some years ago but I gather not much has changed
Pretty much what the others have said

In Florida, at the cape

Gas station adamant about not accepting a credit card with B*rcl*ys written on it until I told 'em to call the police 'cos I was gonna drive away in 5 minutes (no problem elsewhere - it had visa on it, too).
A black family visibly stunned when I got out the jump leads to start their car.


Joe Public's insularity
Disbelief that the project I was on was Brit designed... (security? everyone knew more than I did within days of a new Brit arriving).
re actual Security
A lovely touch regarding a document left out overnight... tell us the details of what it is by 09:30 and we'll do no more than a formal rebuke - in UK it would have been a hanging offence from the first moment.

Apart from people I worked with and their ilk, the great majority's attitude was 'everything is here, why look overseas to less developed places?'
Insularity typified by a story (I've told it before, so move on to the next post).
Our team was invited to a special day celebration party in the project pub on the near edge of town... early on, before much drinking (and how I wish I could claim it as mine own):
"Say, do youse guys do Independence Day?
... pause...
"Yes, but we call it Thanksgiving"

Mind you, there are such people all over...



But really, Two Bit, you'll get no more proper feel than if you read Charles Dickens and extrapolating forward. The people are basically pretty much the same, it's the environment that makes the changes.


Rod

Good point Effers, on the geographical differences.

New York (how like a movie set it was, right down to the smell of food coming from outlets on the ground, how every shop had a newspaper review showing that they did the best cheesecake/ fries/ donuts etc in the world. The obvious belief and conviction that this IS the best city in the world)

And Florida (chain restaurants, shopping outlets, lack of public transport)

> I suspect England is the weird one out in that respect<

Poss. But it depends on the part. I always put it down to Britishness here and the total suppression of English culture.

They are moving in again to my area..It's hellishly complex.