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

having not only spent a year away from my home country, but also having lived in different parts of my home country (where different locales mean different cultures/foods etc..)

things that an american might miss if they are living abroad:

koolaid, lemonaid (not the bubbly kind), anything that is a powdery drink....
peanut butter and grape jelly (peanut butter is making its way out of the usa.. but grape jelly hasn't..)
good delivery pizza (this isn't something one can bring to another country..)
american phone system (where one isn't charged for a local call...)
american electric system (because it is annoying when other country's electric system causes your electrical applicances to blow up.)
cheap things (ranging from cd prices, even though the prices have seemingly skyrocketed... to film developing... and other sundries.)
alternative newspapers that one grew up reading.....
attractive people (because if you grow up thinking the people in your area are attractive, if you go somewhere else.. they just might not seem as beautiful as the people you grew up around.)
recognizable brands for things such as medicines..
favorite stores (such as bath and body works.... )
understandable clothing sizing
computer savvy-ness
seasonal foods/decorations
people (but they aren't easily boxed up and sent to ppl living abroad)

things that an american might miss if they move from one part of the usa to another:

brands/stores/banks
newspapers/newscasters
local foods (ranging from LaRosa's to Krispy Kreme dougnuts... one ponders why certain chains don't expand over the entire country.)
local radio stations (if you go from having a wonderful alternative music radio station- to an area that only plays extreme rock as the closest thing to what you'd listen to... quite painful.)
the climate


things one might miss if they aren't in london anymore, and they have begged a friend to get for her whilst they are in england:

the Metro (it is such a lighthearted newspaper... getting a copy was always difficult, for the late sleeper... but it prolly exists to make the business people happy in the mornings.)
Starbars (the best candy bar out there.)
Tea Kettles (something is amazing about the kettles that almost instantly heat up water)
Being able to ride public transit, and not ever having to worry about driving a car.
missing the radio station (even tho one can listen to it on the web.. it just isn't the same, when the time zones are all different.)
missing the accents (because american accents are quite harsh on the ears.)
how not everything is owned by the same company (that mom & pop shops still exist)
using coins (in contrast to the general dislike of coinage in american culture.)
how such a small island is so focused on all of the doings of celebrities.
friends that still live on the other side of the ocean.

The main thing you'd miss if going abroad from the US is a news channel that exclusively covers news in the US and ignores the rest of the world completely. US newscasting _really_ gets on my nerves. Grrrrr.

Al (et al)

Having spent six months living in London, I recall missing a few American tastes, but the main thing I requested to have brought or shipped over was the current season of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ and _Angel_, which I managed to get my grandmother to videotape and get to me. (This served the dual purpose of keeping me from missing half a season's doings, and making me a *very* popular houseguest with British Buffy fans who had American-compatible video players!)

The British products I miss mostly had the name Cadbury's on them, and in fact the last time I saw some of my British friends they made a point of bringing me a Cadbury's Crunchie bar. Most of my British friends (who hadn't been to the US ever, or for long enough to have built up tastes for American products) talked about picking up cheap clothes and CDs when visiting the States. One had been toying with the idea of buying a laptop computer in the US, believing it to be cheaper, but I pointed out to him that not only would he require power adaptors for the electrical plugs, but the keyboard symbols would differ in placement and would not include the correct symbols for pounds and Euros.

Would someone please type in the symbol for euros. I've never seen it. Are there any other 'oddities' on a non-us keyboard. Hey, I just noticed mine doesn't have the 'cents' sign anymore just $. Must be inflation. MSN thinks nothing costs less than one dollar anymore.

€ - Euro Symbol. You can find it in your character map if you are running a fairly current version of windows.

Thanks!

It's funny how you get used to regional foods... prior to moving to NYC I lived in Tulsa Oklahoma for a few years. While in OK, I got hooked on barbecue. Now I realize there are all sorts of barbecue, but I'm talking about Memphis style, dry rubbed and smoked all day. Fortunately my Mom's husband does great barbecue and the flight to where she lives is only 1 1/2 hours. When I arrived for my Christmas visit he'd been at the smoker all day.

The best gift, especially if the person loves to cook, are herbs and spices and the various products used for cooking local foods. Inevitably when my Mom and I go to Germany we bring back a suitcase with nothing but cooking stuff. Since I moved to NYC it's easier to find those things so now I bring them to her each time I visit... in exchange for barbecue.

Just a minute - what do you mean peanut butter is only just crossing the borders? We had it for tea when I was a little girl in the 60s in the backwoods of East Anglia (the "belly" sticking out to the East of England.)

And we get CNN here in Germany. If that isn't all day US news, I hate to think what is.

There's a brilliant episode about an American girl trying to get a pizza delivered when in England (as far as I remember it is in one of DNA's Dirk Gently books)

I can only speak for Germany, but we have a regular supply of Buffy and pizza deliveries.

The world is getting frighteningly smaller and all-the-samer.

Homogenous..
But I hesitate to the use the word.

Not only do we have peanut butter - and as TC said, have had it for some time - we have non-stop news (I get it in 3 languages, German, British English and American English, each of which ignores the rest of the world) and most people I know (with the exception of my husband) are extremely computer literate (some of us studied computers at school way way back in 1975!)

But grape jelly now, I have to rely on my American friends from the local NATO base for that. Yum. They also bring me American s. Double yum.

Marmite... that's something that I couldn't find when I was living in a tiny corner of Holland. Nor very much veggie food - I had to try and remember how to cook!!

The thing I missed the most though was the going out after work for a quick drink (for some strange reason, most of the people there only went out after 10pm.. something to do with being able to stay standing when the bars shut, a bit later than the 11pm I'm used to), and drinking decent west-country cider! Still there was cheap and lovely wine so it wasn't all bad.

I was learning about computers at school in 1971 - and was recommended to take it up as a career when I left a year later. I didn't then, but see the point now. The notes I made at the time came in very useful when I was learning again in recent years.

I miss Gilbert and Sullivan. But I would still always miss the Radio comedies more.

Really? I buy my marmite in the Dutch supermarket Albert Heijn - because I'm lucky enough to live very close to the boarder and it's not available here in Germany.

I go over once a month and stock up on Quorn - again, freely available in Albert Heijn but nary a trace of it in Porkeating country Germany.

Sho


PS. TC - was that meant to go here? It looks interesting though, so can I join in that one too??
x

Pizza deliveries are now a world wide problem.

I have the unfortunate priviledge of living next door to one. It isn't the smell of burning cheese, or the roar of the delivery boy's crap cars that gets to me. Its the fact that everything (and I mean everything) that goes on to a modern day pizza comes in a great big vacuum packed cube of a box, delivered in the daytime when no one is watching.

I have to tell you, the best pizza I ever ate came from a grubby road side stall in Naples. All it was, was a piece of bread with a smear of tomato, cheese and herbs on top. 10 years later, I can taste it still.