USeless details

If you spend a while in the USA as a European, you will inevitably notice some differences in culture et cetera. This shall be little more than a silly list of things I, as a German and European, noticed while on vacation in the states.

One nation under God

In God they trust, or at least that's what it says on their money. Anyway, we are looking at a nation that appears to love itself a lot, and shows it: I have never seen a flag so revered, so prominently and proudly presented. Entering JFK airport in New York, NY, we are greeted by about 6 flags, and before the passport controls/immigration. Now, the airport is a large public building, and it was not all that impossible to expect a flag in pretty much every public building. The fun didn't end in public buildings, though: campsites are full of flags too: lots of campers chose to decorate their caravans and mobile homes (called R.V.s, recreational vehicles) with stars-and-stripes. There were very few tents around, and almost none with flags—maybe sleeping in something without a build-in cable television is considered unAmerican.

The amazing patriotism doesn't end with the thirteenth stripe behind some caravan, though. Attending a minor league baseball match in Bowie, MD, we were treated to the singing of the national anthem. To put that into perspective, playing a national anthem before a Premier League or Bundesliga soccer game seams pretty much mental.

Big

• Foodstuffs
  Just out of NYC, omelet the size of a pizza. 'nuff said.


• Cars

• Well, we all knew this anyway.


• Cars
  Well actually, it's not all that simple. The cars are not only bigger, but used more, and differently. Compared to the German freeways, interstate highways are very relaxed places indeed. Everyone cruises along with a speed of more or less 100, there are barely any traffic jams, etc etc. A useful factor here might be the larger road size...

• Land
  Parking lots are bigger, too. In general, they just have a huge lot of land, and can actually spread out next to roads. All in all, it's a big, big country.


• Technology
  Tech is bigger. At least a little bit bigger. Well, the TVs are bigger. Wi-Fi internet seams to be a lot more popular as well: every commercial campsite I've seen offers free Wi-Fi internet, and I get the impression more public places have it as well.


• People
  Yeah, the people are bigger. Not taller, bigger. Not nearly all of them, not nearly as big as some might have you believe, but still, the people are, on average, bigger. Of course that would be connected to the bigger foodstuffs and the car culture ;-)

The supermarkets

Supermarkets are the same all over the world, you might think, and a quick look wouldn't prove the contrary. Having been through the checkout systems on German and American supermarkets with a full cart, I have to say that, until now, the US version has been lousy. In American supermarkets, chances are that everything you buy will be carefully, slowly, packed into a myriad of reusable plastic bags (reuse them and get 2¢ for saving the environment ! Tell ya what, screw those bags if you want to help the environment, silly supermarket), before you can pay and leave. Shop at an ALDI store in Germany and your merchandise will be processed in no time, and it you're quick at packing the stuff on the conveyor belt together, you'll be out of the way in a jiffy. Simple. Efficient.

The English language

Enough of the ranting, let's move on to a lighter subject: the language. English is not English, you know. There are simple vocabulary differences like the fact that petrol is called gas or a motor home is an R.V. Then, there are finer details in usage of the language. In the states I've seen so far, "you guys" is a personal pronoun, and "How do you do?" is a phrase you can just throw at fellow campers, or people you somehow meet but don't know at all, even though you don't really give a damn about their wellbeing. It is quite interesting how the language has split across the ocean in the last few centuries, and how it has remained whole. I might also note at the place the many anti-GH spellings you can find, some examples being donut, thru, lite, and hi (as in high)