Your public toilets are not private. There should never be a gap around the door. The height should be above what any reasonable person would grow to, and the lower height of the door should hide the person’s feet on the toilet unless you crouch down. It’s weird and very off putting to use one
First thing I (another Canadian) noticed when we switched from the car to a shuttle to the airport (crossed the border by car to take a flight to Florida) was that there were multiple people on that shuttle that were at least as big as the most obese person I’d ever seen in person up to that point.
Even though our cultures overlap quite a bit, there’s something different in that aspect.
WEARING SHOES INDOORS
The firearm culture, and how normalised it is.
I went into a Walgreens in Chicago, and waited in line behind two other people. There was a cashier free but the person in front of the line was waiting to be called. The guy behind the person in front politely said, “ma’am, the cashier is free” ‘I’m waiting to be called” was the response.
So the guy behind her just walked past her, and she pushed him and said, “Careful buddy, you’ll get shot for doing something like that”
I was taken aback at how quickly a simple discourtesy escalated to shooting someone. It just blew my mind that shooting someone over queue jumping was verbalised, and seemingly normal to each other.
American flags everywhere. Like EVERYWHERE. I get a bit of national pride but holy crap, every other house in the street is flying a flag, clothing has flag patterns, bumper sticker American flag, it’s everywhere. And no, it wasn’t even close to July 4.
It’s like Americans are afraid they might forget what country they’re in if they aren’t in sight of a flag at all times.
The amount of sugar in any food of yours! It’s incredibly sickening and I’m not sure how you deal with that.
A church and a MC Donald every 250 meters The sheer size of everything
Another Canadian.
All-green money is weird, about as weird for us as ours is for you. Once I knocked over some products in a store and then picked it up. The staff acted like that was saintly, so I guess other people just make a mess and move on? Drive through liquor stores are weird, and seem like an invitation to drink and drive. Paying at a hospital is weird just in concept, although thank god I’ve never had to deal with it down there.
Uhh, other than that it’s been pretty similar in the places I’ve been. Etiquette around “sorry” is famously different, but aside from giving me away as Canadian it has little impact.
German, only having been there once some years ago, so no idea if it still is that way:
Not knowing what I will have to pay in the grocery store until the cashier tells me what to pay. Here the price on the shelf is THE price. I might have a voucher that reduces the price in the end, but nothing is ever added only subtracted, all prices on the shelf are easily comparable, because no matter the weight of one package there is also given the price of 1kg or 100 g for everything.
No kids on playing grounds without parents standing around. No kids just playing on the side walk (often there is no side walk anyway), no kids walking to school. It made me aware of how much freedom kids have in Germany, how independent even 6 y.o. are in Germany compared to kids in the US. They walk to to school alone or use public transport alone, they buy groceries alone, they visit friends by foot or public transport, three y.o. already having a bike and cycling besides their parents to kindergarden…
On the other hand seeing so many very young people having a job, like a really hard job for many hours besides school. It broke my heart, they should be free to be young and having all the time, working comes fast enough and goes on forever. Also I saw very old people doing jobs that should be able to retire because you could see them being in pain and barely able to function, definitely not a “choice” for them.
The amount of medication, especially pain medication, people take in the US compared to Germany and how much of it is freely available while it is needing a subscription from a doctor here. Every time I was feeling unwell I was offered pills that I found to be numbingly strong and switching my brain off? Hard to explain. I found them scary, but was told that they take them on a daily basis and they are harmless … nope.
As an American, my top realization was… everywhere else in the world yall use electric kettles - Americans frequently only have a stove top kettle like it’s the fucking eighteenth century.
The stove top kettle might get a comeback since modern induction stoves are faster than an electric kettle. I’m about to get one and look forward to having one less appliance on the table.
I’m not sure it’s that much faster but we recently switched to a stove top kettle for our induction stove. It’s one less thing that needs to be plugged in somewhere. Also, the kettle makes a very cool sound! :)
Honest truth is that people in the US don’t need to use kettles as much, so for a lot of households it’s just a question of why buy an extra appliance when the cheap $10 kettle from Target or a small saucepan will do for the few times a year a kettle becomes convenient.
Also: Microwave. Apparently, lots of people heat their water in the microwave. (See pinned comment here.)
I will admit as a kid when I wanted tea I used to just fill a mug with water and stick it in the microwave for a minute.
But my electric kettle only cost me $10
You ever eat instant ramen? You enjoy boiling things? Do you drink tea multiple times a year?
The kettle is worth it.
you can boil water in a pot on the stove, or in the microwave, we have options.
This is sort of the point - it’s such a pain compared to an electric kettle and I just don’t understand why Americans are so dedicated to avoiding such a useful appliance.
is it though?
- kettle: fill it with water, turn it on, and wait
- stove: fill a pot with water, put it on the stove and turn it on, wait
- microwave: put a cup of water in the microwave and wait
- coffeemaker: press the go button, it makes hot water
it’s useful in the same way that a rotary hammer drill is useful for drilling through masonry, i’m going to assume you probably don’t drill through much masonry in your life, therefore you don’t need it.
Americans aren’t stupid or daft, we just dont fucking need them. 95% of the time we need hot water, its for cooking, or coffee.
If we had a kettle it would literally just be landfill.
you’re effectively asking someone who doesn’t eat toast frequently why they don’t have a toaster, it’s a silly question.
That’s the thing, the answer for a lot of people in the US is no.
After coffee, the most common need for boiled water in US households is probably for pasta, and a kettle’s not really the tool for either of those.
People that do eat a lot of instant ramen or drink a lot of tea in the US are more likely to have electric kettles (as some people I know do) but most don’t eat ramen often enough and tea just isn’t as big here.
Ramen is most commonly sold in sealed plastic bags in America. We just cook it in a pot like any other pasta. Lots of people I know don’t own any kind of kettle. If they need to boil water a pot or the microwave both work just fine.
Personally, I like tea, but I also have an induction cooktop, so I just have a kettle for that. It’s great. All the advantages of an electric kettle without having to put an electrical appliance by my sink.
+1 for the account name being on topic
I thought this one was also to do with their power being on a lower voltage so Kettles take longer?
But it’s still super weird. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s not. Boiling water with 110V power works just fine.
Electric kettles are are slower on 110 but way faster than electric(non induction) stove
We have keurigs now 🤡
(They can dispense plain hot water)
Yeah but anything that comes out of a keurig always tastes kinda sludgy.
Clean your keurig
Oh I don’t own one… they make crappy coffee anyway.
Ah the company that convinced people that adding DRM to coffee was okay because they made it “easier” to make coffee (meanwhile I’ve faught far more with every kurig I’ve encountered than any $5 drip coffee machine I’ve ever encountered)
We mostly use it like a regular coffee machine though, with the cups you can fill yourself. No DRM used here.
Is there a generic (non-brand) name for these boiling-water faucets? (That’s not a mouthful like “boiling-water faucets”). I think we call them quookers here, which is also a brand name, and I slightly dislike that practice. I mean, “brand name for generic thing” is very common, but the brands and things differ per country, so it’s like a layer of jargon to decipher.
I dont think there is. There are, however, actual instant hot-water dispensers you can install as an extra sink faucet and they are amazing.
They are common among US tea drinkers, but coffee seems more popular.
Being overly fake nice because you want a tip. Tbh I’d be more inclined to tip you if you left me alone and stopped talking to me.
The whole tipping thing in USA is weird. Everyone wants a tip, it’s entirely random (as a non-American) how much tip to give. Just pay your staff a wage they can actually live on ffs.
There’s actually a loose set of rules to it. Im not sure where the specific numbers came from, but 22% of the bill as a tip is considered “excellent service”, 18% or so is considered “mid” or “acceptable” service, and anything below that is a sliding scale of how bad you think they did. 0% is either you being rude and/or saying “i dont believe in tips”, but giving a $0.01 tip is basically saying “fuck you, you piece of shit,” (because fishing out a penny or writing it in takes more effort than opting out).
Those numbers used to be 12, 15 and 18. They’ve increased, but I’m not sure why, since they’re percentages. They keep up with increased food prices automatically. Not sure why tip growth has outpaced food prices.
It may also be my region. Its always been this way for me for at least the last 15 years or so.
Now, those squarepay terminals that suggest 30% tips or similar can eat rocks.
Yeah but how do you consult those rules? How often are they updated? How do you get notified of updates?
The fact that there are no answers to these questions and therefore everyone is working with mismatching rule sets makes the whole thing useless. You can be totally well meaning and still piss off a server because somehow you don’t know what the currently acceptable magic number is.
I recently visited the states for the first time in a decade and didn’t find out until afterwards that 15% is now considered by some people to be “low”. Sorry everyone who I tipped, I shafted you without realizing it. 🤷♂️
Depends where you are, but I think a lot of times they’re happy just to get anything.
We don’t even get this memo. I thought it was still 15, 18, and 20. And I’m wholey against mandatory tipping, but always do so because I don’t want the underpaid staff to starve. I have enough friends in food service who can barely pay their rent with multiple roommates.
Parts of Greece apparently also do tips. Is that new? Seems like it’s leeching into Europe :/
As an American I agree it’s fucking weird. Tips should be for exceptional service and not an obligation.
Sweet bread.
OMG. It’s bread. Why is it sweet?
Depends on which kind you’re talking about. Cinnamon raisin breads and similar are sweet because they’re basically deserts (desserts?).
Standard sandwich loaf is sweet because your weak foreign palate cannot handle the background level of high fructose corn syrup in all American food. It gives us the strength and vitality to enforce pax Americana, build our secret space colonies, and invent all new world technology.
2 S’s for dessert - you always want a second helping. How I always remember that one :p
Not to be confused with sweetbread (pancreas)
As an American, yeah that’s what gets me. I just don’t understand it and I hate it
TSA, but I guess you know that this is not normal?
Also the constant humming of ACs in New York drove me crazy.
Many things. To say some…Billboards with lawyers advertising for things like demands after accidents. Like dozens one after another on the road.
So much sugar in everything. Last time I was there had to throw to the bin a yogurt. Was so sweet It was awful. Prices of “fresh” food.
Tips for everything. Going to a restaurant and have to tip like 20% of the bill, or even more, is crazy.
Wáter consumtion. Like big golf camps completely green in the middle of a desert (Vegas). When asked about It, people there just answered “no problem, we have the Hoover Dam for that”.
Lack of public transport outside four or five big cities. And that just walking on the streets in some places is very strange fot the people living there. I was asked ten years ago in Palo Alto if I was Russian because I was not driving, just walking on the street!!
Sizes for clothes, drinks and fries are all bigger than in Brazil. A medium size shirt in the US is easily as big as a large in Brazil. For drinks I would usually groan every time I forgot to buy a small drink since I literally can’t drink a medium soda in the US in less than an hour and I hate wasting food.
