I spent most of September in the USA and here are my findings

[Old Manus]

Hello friends,

This particular Welshman's only previous visits across the Atlantic were to Barbados to play cricket (alas your correspondent is currently grappling with the very real anguish of a sportsman who gets to his late twenties and realises his body can't do it as well as it used to anymore so no more international cricket tours for me :cry:), but had yet to actually visit the Land Of The Free™.

As it happens though, I took a feel-better-about-being-30-by-blowing-huge-sums-of-money trip with a few pals to Las Vegas a few weeks back, and then two weeks later I was sent back by work to the Microsoft Ignite conference in Orlando. Super awesome y'all. In no particular order are my musings over this cultural exchange, as they come to mind. I anticipate that I'm going to be misdirected on a few things as I don't think either of these places would be representative of the USA as a whole but I encourage you to tell me where I'm getting it wrong:


My first point, and this is perhaps the most important: what is it with your toilet water level guys. It's too high. I don't like getting my knees splashed every time I go to the john. Is it like this everywhere?
Your cars are huge, but so are your roads so I suppose it cancels out. It would be impossible to scootle a Nissan Armada around the windy hill lanes of Felinfoel.
I can't help prefixing every adjective with the word 'super' now
Everywhere I went was super clean and tidy. I expect this a bit more in the touristy areas like Vegas but we even stopped at a few middle-of-nowhere towns in Arizona once on the way to Antelope Canyon and it was the same deal. It makes me wonder what the hell my Council Tax is paying for
PAVEMENTS JUST RANDOMLY STOP AND I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO GO IN ORDER TO CONTINUE
Food portions are bigger and I feel guilty af when I can't finish them. I like that they just fill your coffee back up for free. For guys who seem to have cheese on everything, y'all need better cheese
Boneless wings are a thing, who knew. God bless America
I found myself craving vegetables, I'm not gonna lie
Staff everywhere are friendlier, maybe it's just British miserableness but everyone just seemed generally more cheerful about everything
I went to a baseball game and was in the queue for a hot dog when the tannoy says it was time for the national anthem and holy trout. Everybody in the stadium stopped chatting/eating/walking, including the guys serving hotdogs and started singing the anthem. I had to pretend to play along even though I don't know the words. If we even tried that stuff back home very few people would stop what they were doing if they were in the middle of something, half wouldn't sing and at least 40% would just ignore it altogether
They also sung this song half way through and absolutely everyone got involved. I couldn't believe it
Also if Americans like baseball I can't understand why they apparently wouldn't like cricket. It's just baseball except in 360 degrees and you bounce the ball at them. Dare I say the game is also a bit more fast paced. You don't need those giant catching gloves either, trust me guys it doesn't really hurt (much)
I feel like I'm violating every natural law when I turn right at a red light, but at the same time it feels good
Maple syrup on everything
Single use plastic :cry:
Do you really ID everybody for booze?
Free open wifi networks errywhere. I'm used to it being free but having to ask someone for the password or having to go through a ridiculous form system to sign your details away before you get entry (I'm looking at you Wetherspoons), so I enjoyed this
My partner asked for tea and got iced tea :shobon:
Adverts for various drugs on TV is the most bizarre experience ever. "Side effects include severe internal bleeding" spoken over images of a middle aged bloke smiling broadly while playing frisbee with his family
On American roads you feel like you're doing about 70 when you're actually doing 102 and you've just driven past a police car :erm:
I'm sorry guys but I just do not get fluid ounces
In all my hotels and throughout the conference centre it was too damn cold. Air con was set about 2 degrees (C) too low. I was freezing by backside off, but going outside was obviously not a good idea either. Strangely I got used to this after a week
There is always some sort of sport going on. Every bar and restaurant has tons of TVs showing something or other
I missed the whole Ryder Cup and am not happy about this


More as and when I think of them

[Psychotic]

Yeah the toilet thing and drugs on TV thing are definitely the weirdest fucking thing about that country. I love the US though.

[Freya]

oh and you were briefly in the south, you have to break it down further! It's either Sweet or Unsweet ICED tea. You have to specify hot or cold tea if you're wanting hot, the default is usually Sweet Iced Tea. The more north you go it's default Unsweet Iced Tea but south for sure is Sweet.

[Old Manus]

25. What is the deal with the bill when you're at a bar. I'd order a drink and it would arrive, followed shortly by the bill. The barman would then keep coming back every few minutes to sort of half-point at the bill and say "is everything OK guys" and I could never figure out if they were expecting me to be paying up. What does this mean? I'd usually be planning on staying for a few more :shrug:. This differs from home where you pay after every round, or on the continent where you have to basically convince the barman to let you stop drinking and bring the bill over.

26. Giving the bar staff your credit card and watching them disappear into the ether for 5 minutes with it then return back with a receipt is 100% bad juju :stare: also more PIN usage pls

[Chibi Youkai]

25. What is the deal with the bill when you're at a bar. I'd order a drink and it would arrive, followed shortly by the bill. The barman would then keep coming back every few minutes to sort of half-point at the bill and say "is everything OK guys" and I could never figure out if they were expecting me to be paying up. What does this mean? I'd usually be planning on staying for a few more :shrug:. This differs from home where you pay after every round, or on the continent where you have to basically convince the barman to let you stop drinking and bring the bill over.

26. Giving the bar staff your credit card and watching them disappear into the ether for 5 minutes with it then return back with a receipt is 100% bad juju :stare: also more PIN usage pls

On 25, most waitstaff work for tips, so they try to be as obvious as possible for a better tip. Most of their income comes from tips. It's a sad fact of US life. Also, as far as alcohol goes, it varies place to place. Some places will have you pay after every glass, some just open a running tab. I don't drink, so not really sure about what was going on in that particular case.

26: Yeah, it's sketchy. And making the chip and pin switch is a slow, painful process. I'm pretty sure the only reason we've come this far is thanks to the Target hack.

[Slothy]

So the national anthem at the ball game thing sounds weird as hell to me. For some reason it's the first one my eye gravitated to.

[Skyblade]

Do you really ID everybody for booze?

Yes. Especially when the people are working for tips.

Part of it is a compliment. "Oh, you look like you could be underage." It's saying you're youthful looking, without actually saying it. It's noticed, and pleases people, and they're more generous.

Part of it is the rules. If someone is too old for the compliment to do a ton, they general are more appreciative of the rules being followed in general, and will take it as good service.

Either way, you're more likely to get a tip, or a bigger tip, and so it happens a LOT with someone who works for tips.

[Wolf Kanno]

So the national anthem at the ball game thing sounds weird as hell to me. For some reason it's the first one my eye gravitated to.

I figure the assimilation of our media culture alone would have tipped everyone off that we're a very nationalistic country that wears our patriotism on our sleeves. It's like the most recurring stereotype about us. Of anything, I figured a foreigner would be more astonished that we don't sing the national anthem more often.

Also, we only sing it at the start of sporting events, the second song at the ball game was most likely "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh ending stretch. It's hokey but a tradition we keep for reasons. Personally, I don't really understand our love of baseball, it's a terribly boring sport and my least favorite of sports we actually came up with.

aIkqNiBASfI

[Psychotic]

I figure the assimilation of our media culture alone would have tipped everyone off that we're a very nationalistic country that wears our patriotism on our sleeves. It's like the most recurring stereotype about us. Of anything, I figured a foreigner would be more astonished that we don't sing the national anthem more often. I don't think Americans are more patriotic than any other nationality is. I'm just more knowledgeable about how American patriots express themselves due to said media culture assimilation than I am about, say, Greek patriots.

[Lord Golbez]

My partner asked for tea and got iced tea :shobon:





I'm an American citizen, born and raised, and this shit seriously pisses me off. I do not like iced tea and there is no good reason that should be the default assumption if you ask for tea. I'm used to specifying "hot tea" in restaurants by now, but it should be the default assumption. I blame southerners. We should have made more demands when we won the war.

[Spuuky]

(as an American) I've never encountered a bar where they give you a bill like that. You either pay right away or open a tab and tell them when you're done ordering drinks at the end of the night.

[Loony BoB]

Everywhere I went was super clean and tidy. I expect this a bit more in the touristy areas like Vegas but we even stopped at a few middle-of-nowhere towns in Arizona once on the way to Antelope Canyon and it was the same deal. It makes me wonder what the hell my Council Tax is paying for
Don't go to LA or Chicago because oh my God it's worse than the UK. But this does make me look forward to visiting Florida someday. I found the quieter the town, the cleaner it was. I guess it makes sense. Cedar Rapids was very clean.

PAVEMENTS JUST RANDOMLY STOP AND I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO GO IN ORDER TO CONTINUE
YES! This got me too.

Food portions are bigger and I feel guilty af when I can't finish them. I like that they just fill your coffee back up for free. For guys who seem to have cheese on everything, y'all need better cheese
I still remember the moment when I, for the first time in my life (having eaten double and triple portions often), could not finish a bowl of macaroni cheese. It was obscene.

Boneless wings are a thing, who knew. God bless America
wait what

Staff everywhere are friendlier, maybe it's just British miserableness but everyone just seemed generally more cheerful about everything
This is nice at first but I found it felt more and more fake as time went on. By the end of it I just felt like I needed someone who looked exhausted so I didn't feel like the most lethargic person on earth.

Also if Americans like baseball I can't understand why they apparently wouldn't like cricket. It's just baseball except in 360 degrees and you bounce the ball at them. Dare I say the game is also a bit more fast paced. You don't need those giant catching gloves either, trust me guys it doesn't really hurt (much)
Yes! This so much! I had a massive discussion with some Americans at a baseball game about this very thing. I just can't fathom how someone who likes baseball wouldn't like cricket more. It baffles me. Cricket is faster paced, has more action, more technique, more tactics and the batting and bowling teams are far more evenly matched - well, perhaps not so much these days in many countries, but in NZ and England at least. I just felt like the fielding team had a huge advantage throughout the entire baseball game, it seemed like the odds were heavily stacked against the batter and that's just not fun.

My partner asked for tea and got iced tea :shobon:
It took me a few bars to realise why my "Southern Comfort and lemonade" was always flat.

This was a really enjoyable read, Manus. :D

[Psychotic]

Here's one from both Vegas and Orlando rather than being a US-wide thing: "Where are you guys from?" replaces "Hello".

[Sephex]

I'm glad you had an overall good time. We do have weird things though. All of us hate public restrooms. That's the one thing this country is United about.

[Mr Gashtacular]

oh and you were briefly in the south, you have to break it down further! It's either Sweet or Unsweet ICED tea. You have to specify hot or cold tea if you're wanting hot, the default is usually Sweet Iced Tea. The more north you go it's default Unsweet Iced Tea but south for sure is Sweet.

i was in texas and my friend asked if i wanted a sweet iced tea while we were in the store. i was like ok but all iced tea at home has sugar.

man the sweet iced tea in the USA is really, really REALLY sweet. ive never tasted anything sweeter. i managed about half the glass.

[Spuuky]

Oh also no one actually likes baseball except for old men

[Old Manus]

I'm glad you had an overall good time. We do have weird things though. All of us hate public restrooms. That's the one thing this country is United about.

27. Why do your toilet cubicles have gaps in the doors :stare:

[Mr Gashtacular]

enormous gaps under the doors too. and the deep water you mentioned. and if you work in IT you will get that brash american attitude "im going to sit in the cubicle next to you, even though there are several other empty stalls - also, despite the massive gaps between doors and stalls which makes it even more intimate, im going to do nasty nasty toilet things because of my terrible diet, inches away from you"

[Scotty_ffgamer]

Oh also no one actually likes baseball except for old men

this

I'm from a town with a notably bad baseball team (except a few years ago they made a comeback and won the World Series) and mostly whenever we'd go to baseball games it was because it was cheap and something to do while hanging out.

I can confirm this. I think I knew only one person personally who was a diehard fan even when they were bad, but the only time anyone really cared was for that short moment where the team was actually good and won the World Series.

[Rocket Edge]

did you find darkswordofchaos and show him where the bud at

[Vyk]

I bet the national anthem thing got more out of hand since the Kapernick situation. Now people are convinced you're a look if you don't stand salute, and drool during the anthem. Probably worse in the southernly areas where people are generally more conservative

[sharkythesharkdogg]

The baseball/cricket comparison is fair.

I don't understand why rally racing isn't more popular here as compared to NASCAR (which actually has seen a pretty substantial popularity plummet). It's car's wizzing by trees at 90mph. Lots of dirt, lots of jumps, lots of cool noises. Rednecks love trucks, and loud noises, and they think they like the outdoors. (Spoilers, they don't. It gets their lifted trucks too dirty.) I think it just needs better marketing and some "domestic" brand like Ford to support against those pesky foreigners with their weird, minimal water toilets.

[Jessweeee♪]

My first point, and this is perhaps the most important: what is it with your toilet water level guys. It's too high. I don't like getting my knees splashed every time I go to the john. Is it like this everywhere?
Yes and nobody wipes the water off the seat so you play this game of "is it someone's pee or water I don't know but I really have to take a trout so I'm gonna wipe it off"


PAVEMENTS JUST RANDOMLY STOP AND I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO GO IN ORDER TO CONTINUE
Pedestrians are not important, all the best pavement should be saved for the cars.


Food portions are bigger and I feel guilty af when I can't finish them. I like that they just fill your coffee back up for free. For guys who seem to have cheese on everything, y'all need better cheese
Sometimes I feel guilty and ask for a box so everyone will think that I'm going to finish it at home later when I get hungry but I have no intention of doing so unless it is fried rice.


Staff everywhere are friendlier, maybe it's just British miserableness but everyone just seemed generally more cheerful about everything
Customer service jobs in the US are all about SMILE OR DIE for real at one point me and my team were responsible for 95% of the store's profits and I was still chastised for frowning a bit at my computer while verifying that I didn't make a medication error that might, you know, kill somebody. But if I can't do that and smile at the same time, it is more important that I smile.


I went to a baseball game and was in the queue for a hot dog when the tannoy says it was time for the national anthem and holy trout. Everybody in the stadium stopped chatting/eating/walking, including the guys serving hotdogs and started singing the anthem. I had to pretend to play along even though I don't know the words. If we even tried that stuff back home very few people would stop what they were doing if they were in the middle of something, half wouldn't sing and at least 40% would just ignore it altogether
Yeah this kind of creeps me out a bit. I remember going from catholic to public school as a kid and wondering why we didn't also pray every morning after the pledge of allegiance and the teacher was like "uh no that would be wrong to make everyone do that" and as a kid I didn't understand the difference.


Adverts for various drugs on TV is the most bizarre experience ever. "Side effects include severe internal bleeding" spoken over images of a middle aged bloke smiling broadly while playing frisbee with his family
lol patients and doctors don't decide what medicine they take, the pharmacy benefit managers do!


In all my hotels and throughout the conference centre it was too damn cold. Air con was set about 2 degrees (C) too low. I was freezing by backside off, but going outside was obviously not a good idea either. Strangely I got used to this after a week
Everything is always too smurfing cold inside and nobody is comfortable! Every time I ask if people mind if I adjust something warmer or turn off a fan the whole room is collectively like yes please fix it.

[Pike]

honestly even as someone who grew up with the weird prescription medication commercials I still don't know what they're for, it's not like we all go "OH MAN I'M GONNA CALL MY DOCTOR RIGHT AWAY ABOUT THAT" we just ignore them, and make fun of them a lot

[Rez09]

In all my hotels and throughout the conference centre it was too damn cold. Air con was set about 2 degrees (C) too low. I was freezing by backside off, but going outside was obviously not a good idea either. Strangely I got used to this after a week
Everything is always too smurfing cold inside and nobody is comfortable! Every time I ask if people mind if I adjust something warmer or turn off a fan the whole room is collectively like yes please fix it.

Man, my situation is always the exact opposite -- I'll walk into the backroom and think to myself, 'man, it is kind of warm here', then someone will crank up the heater because they feel anything below 90F is completely unacceptable. >: I

[Chibi Youkai]

In all my hotels and throughout the conference centre it was too damn cold. Air con was set about 2 degrees (C) too low. I was freezing by backside off, but going outside was obviously not a good idea either. Strangely I got used to this after a week
Everything is always too smurfing cold inside and nobody is comfortable! Every time I ask if people mind if I adjust something warmer or turn off a fan the whole room is collectively like yes please fix it.

Man, my situation is always the exact opposite -- I'll walk into the backroom and think to myself, 'man, it is kind of warm here', then someone will crank up the heater because they feel anything below 90F is completely unacceptable. >: I

Not quite 90, but when it's just me at home, I do set it 78 in the summer. I really dislike AC, makes me feel like I'm freezing.

[Sephex]

I'm glad you had an overall good time. We do have weird things though. All of us hate public restrooms. That's the one thing this country is United about.

27. Why do your toilet cubicles have gaps in the doors :stare:

I don't have 100% confirmation on this, but supposedly it is to discourage drug users from doing drugs because, you know, people willing to do drugs in public are often rational and easily shamed.

But yeah, it is very annoying and I hate it. Believe it or not there are people that get all angry if you value your privacy in a public restroom. I turn it on them by saying something like, "So instead of being respectful and giving you space, you want to essentially stand next to each other while holding our genitals? Pretty strange, man."

Most people usually get my point after that. I also irritate people that way that are super homophobic and suddenly don't want to "look gay." Americans are fucking dumb.

[Big D]

A belated happy birthday to you, Manus. I rate my 30th as one of the best parties I've ever thrown, and a pretty good age all round.

Thanks for your insights on the USA! It's still on my long list of places to visit, when time and money eventually allow it, but I'll definitely be choosing my destinations carefully. Us commonwealth types get pretty well saturated with American media and culture (which is fine), but I expect the reality's always going to end up being a little different from the fantasy.