Everyone wanted me to have a great day!

Roadside billboards scattered along the interstates in the South.

The size of everything. Still shocks me that driving from NYC to Cleveland takes twice as much time as a trip across my country.

Airport security is also overwhelming (and extremely boring).

I had a Swiss colleague who came to US for a 4 day visit. He thought he was going to drive from NYC to LA in a day.

Bless his heart.

The political ads where they just SMEAR the heck out of the opposition.

“That other bloke…he touches kids and pees on toilet seats”.

“This ad is brought to you by the other politician”.

Blew my mind when I saw those.

On the first day of our US road trip we stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant south of San Francisco. When we tried to pay the waiter told us that another customer that just had left paid for our meals and wished us a nice trip.

WTF, who does that? So nice! Totally made my day and honestly the whole vacation.

I was in New York for a little less than a week.

It was my first, and so far only time in the USA. Since there’s a stereotype about Americans religiously loving their flag, I thought it would be fun to count every American flag I saw.

I gave up at 400.

Answering for someone else (I’m an American answering for a German).

Ice machines in hotels. He couldn’t understand why the hotels had so many ice machines and why there are signs for them.

I couldn’t stop laughing about it and honestly have no idea why we love ice so much.

He also asked what people had in the big plastic cups.

I said pop/soda. He laughed and said they look like they are 1.5 liters, there is no way they are drinking soda. Silly friend, yes, yes they are.

Honestly, Walmart! Went there to buy a sim card and some groceries. Then I found out that I could also buy pet fish, car parts and shoes ALL IN ONE BUILDING?

!

Also, while in the queue to the checkout, we were next up and they just decided to close the lane? We had to requeue somewhere else.

I thought the gap in bathroom stall doors was a myth. Didn’t get privacy for my five day stay. How do you poop when someone can look you in the eye?

!

I ate a blue slurpee ice-drink thing in a theme park and three hours later, I kid you not, I did a VIBRANTLY BLUE POO.

No food in Europe has ever contained an ingredient that made my poo come out blue.

That made me go “WTF”? – I was WTFing so hard that eleven years later I still remember that blue dump.

Thanks America! Fond memories…

You can actually go to the ATM without leaving your car. Line for the drive-by is longer then in the coffeeshop itself.

Portion sizes and adverts for prescription pills would be the big two. All the other differences would be either stuff you don’t experience on holiday or within the kind of differences you’d expect from another country.

But the meals were just unbelievably massive, and having people hawk serious medication to you through the TV was very jarring.

Oh, and the number and duration of ad breaks as well.

One night me and my dad were in some small town on our way to somewhere else, decided to watch Silence of the Lambs on TV. The ad breaks towards the end were insane, completely ruined the film.

They managed to put one in the middle of the finale. Remember the bit where Clarice finds the well, and then the lights go out?

That’s where they put an ad break. Screw me sideways.

I’ve visited New York City several times in the period 2009 – 2014.

Positive WTF: Giant buildings with sometimes stunning architecture; Woolworth Building, 40 Wall Street, Chrysler Building, etc. Already impressive on pics but overwhelming when literally towering above you in real life.

​

Negative WTF: Some employees of the TSA. Man, I don’t expect you to smile and be all sunshine, but screaming with all your might at some passengers while your head turns red with saliva dripping out of your mouth might be a bit much.

Your thing of having, like, two weeks holiday a year. I’ve never had a job with less than four weeks plus national holidays. I had an engineering job with six weeks plus national holidays.

I’ve met up with my colleagues from various different countries and the US is always this one single outlier that for some reason puts up with having hardly any holidays.

How do you get anything done? How do you book dentist appointments and get your car repaired and still have any chance to actually get away for a proper holiday?

I highly doubt this happens in any other country and maybe it doesn’t happen often but when my family and I were at the airport in Orlando about to start our holiday, a random security guy came up to us and singled out my grandparents to ask them questions like how long we are staying, what we are going to do, where we were from, etc.

The problem was they didn’t speak English and I think he knew this. (We came from Britain however my grandparents were Chinese immigrants and never learned that much English).

Security guy ignored the rest of us when we told him they don’t understand English and ignored our answering for them. Thankfully he couldn’t stop us from translating and eventually was satisfied with their one word answers.

It felt like he didn’t want to let us into his country unless we could speak English… Just seemed like such a pointless waste of time and so rude.

I’m from Australia, and I went to Vegas a couple of years ago. We went to this shooting experience thing which was pretty cool, but also a little weird to shoot fully automatic weapons with no licence or anything.

While there, about 50 meters off the side of the road, several people just rocked up, pulled guns out of their cars and just started shooting at stuff.

On the side of a busy road. Just casual.

I went to Hawaii for Christmas a couple years ago. You crazy people were setting fireworks off all week, and then your ships saluted the President by firing really big loud guns into the harbor or whatever.

You guys are nutsos. Oh, right, and then President Obama became the only US President to personally inconvenience me, because our flight was delayed from boarding like a half an hour or so because the air needed to be clear for AF1 to take off, since apparently he had to go back to work.

The one thing I wasn’t expecting from the US is how polite 99% of the people I met were. Lots of thanks, good wishes and very friendly people.

How low down the toilets are compared to here in the UK.

Went to sit on one, dropped as I thought I’d missed the darned thing then felt like I’d broken my butt on impact.

It’s like missing the bottom step of the stairs, but even worse.

“I’m Irish too”. Said in a Texan accent after they heard me speak.

I’m not even Irish I’m Welsh.

Absolutely HUGE oranges and apples (actually most fruit in the US looks massive compared to the things here in Greece).

Like… so big it’s silly. I remember walking into the fruit and veg section in some shop and actually not believing my eyes when I saw the size of them.

I just started laughing – they look so weirdly big. How do they even get so big??? What do you spray on them???

I went to the U.

S. on an exchange. The two most memorable questions were “Can you see the moon in Europe”? and “Do you have Pizza in Europe”? Something else I’ll never forget was the map of Europe in the school I went to which still showed the country of Yugoslavia (which doesn’t exist anymore) and all the borders were messed up.

A map IN THE SCHOOL.

Sharps bins in Disney toilets.

I had a real WTF moment but was also kind of humbled by what I thought was an unexpected and generous display of acceptance and concern for people struggling with addiction.

I think I vaguely assumed Disney had somehow figured it was a problem they should understand and try to accommodate but I just couldn’t work out how or why.

Anyway it took about an hour for me to realize it was for diabetics.

When in Boston someone realized we were British and came over to have a conversation:

“Oh my god, I have a friend in England. She lives in London.

Do you know her”?

Hmm, there are 9 million people who live in London, and 65 million in the UK. The chance of me knowing one individual is quite remote!

During my first visit, I was astonished at the number of small airports and incredible number of small aircraft.

So much freedom to fly across a vast country. Amazing.

I saw a woman put sugar in her coke at IHOP for breakfast.

I’ve been told that’s gross for other Americans too, so I’m not trying to suggest it’s normal. But it was definitely a WTF America moment.

I own a restaurant and could never be in that business if I had to do it the way Americans do. “The customer is always right” in my country means that even though a request seems unreasonable or means extra effort for you, you do your best to make it happen because you want the guest to be happy and have a memorable experience.

If they complain about something you, within reason, try your best to make it right and don’t argue or get offended.

However, it seemed to me that in the US that means “the customer can treat the hard working staff like trash and gets rewarded for it”.

Also the compensation is absolutely ridiculous.

You bought something and accidentally broke it the minute you got home? Here, have your money back and a brand new item.

You didn’t like the food even though you ate all of it? No check for you sir, have some free desert as well.

In my country “not liking something” is a you problem. Better luck next time.

You don’t get to pick something else just because you picked wrong (of course I do sometimes make an exception). And if you treat my staff like crap, you’re out of my business FAST.

I was shocked by the amount of people I witnessed being rude or short with wait staff or cashiers. Who are, btw, super friendly, cheerful and welcoming 99.

9% of the time.

The hospitality is awesome, way better than in most places in Europe I think, but this made me go WTF.

In addition to that:

the tipping system as part of the wages of the employees appalls me and the taxes not being added in the price that is shown is just inconvenient.

Dutch here. The USA is my favorite holiday destination, I’d even move there if I could.

I’ve toured the west, California, Arizona, Nevada. Spent a week in Las Vegas and another week in Manhattan.

WTF: How huge your roads are, driving in the US boils down to pressing the gas to go, pressing the brake to stop.

Just point it in the general direction you want to go and you’ll be fine, lanes are too wide to hit anything.No engine braking though, drive up to the traffic light, hit the brakes at the last possible moment.

I’ve had multiple people honk at me for letting go of the gas and just letting the car roll when I saw a red light in the distance.

The speed at which you guys repair roads. I mean WTactualF. My dad and I went to LA and the day we arrived they tore open a 2km strip of road.

When we went to visit Warner studios next day they had started to pave again. When the tour was finished at 4pm and we walked back the road was in full freaking use again.

Seriously that project would have taken at least half a year usually a year for that much of a project. I am truly amazed.

Went there as a german soldier on a semi work related trip, wearing uniform.

The sheer number and the way people thanked me for my service (apparently as a german I qualify for this by extension), gave me discounts or even stuff for free (Starbucks) was astonishing.

In Germany, the public treats its servicemen with what one federal president called “a friendly non-interest”.

The US showed me a different world… But I also gotta admit that it was frightening to a certain degree.

It feels like… a bit too much of everything. Too much admiration, too much trust in what the uniform stands for, too much “automatic repetition” of the phrases and as a result too little normality.

Still a memorable and enjoyable one-time experience

Being carded to get in a bar when I was 29 years old. I’d been drinking in pubs in England for 13 years without having to show ID.

Oh and the general weirdness surrounding drinking was pretty off-putting. Us Brits went for a drink at lunchtime once and our American friends were literally referring us to AA.

Two things:

Seeing an actual chain gang working (less wtf and more wow it’s not just a TV thing).

And a man, dressed in a fairly nice suit, eating out of a bin in Miami.

The amount and relative state of homeless people. It’s not like homeless people don’t exist in other countries, but clearly disturbed people covered in urine and faeces are unique to the United States.

Other than that, it’s loud. The trains are loud (due to old old tracks/stations as well as the constant announcements), the cars are loud, the people are loud.

Everything makes a ton of noise all the time.

Medication/Depression/Therapy. Far far more common. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why students need to go to therapy, have such horrible depression, and are taking a plethora of medication like that’s normal.

Definitely not a thing in Europe. No way. Therapy maybe, but later on in life. Sad to see how much people are suffering in the States.

Debt. Americans are up their their neck in debt, despite this, they loveeee shopping and buying crap they don’t need. Very sad.

Myself and three friends were travelling the states about 5 years ago.

We stopped at a Taco Bell somewhere in the arse-end of nowhere Missouri. Whilst ordering our food, I could see the two female servers behind the till were looking at us funny.

Anyway, we left and sat out in the carpark eating our food when lo and behold the local sheriff pulls up, flashing lights and all, explaining he’d received a call about suspicious individuals at Taco bell.

He told us to eat up and move on. I can only think it was our reasonably thick British northern accents that caused them to freak out?

It was such a strange moment, like American xenophobia/paranoia at its finest.

Apart from that we had an incredible time. Food, landscapes, friendly folk.

etc.

Was staying with the nicest family ever. They worked extremely long hours and lived in the suburbs. I wanted to cook for them as a surprise and set out to the store on foot, with an empty backpack for the groceries.

Had to walk along the curb of, and then cross, an 8 lane highway to get to the store.

Had to stop a really really old man from bagging the groceries.

Then was stopped by police on the way back. They were very friendly, just wanted to know where my car had broken down. Ended up explaining to me that there was basically zero infrastructure for walking out in the burbs.

They took me home. On the way, I saw a sign “gas 99 cents a gallon, Bud’s Xmas Gift to the Community”, blew my dad’s mind when I told him later.

Got home, thanked the nice officers, made a vegetable casserole. When my wonderful host family came home, they were blown away but also extremely worried.

All in all, I would say that no matter how crazy America may be or seem, Americans make up for all of it. They are some of the friendliest, most welcoming people I have ever met.

I did an exchange program in Cincinnati, Ohio, and one of the first things my family asked once I had arrived was if I was Catholic and I said that I wasn’t.

They responded: oh, neither are we! And laughed. During the following three weeks they just assumed that I was a protestant while I am actually an agnostic atheist.

I am from Barcelona in a neighborhood where most people don’t believe in God and I was pretty dumbfounded that they didn’t even consider the possibility…

That and the “young people churches” they took me to which I felt like they were an absolute brainwash. In one of the speeches that I attended they said that having a non-christian couple is wrong and against their community and beliefs.

I had been told that Ohio was pretty conservative and religious but coming from Barcelona that was mindblowingly sad.