[AskEurope] Fellow Europeans, what is the aspect of USA lifestyle that surprises you the most?
[AskEurope] Fellow Europeans, what is the aspect of USA lifestyle that surprises you the most?
First of all, let's try to avoid American-bashing, and stay respectful to everyone.
I'll start: for me it's the tipping culture. Especially nowadays, with the recent post on [email protected] with the 40% tip, it just seems so weird to me to have to pay extra just so that menu prices can stay low.
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The massive dependence on cars. I don't understand why people put up with this nonsense. I just walk everywhere.
I read a travel guide to another European city I was visiting, and the guide was aimed at Americans. It's a major really walkable city, with car access as good as nonexistent (wonderful). It surprised me, that some Americans walk so little, that the first advice in the guide was "start by trying to walk around your house"
Have you seen the size of America?
You have large cities separated by vast empty lands. A good train network would be much faster and much more efficient.
In cities it's even worse. Cars are the least efficient way to organise a city or travel in it.
The only thing you optimize with cars is individualism.
This doesn't take into account the amount of suburbia in the US though. European cities are way more dense. If you're in a neighborhood out in the suburbs the only option is really to drive.
Not with proper public transports. Suburbs are also far better with public transports than cars.
Even in small cities you are kinda dependent on a car but you are able to drive to the closest train station and use the train to get to the next bigger city. In North Carolina (USA) I made the experience that the train is often not an option to get to the next bigger city or so expensive it is not worth it on a travel budget.
I enjoyed the speed limit on your highway's.
Europe is bigger than the US, but how often do you travel all across? The radius of movement might be a bit bigger in the US, due to bad design (urban sprawl). That's a choice. You can plan cities better if you want to.
I don't go from Sicily to Finland every week (but if i wanted to, I could easily do so by train). The size doesn't matter in my daily life.