Top surprises in the US
Like Americans coming to Europe and finding themselves surprised by everything, so was I in the US, to some extent, so I prepared my own list of (selected) surprises:
- It turned out that youth hostels in the US are often used by seniors, rather than by ?youth?, vide my room mate, 79-year old Navy veteran arrived to NYC for a bike race
- Every guy I met claimed that he had or at least used to have a Polish girlfriend - including the Navy veteran
- As for unpleasant surprises, prices are quoted without tax; that is probably due to different taxes in different states and therefore understandable, but still hard to get used to
- Spanish is heard everywhere ? on the street, in fast foods, but also in advertisements ? as if it was a second official language
- Americans cope with terrible, from the European point of view, performance of their mobile networks ? ?Cingular, the fewest dropped calls? ? dropped calls, what you mean dropped calls? When I was texting my friend, messages arrived only after hours, or not at all
- For some reason that I would be interested to know, Americans love clamshells phones, which are not so popular in Europe, or at least in Poland
- People crossing on the red light right in front of the policemen. I was told by a friend: “Here it?s unimaginable that a pedestrian could get a ticket, tickets are for drivers!?
