What did you notice the first time you came to the US.

[Anonymous]

How huge the cars are here. Are you sure you don't need a special permit to drive them?

I can understand an SUV if you have a more than 4 children or live on a farm or country road. Otherwise, I'm still in awe.

[Anonymous]

First time I came to the US when I was sophomore in college for a 2 week visit in mid 1990s, and visited Cleveland, NY, and Niagara Falls:
- How dark and gloomy NY was (April)
- I couldn't understand English and people also couldn't understand mine (and I was priding myself for being fluent in the language)
- Busy roads
- How easy and organized everything is
- Huge malls - i think i passed out in dillards' skirt floor when I saw the huge quantity and imagined having to try them all on
- Yes, the huge portions in restaurants, I kept ordering enough quantities to feed a family
- How friendly people are

12 years later, I found myself coming back to DC:
- It took me a month to start better understanding what people say
- Huge cars
- How green the city is
- Chubbier people
- How friendly the ppl are

[Anonymous]

12:42 here.... yes, and the affluence all around.

[Anonymous]

How dark black people were, how many fat people, how there were no old cars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How dark black people were, how many fat people, how there were no old cars.

Where are you from? Dark skinned black people live all around the world, genius.

[Anonymous]

that everything is plastic event tiles in some places, houses are from wood, that nobody cares about the environment, lights are on, heats and air conditioners are on all the time, everybody wears t-shirts in winter inside, that the doctors office are dirty, that afro-american people were very unfriendly towards me, that everyone loves children here (from western europe)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:that everything is plastic event tiles in some places, houses are from wood, that nobody cares about the environment, lights are on, heats and air conditioners are on all the time, everybody wears t-shirts in winter inside, that the doctors office are dirty, that afro-american people were very unfriendly towards me, that everyone loves children here (from western europe)

Anything you like about the U.S.? If not, please go home and make room for other people who want to come here.


Signed,
An American who lived in Germany for 9 years and found mostly positive things about it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:that everything is plastic event tiles in some places, houses are from wood, that nobody cares about the environment, lights are on, heats and air conditioners are on all the time, everybody wears t-shirts in winter inside, that the doctors office are dirty, that afro-american people were very unfriendly towards me, that everyone loves children here (from western europe)

Anything you like about the U.S.? If not, please go home and make room for other people who want to come here.


Signed,
An American who lived in Germany for 9 years and found mostly positive things about it

I was thinking the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Children in matching outfits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not my own experience, but one I witnessed firsthand: in 1989, my uncle's brother from East Germany finally got permission to come to the U.S. and visit my uncle, after many years of trying. My family went along to pick him up at Detroit Metro airport. On our way home, my Aunt realized she needed milk and asked if we could stop at the grocery store on the way home. We all walked into the grocery store, and our East German visitor went nuts, gesturing at the fruit display and nearly shouting, looking just amazed and even slightly teary. My uncle quickly asked him in German what was wrong, was everything okay. Turns out they were his favorite food, but something he got like once a year, maybe, and not very good ones at that. Seeing giant piles of them just sitting in the produce section, for anyone to buy -- as many as they wanted -- was completely overwhelming. It made a huge impression on me as a not-very-worldly Midwest teen, circa 1989, that living in America was something very different and special. That my little town in the Midwest -- a place I thought was the backwater of the universe -- could seem like Oz or Wonderland to someone who lived in a very different part of the world. I'm not saying our abundance here is always positive; I know the externalities are huge. But gosh, I wish we could remember a little more clearly once in a while how lucky we are to benefit from it as well.

I have heard similar things about people coming from E. Europe to the west and almost crying in the grocery stores at the sight of food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I noticed how sexist the men are, even the 'educated' ones.

Compared to where?? I've been a lot of different places, and can't think of a single place where women have better standing. Maybe Sweden...

It is better for women in France, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands...I could go on.

Scandanavia I could buy... but I've lived in France, and HELL to the no! Women are societally very much subservient to their husbands there. Jokes along the lines of "what do you tell a woman with two black eyes? Nothing-- you already told her twice" aren't even considered in poor taste. I heard more misogynistic BS in one year there (meant sincerely, not humorously) than I have in the rest of my life here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How dark black people were, how many fat people, how there were no old cars.

Where are you from? Dark skinned black people live all around the world, genius.

No they don't, moron.

[Anonymous]

Really? There are no dark skinned black people in Europe? Asia?
You should get out more.

[Anonymous]

I clicked submit too soon.
There's also dark skinned black people in the middle east genuis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really? There are no dark skinned black people in Europe? Asia?
You should get out more.

Not the PP you are quoting but another PP who came from the Soviet Union in the late '80's. There weren't many black people there at all at the time (and I lived in Moscow, most "cosmopolitan" of the Soviet cities). I am actually not sure I saw a black person "in real life" (that is, not on TV) until I came here. It's obviously different there now.