Reply to s/o "European" myths about Americans

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]-Americans like free bathrooms everywhere
-they like to tip
-they like to use credit cards and hate carrying cash
-air conditioning [/quote]

OP here. Yes to all of these! The tipping thing - they expect to tip for everything and are happy to tip 20%+. I still can't get used to having to do this and also find the idea of actually handing someone cash really awkward. 
The credit card thing - yes also, I've started doing it here too, and it's because everything has an annoying price, because of the tax. So if you pay with cash you get so much annoying change because everything costs $3.68 or whatever. 
And yes, everywhere is extremely air-conditioned and I find it hard to get used to that - both the way it is SO cold inside when it is hot outside, so that you actually need extra layers, and the drying effect of the a/c.

[/quote]

I lived in Germany and a lot of the locals thought that AC wasn't healthy. French friends said the same. I've never, ever heard an American think AC was unhealthy. [/quote]

OP here - yes I think I sort of feel that way. I accept it as a necessary evil, but if I were building a house from scratch I'd use alternatives such as underfloor cooling, like my parents have in the hot country they live in. [/quote]

I think it depends on where you live.  If you live in Northern Europe, it doesn't get hot enough for a long enough time to warrant AC.  I grew up in New England and we never has AC.  Living here in DC with 90'+ day after day and really high humidity- I am a born again lover of the AC.  When we retire back to NE, I don't know that we will turn it on very much. [/quote]

I want to add that we were in London during a "heat wave" and it was in the 80's - they were admonishing people on the Tube to keep drinking water to avoid dehydration.  We were fine.  We went to Paris and it was in the mid 90's an everyone was complaining (Parisians and tourists). [/quote]

I was in Rome in July and it was 105 degrees. No AC still.... We were dying. [/quote]

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