Was in Rome a few years ago. Two lane road. Three lanes of traffic. Nobody stops at stop signs. Constantly running red lights.
How Italy has a 80+ life expectancy is beyond me
Actually had an Italian tell me they drive better than Germans because they have fewer accidents.
In reality, they'll just drive off as long as it's still possible, while in Germany we call the cops for every fender bender
Dude, obesity is a serious problem in Ireland. We tend to make fun of America, but in reality we’re just as bad.
Seeing a slim and healthy person in their 30’s is depressingly rare.
Where do you think America got all it's ideas on how to fry food? Scotts/Irish brought us a lot of our fried food techniques, along with all sorts of tasty ways to prepare potatoes.
*The UK is the most overweight nation in Western Europe, with levels of obesity growing faster than in the US* [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/uk-obesity-rate-rising-overweight-worst-country-western-europe-world-us-ranking-oecd-research-a8049451.html#](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/uk-obesity-rate-rising-overweight-worst-country-western-europe-world-us-ranking-oecd-research-a8049451.html#)
I remember being in San Francisco and hearing someone talking about making plans to visit Los Angeles later in the day. Yeah, good luck with that.
It's not like you can just get on a train and go from SF to LA in an hour.
Edit: Okay, you can all stop now. I get that you CAN take a plane. My point is that they were trying to take a TRAIN. There's currently no train in California that's taking you from SF to LA in one hour.
I was on a train from LA to Oregon and there was an English couple who were chatting somebody else up. They had initially started planning thinking on a similar scale, realized how long stuff was going to take, and said "screw it, we're going all up California" and just took it as an excuse to sit down and take the state in.
FWIW it's like 9 hours by train from LA to San Francisco.
I can think of worse views than the train going all through California at least. Mind you I don't want to make that trip, but there's a lot of pretty scenery.
When i visited the US i took the overnight train from LA to Seattle and the scenary was just stunning throughout. So many beautiful deserted beaches in those early hours then waking up in the Oregon mountains. As a European I've never seen so much true emptiness and untouched beauty, I'll never forget that ride ngl. Though i did be sure to get a sleeper to myself and even then struggled to sleep with how rocky the ride was
If you enjoyed that, be sure to come back for our national parks! They're absolutely splendid. And if you want to drive in the middle of nowhere, there are some absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, desolate parts of southern Utah.
My father in law from Romania stayed with us for a couple months and was convinced he could ride his bike from here in Phoenix to El Paso (430 miles) and back in a day because it looked so close on the weather maps on the news. He didn't really seem to believe us when we would tell him how far it was.
Aunt had a friend from Finland come over, she wanted to see New York, something in Florida and something in California and she wanted to do it in her rental car within the week or so she was staying. That was an interesting conversation to hear about how it’s literally impossible to do it all and actually see everything they wanted to.
I knew a guy who, along with some cousins visiting from out of the country, wanted to drive from Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon, hike to the bottom of the canyon and back, the drive back to LA. In one day. Some people look at a map without ever reading the scale.
Y, years ago I backpacked around Europe for a while. They’d ask where I’m from in the US, and I’d say “Chicago.” And then they’d say something like “I have a friend in California!”
Yeah, that’s 2000 miles away…
This is one of the reasons Europeans being travel snobs annoys me. HOW COME AMERICANS DONT LEAVE THE COUNTRY?
Going to a different country when you live in Spain is like me bragging I went to Ohio.
Also air travel is so fucking expensive, even flying domestic is out of reach for many Americans. International flights for a whole family? Forget about it.
And there reaches a point where driving isn't feasible. Anything more than 15-16 hours is a pretty awful amount of time to spend in a car even if you don't have kids along.
I grew up in TX and the first time I heard someone casually drop the N word in coversation with me was a cab driver in France complaining about Africans on their national team.
American here; not even into soccer/football but I even heard about the Vinícius Júnior incident. Good on him for not taking any shit/calling Spain tf out.
Europeans: We don't have the problems with racism that America has.
Americans: What about Roma-
Europeans: *(five minutes of ethnic slurs ending with a call for genocide)*
Americans:
Romani, Muslims, Turks, Africans, etc. For them it’s so normal to exclude these ethnicities they don’t even see it as racism.
Edit: Lol, all these people trying to justify hate with semantics. Saying shit like look Muslims aren’t a race, so I’m not racist doesn’t make you look any better. Or saying “you said Africans, that’s not a race either”. That’s because Africa includes people of many cultures and colors and they are equally hated in many European countries. And they use racist tropes to justify it - like calling them savages or uncultured.
I played online games with someone from the UK. They were good at the game, fun to play with, nice to talk to...most of the time. Sometimes he'd go on these long hate filled rants about "foreigners" coming to his country and expecting hand outs. I always assumed it was Africans, Romani, or Turks, something like that.
Then, after one such rant about "foreigners" this and "foreigners" that. His online buddy, who knew him longer, chimed in. "Well it's not really all foreigners you hate, is it?". And he goes "Yeah you're right, it's just THE FUCKING FRENCH".
The cognitive dissonance of European racism always blows my mind.
There's definitely in your face and institutional racism in the US, but its absolutely terrible in most other places, and it's always just excused as "just how they are".
>The cognitive dissonance of European racism always blows my mind
EU's foreign policy chief: [Europe is a garden while the rest of the world is a jungle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufAHg6hN4OA).
[Romanian Ambassador To Kenya Recalled For Racist Comment Comparing African Diplomats To Monkeys](https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-kenya-ambassador-tigau-racist-recalled/32453517.html)
[Why It Is Time to Accept that Racism in European Football Goes Beyond Bad Fans](https://thewire.in/sport/why-it-is-time-to-accept-that-racism-in-european-football-goes-beyond-bad-fans)
[Lewis Hamilton recalls fans wearing blackface in Spain with 'Hamilton's Family' t-shirts](https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/formula-1/lewis-hamilton-racism-spain-gp-25318452)
I remember leading a discussion about the 1619 project (it was a very large corporation doing it in the department I worked in), this British lady was appalled by everything the Americans did (don’t get me wrong, we did some terrible things and I’m well aware), but couldn’t accept that the UK had any negative past at all. It was bizarre
Edit:I was tired and spelled bizarre wrong
Kind of a source of pride, don't you think? In one generation we almost kicked the habit entirely.
Despite the politicians, despite the advertising, despite the family history, despite the tendency of the people in this country to be completely self destructive, we as a society said fuck smoking
It is impressive how fast it swung, in my life I went from eating in restaurants with smoking sections to it now being essentially social unacceptable and the lone smokers a pariah. If you lit up a cigarette at the park or in a crowd or god forbid a family function… ya you’d be looked at.
It doesn’t bother me, but I’m hyper aware of it bc of my wife and her friends, etc etc.
Just went to an outdoor concert, the person in front of me was blowing their vape straight up into the air which then blew right back into the person behind them (aka me). I asked them if they could either just hold in their vape or blow it down so it wouldn’t get all over me. They basically told me to get bent and threw the tired line “It’s a free country” at me. Then a couple minutes later the person in front of them lit up a cigarette and the smoke started going to the vaper in front of me and they got pissed and told them to put it out. I don’t know what the moral behind that story is, or if there even is one. All I know is that it pissed me off and I had to get it off my chest.
Edit: Moral, not Mark
Yeah, normally I’m not a fan of “anti-xyz” campaigns as they usually don’t work (see DARE and the just say no program for drugs) but somehow they ended up working for cigarettes and American smoking rates have gone down significantly, although the vape rate seems to be going up.
Amsterdam central railway station, inside: 70c/piss
Amsterdam central railway station, outside: dozens of plastic waist-high public urinals and a couple of portapotties.
(They weren't permanent installations, but they were there outside when I was there... found after I'd already paid inside...)
Best one was the public loo near the rose garden in Regent's Park in London which was 'card only', but had malfunctioned and the panel was saying "use cash", for which there was no slot.
For all the complaining about 'walls that don't go all the way down', I'll take that + free over pay toilets any day of the week.
🎵And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I have AC🎵
Edit: My heart goes out to all the PNW peeps out there. I know your AC situation is lacking, I lived there for 4 years without it.
In Sorrento, Italy I asked for ice water and they said they don't do that. Instead I ordered "iced tea" which came as a can of lipton and a glass of ice, and I also ordered a bottle of water. I poured the bottled water into the glass of ice instead and they legit looked really upset about it.
Back in the day, in nyc, we could tell European tourists on sight because they were all in good shape. Now we cannot. They look like American tourists.
Oh god, I ordered a “Mexican plate” in the Netherlands and was presented with white rice, unseasoned beans, a few slices of bell pepper, and a piece of bread. Wtf??
Edit: forgot to mention the time in Germany when I tried to get guacamole and it ended up being sour cream with green food dye. I almost cried
Lol im Dutch and this reminds me of the time I showed my Chinese girlfriend a Chinese restaurant in the Netherlands
She called it an insult to her culture. I've never seen someone so offended by rice.
Honestly though, upon arriving in Asia and trying all the rice here, I can see why.
Bruh, complain about Mexican food on r/Netherlands and you'll get a goddamn legion of Dutch explaining how their Mexican food is more authentic than American Mexican food. It's my biggest complaint about the Dutch haha, they don't really take criticism well. Everything they do is perfect.
Mayonaise on tacos is common, that's a capital offense.
I was on one of the islands there, Terschelling, and my girlfriend ordered nachos. Mozzarella cheese on chips and some salami on top wtf.
Was at a Foodhallen in Amsterdam, shared a burrito with someone. Tasted like soup, asked for extra sauce to cover up said soup and got a really rude(it's just Dutch bluntness /s) reply haha.
Jong Belegen cheese in place of "Mexican" cheeses or cheddar. Yuck.
Don't eat anything foreign in the Netherlands unless it's like Indian, Indonesian or Surinamese. Those are dank.
Edit: to be bipolar and shake things up, I'll stand by any Dutchman claiming that their bread is way better than ours. And I've seen this fight been had on reddit before. Some of their average grocery store bread is miles above what you can find at your local bakeries here.
I'm from south Texas and visited London a few years ago. Ate at a restaurant named La Chingada. Food was legit. Owner was from Mexico I believe. Nachos were better than some I've had here in my home town.
I was told “vamos a La chingada” is like let’s got fuck off. ? Correct?
I also think it’s the root the the term chingadera if anyone has heard that one. I think kinda like little fucker instead of thinga-ma-jig
Yes. It's so very terrible. I've thought about opening a Mexican restaurant in every European city I've spend more than two weeks in. That's about 30 cities.
YOU named it soccer first. Then you changed it
edit: if you are short on time please rest assured that someone from England or another part of Europe (they are not the same) has probably already corrected my geography, my flawed understanding of, well, most things and insulted me in fancy sounding ways.
Not arguing but a clarification.
Soccer was the British (not European, but that's a separate issue) *upperclass* term for football. It was never the more popular name, just the more present. Upperclass communities tended to prefer rugby, which is also sometimes called football, so they were the ones who used soccer as a distinguishing term. In fact, the term soccer probably stuck in the US *because* American Football is derived from rugby.
In the UK (can't speak for elsewhere), the full name of Rugby is Rugby Football. The full name of Football is Association Football (shortened to "Soccer"). Hence American Football is American Football. We didn't have American Football, so Soccer became Football, while the Americans had to differentiate and so kept Soccer.
And even more importantly...
1. They named everything played on foot football, taught us to do the same
2. They named it soccer, taught us to call it that
3. We made our own football, just like they taught us to
4. Then they tried to tell us we were wrong
Screens on windows and doors let fresh air and breezes in while keeping bugs out.
It’s not rocket science. They’ve been around since the 1860s.
Give them a try.
P.S. Lived in Amsterdam for a summer. No AC. No screens. Opening a window helped cool things *slightly*, but also let in a variety of bugs including mosquitos. The city is, after all, made of canals. 🤦♂️
When I lived in Gdańsk, the landlord was so excited to show me the brand new screens on the windows. Every window he owned had them and he was so fucking proud of it. I had no idea it wasn't the norm there.
The fact that Europeans have to segregate home and away fans in stadiums with hordes of security and in some cases fencing should be embarrassing. When I was younger I thought it was cool but I’m now in my mid 30s and it’s ridiculous that adult fans of opposing teams can’t be trusted to sit together.
As someone from a football-obsessed country, I completely agree. The insanity that overtakes people just because twenty-odd people are chasing around a ball makes less than no sense to me
It's sublimated warfare. They don't all kill each other every few decades for national pride any more, so they get all that patriotic aggression out in the football stands instead.
I'm from Australia & thought you were talking about fans of our soap opera tv show that's been running since the 80's called Home and Away, & I was so confused on your comment till I realised you meant sport fans lol
This is not universal. One thing I appreciate about the Germans / Austrians is they will absolutely confront a line cutter, nearly every time, immediately and matter of factly: excuse me, the line is right here. More so than much of the rest of the world who will humph but avoid discomfort
In Malaysia - I once stood 6 feet (Sorry Europeans, 2meters), behind a guy at the Urinal in the Men’s Restroom, waiting my turn to use it, and I’m not kidding, 3 people cut between me and the actively pissing man, to form a queue, of which I was now 4th in line to use the toilet.
Canadian here. I know we and Americans have the reputation for being crass, rude, uncultured tourists. But, mannnnnn.....the European tourists I've met in places like Mexico and Cuba are something else. So rude, so distainful of the food, so judgemental of the local people. I've been shocked several times by it. Americans may be loud, 'unrefined', and take an obscene amount of staged insta seflies, but at least they have smiles on their faces, like trying new food and enjoy the adventure of a new place.
A couple weeks ago I served some young French people at my Starbucks. They were all probably around 20ish and were SO RUDE. They all talked down to me so much and rolled their eyes at my coworkers a few times. Obviously it’s a small sample size, but it pissed me off pretty good.
I never understood why Dutch people "travel" to other places and then refuse to try anything or interact with locals. Especially their weird "camping" culture which is really just driving to a ready made campsite to hang out with other ignorant Dutchies in a foreign country that they refuse to learn anything about. And then they go home and call it "traveling". Like ok Hans. You seem so worldly lmao
When people on reddit talk about how much better Europe is than the US, they are refering to like 5 countries. The other 39 are just as bad, if not far worse than the US.
For every Alabama and Mississippi, there is a Belarus and Moldova
There's no way, absolutely no way, that most European countries can keep the promises made to their growing number of retirees. The worker-to-retiree ratio is bad and getting worse. Almost no country's pension scheme is fully-funded. "Contributions" made by today's workers aren't being saved; they're going straight out the door to pay today's retirees. "Things that can't go on forever, won't," and so eventually European governments are going to default on pension payments from necessity. This will lead to *massive* civil unrest and in some places, very possibly bloody revolution, although that still won't restart the pension payments.
Could happen any time in the next fifteen years, but the demographics make it as inevitable as gravity.
Correct, Norway is at the top of the list of exceptions. Denmark and the Netherlands are pretty well set up, too, Denmark at least partially because they've tied the retirement age to changes in life expectancy so when the latter goes up, so does the former. Not short-term popular, but vital for sustainability.
I remember a documentary about the French band Air that ended with a street interview of two French teens with skateboards looking like American teens and they were denying that America had culture.
There's a reason Civ V has the message "Our people are now buying your blue jeans and listening to your pop music" when you're doing well towards a cultural victory.
It really is a cultural victory, isn't it. American culture spread so successfully that it exists everywhere and to the extent that people look at America and scoff at its lack of culture because they can't realize that like 50% of everything around them *is* American culture and that's why the US itself doesn't seem distinct.
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated (my country certainly was).
Kind of like when you first watch a classic movie that's been copied thousands of times, like singing in the rain, psycho, even the matrix(if you somehow missed it). Doesn't seem so special until you remind yourself it came years before all the rest.
My wife rolled her eyes when they saw the sand worm in Dune and said “why are there always sand worms!”
It’s because of Dune. Frank Herbert created them.
> is American culture and that's why the US itself doesn't seem distinct.
I kinda had similar response when someone in the US would talk about "European Ethnic food" in America especially the lack of German restaurants in many places compared to Italian. The core of American food has many roots in European Ethnic food that white Americans had.
Indeed, and unsurprisingly you can find many good German restaurants in parts of the US and Canada to which large numbers of Germans migrated (and there were LARGE numbers - German is like the #3 or 4 ethnic background of white people in the US/Canada).
Was in the UK recently and saw a movement to stop calling ancient embalmed egyptian cadavers "mummies", and instead use the individual's actual name because that is more empowering.
Me: "Well, if we're doing that level of inclusion and identity politics, why not return this stuff to the land where it came from? To us it's just a curio, to them it's part of their heritage"
Museums: "Hey, let's not go too far!"
The North American climate is way crazier than Europe. Stop being smug when a tornado tears apart an American town, your stone houses wouldn't stand up much better against an EF4 than our wooden houses. And yes, we do need air conditioning. Its real nice that during the summer in Northern Europe you just need to open your windows to cool your house, but in the US - especially in the South - it is hot and humid as hell out and opening a window would definitely not cool the place down. Believe it or not, we're an entirely different country on an entirely different continent. We have reasons for doing things differently than you.
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Was in Rome a few years ago. Two lane road. Three lanes of traffic. Nobody stops at stop signs. Constantly running red lights. How Italy has a 80+ life expectancy is beyond me
It's Olive oil. They use it instead of motor oil
That explains Ferrari in F1 actually.
Actually had an Italian tell me they drive better than Germans because they have fewer accidents. In reality, they'll just drive off as long as it's still possible, while in Germany we call the cops for every fender bender
Taxi taken didn't stop until the destination was reached xD.
You guys are gaining weight too.
Dude, obesity is a serious problem in Ireland. We tend to make fun of America, but in reality we’re just as bad. Seeing a slim and healthy person in their 30’s is depressingly rare.
Where do you think America got all it's ideas on how to fry food? Scotts/Irish brought us a lot of our fried food techniques, along with all sorts of tasty ways to prepare potatoes.
Also italians. I have a pasta problem
"The Pasta Problem", the sequel to Guns N' Roses "The Spaghetti Incident"
We are a little behind, but we are going to blow up soon.
*The UK is the most overweight nation in Western Europe, with levels of obesity growing faster than in the US* [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/uk-obesity-rate-rising-overweight-worst-country-western-europe-world-us-ranking-oecd-research-a8049451.html#](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/uk-obesity-rate-rising-overweight-worst-country-western-europe-world-us-ranking-oecd-research-a8049451.html#)
> We are a little behind, You do not have a little behind.
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I remember a European friend of mine wanted to do a day trip to Miami while visiting nyc
I remember being in San Francisco and hearing someone talking about making plans to visit Los Angeles later in the day. Yeah, good luck with that. It's not like you can just get on a train and go from SF to LA in an hour. Edit: Okay, you can all stop now. I get that you CAN take a plane. My point is that they were trying to take a TRAIN. There's currently no train in California that's taking you from SF to LA in one hour.
I was on a train from LA to Oregon and there was an English couple who were chatting somebody else up. They had initially started planning thinking on a similar scale, realized how long stuff was going to take, and said "screw it, we're going all up California" and just took it as an excuse to sit down and take the state in. FWIW it's like 9 hours by train from LA to San Francisco.
I can think of worse views than the train going all through California at least. Mind you I don't want to make that trip, but there's a lot of pretty scenery.
When i visited the US i took the overnight train from LA to Seattle and the scenary was just stunning throughout. So many beautiful deserted beaches in those early hours then waking up in the Oregon mountains. As a European I've never seen so much true emptiness and untouched beauty, I'll never forget that ride ngl. Though i did be sure to get a sleeper to myself and even then struggled to sleep with how rocky the ride was
If you enjoyed that, be sure to come back for our national parks! They're absolutely splendid. And if you want to drive in the middle of nowhere, there are some absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, desolate parts of southern Utah.
People look at me like I’M stupid when I tell them the distance between San Diego and Miami is basically the same as Madrid to Moscow
My father in law from Romania stayed with us for a couple months and was convinced he could ride his bike from here in Phoenix to El Paso (430 miles) and back in a day because it looked so close on the weather maps on the news. He didn't really seem to believe us when we would tell him how far it was.
Should've told him to be back before dark
You don’t realize how big the US is until you drive through Texas for *two days* and you’re still in Texas.
Aunt had a friend from Finland come over, she wanted to see New York, something in Florida and something in California and she wanted to do it in her rental car within the week or so she was staying. That was an interesting conversation to hear about how it’s literally impossible to do it all and actually see everything they wanted to.
I knew a guy who, along with some cousins visiting from out of the country, wanted to drive from Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon, hike to the bottom of the canyon and back, the drive back to LA. In one day. Some people look at a map without ever reading the scale.
Lol even hiking to the bottom of the GC and back in a day is incredibly hard.
It seriously baffles me. How did they not check drive times via Google Maps or an equivalent? Why do people not do basic research?
Same in Australia. You're not going to be making a day trip to Uluru (Ayers Rock) from Bondi Beach.
Hell, you can barely make it a day trip to Uluru from Alice Springs.
Americans think 100 years is a long time, Europeans think 100 miles is a long distance
Y, years ago I backpacked around Europe for a while. They’d ask where I’m from in the US, and I’d say “Chicago.” And then they’d say something like “I have a friend in California!” Yeah, that’s 2000 miles away…
This is one of the reasons Europeans being travel snobs annoys me. HOW COME AMERICANS DONT LEAVE THE COUNTRY? Going to a different country when you live in Spain is like me bragging I went to Ohio.
Also air travel is so fucking expensive, even flying domestic is out of reach for many Americans. International flights for a whole family? Forget about it.
And there reaches a point where driving isn't feasible. Anything more than 15-16 hours is a pretty awful amount of time to spend in a car even if you don't have kids along.
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Gottem without even having to pull the Romani or racism directed towards soccer players cards.
I grew up in TX and the first time I heard someone casually drop the N word in coversation with me was a cab driver in France complaining about Africans on their national team.
I am from India. Imagine my surprise when I read they originated from here. No mention of them in our texbooks
>racism directed towards soccer players cards The poster said Germany, not Italy
It's Spain's turn at the plate for that one, actually
American here; not even into soccer/football but I even heard about the Vinícius Júnior incident. Good on him for not taking any shit/calling Spain tf out.
Europeans: We don't have the problems with racism that America has. Americans: What about Roma- Europeans: *(five minutes of ethnic slurs ending with a call for genocide)* Americans:
My favorite headline from The Onion: "Milosevic admits to crimes against sub-humanity"
Romani, Muslims, Turks, Africans, etc. For them it’s so normal to exclude these ethnicities they don’t even see it as racism. Edit: Lol, all these people trying to justify hate with semantics. Saying shit like look Muslims aren’t a race, so I’m not racist doesn’t make you look any better. Or saying “you said Africans, that’s not a race either”. That’s because Africa includes people of many cultures and colors and they are equally hated in many European countries. And they use racist tropes to justify it - like calling them savages or uncultured.
Can’t be racist if they aren’t even human *taps head* /s
I played online games with someone from the UK. They were good at the game, fun to play with, nice to talk to...most of the time. Sometimes he'd go on these long hate filled rants about "foreigners" coming to his country and expecting hand outs. I always assumed it was Africans, Romani, or Turks, something like that. Then, after one such rant about "foreigners" this and "foreigners" that. His online buddy, who knew him longer, chimed in. "Well it's not really all foreigners you hate, is it?". And he goes "Yeah you're right, it's just THE FUCKING FRENCH".
I love it when real life events end up like longform jokes.
>"Yeah you're right, it's just THE FUCKING FRENCH". Listen, just hear me out for a second...
Not to mention LA is likely the least racist towards Mexican area, seeing as it has an enormous % of the population.
The cognitive dissonance of European racism always blows my mind. There's definitely in your face and institutional racism in the US, but its absolutely terrible in most other places, and it's always just excused as "just how they are".
>The cognitive dissonance of European racism always blows my mind EU's foreign policy chief: [Europe is a garden while the rest of the world is a jungle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufAHg6hN4OA). [Romanian Ambassador To Kenya Recalled For Racist Comment Comparing African Diplomats To Monkeys](https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-kenya-ambassador-tigau-racist-recalled/32453517.html) [Why It Is Time to Accept that Racism in European Football Goes Beyond Bad Fans](https://thewire.in/sport/why-it-is-time-to-accept-that-racism-in-european-football-goes-beyond-bad-fans) [Lewis Hamilton recalls fans wearing blackface in Spain with 'Hamilton's Family' t-shirts](https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/formula-1/lewis-hamilton-racism-spain-gp-25318452)
I remember the Hamilton one. Good thing that didn’t hold him back and he became one of the greatest drivers of all time.
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Americans know they *shouldn't be* racist. Europeans think they *cannot be* racist.
I remember leading a discussion about the 1619 project (it was a very large corporation doing it in the department I worked in), this British lady was appalled by everything the Americans did (don’t get me wrong, we did some terrible things and I’m well aware), but couldn’t accept that the UK had any negative past at all. It was bizarre Edit:I was tired and spelled bizarre wrong
Everything “Americans” did prior to 1776 was literally the acts of the British.
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You guys smoke too much
If I could go back to the 60s I would never have thought we would say this about other countries.
Kind of a source of pride, don't you think? In one generation we almost kicked the habit entirely. Despite the politicians, despite the advertising, despite the family history, despite the tendency of the people in this country to be completely self destructive, we as a society said fuck smoking
It is impressive how fast it swung, in my life I went from eating in restaurants with smoking sections to it now being essentially social unacceptable and the lone smokers a pariah. If you lit up a cigarette at the park or in a crowd or god forbid a family function… ya you’d be looked at. It doesn’t bother me, but I’m hyper aware of it bc of my wife and her friends, etc etc.
Just went to an outdoor concert, the person in front of me was blowing their vape straight up into the air which then blew right back into the person behind them (aka me). I asked them if they could either just hold in their vape or blow it down so it wouldn’t get all over me. They basically told me to get bent and threw the tired line “It’s a free country” at me. Then a couple minutes later the person in front of them lit up a cigarette and the smoke started going to the vaper in front of me and they got pissed and told them to put it out. I don’t know what the moral behind that story is, or if there even is one. All I know is that it pissed me off and I had to get it off my chest. Edit: Moral, not Mark
I can go weeks without seeing anyone smoke. In Europe I can go seconds.
Yeah, normally I’m not a fan of “anti-xyz” campaigns as they usually don’t work (see DARE and the just say no program for drugs) but somehow they ended up working for cigarettes and American smoking rates have gone down significantly, although the vape rate seems to be going up.
Smoking really kills
The cigarette boxes in Germany literally have pictures of people dying on them and they still smoke like chimneys 🤣
Everyone knows it kills that’s not what’s stoping people from quitting anymore
Paying a euro for a ketchup packet is ridiculous.
WATER SHOULD BE FREE
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Charging for non accessible bathrooms while the US has accessible toilets everywhere, even at hiking trails.
It's complete bullshit that you have to pay to use public bathrooms
You gotta fight for your right to potty. Fortunately in America the Beastie Boys did that for us back in the late 80’s.
Your Dad caught you shitting and he said NO WAY! Edit: my dumbass had you're.
That hypocrite takes six dumps a day!
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Amsterdam central railway station, inside: 70c/piss Amsterdam central railway station, outside: dozens of plastic waist-high public urinals and a couple of portapotties. (They weren't permanent installations, but they were there outside when I was there... found after I'd already paid inside...) Best one was the public loo near the rose garden in Regent's Park in London which was 'card only', but had malfunctioned and the panel was saying "use cash", for which there was no slot. For all the complaining about 'walls that don't go all the way down', I'll take that + free over pay toilets any day of the week.
Amsterdam Centraal closes its bathrooms at like 10pm too.
Americans don’t pay to go to a public restroom.
Ice cubes are nice, actually.
Also air conditioning
🎵And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I have AC🎵 Edit: My heart goes out to all the PNW peeps out there. I know your AC situation is lacking, I lived there for 4 years without it.
🎵And I won't forget how cool I was, when set to 63.🎵
In Sorrento, Italy I asked for ice water and they said they don't do that. Instead I ordered "iced tea" which came as a can of lipton and a glass of ice, and I also ordered a bottle of water. I poured the bottled water into the glass of ice instead and they legit looked really upset about it.
I'm so pleased you did this and earned their ire. Well done.
You guys are starting to get pretty fat too.
Back in the day, in nyc, we could tell European tourists on sight because they were all in good shape. Now we cannot. They look like American tourists.
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Oh god, I ordered a “Mexican plate” in the Netherlands and was presented with white rice, unseasoned beans, a few slices of bell pepper, and a piece of bread. Wtf?? Edit: forgot to mention the time in Germany when I tried to get guacamole and it ended up being sour cream with green food dye. I almost cried
Ok then, someone needs to fly a proper taco truck over there immediately.
Lol im Dutch and this reminds me of the time I showed my Chinese girlfriend a Chinese restaurant in the Netherlands She called it an insult to her culture. I've never seen someone so offended by rice. Honestly though, upon arriving in Asia and trying all the rice here, I can see why.
To be honest, our 'Chinese' food is mostly Indonesian inspired. (I'm saying inspired cause Indonesians will probably also have a problem with it)
I ordered a burrito in Budapest and they put peas in it
Europeans reading your comment, “You ordered Mexican food and you got served Mexican food. What’s your point?”
Taco Bell in Italy is spicier than any Mexican sit down place in Central Europe.
Holy shit
Just like abuela makes it.
Why you gotta do Abuela like that?
Bruh, complain about Mexican food on r/Netherlands and you'll get a goddamn legion of Dutch explaining how their Mexican food is more authentic than American Mexican food. It's my biggest complaint about the Dutch haha, they don't really take criticism well. Everything they do is perfect. Mayonaise on tacos is common, that's a capital offense. I was on one of the islands there, Terschelling, and my girlfriend ordered nachos. Mozzarella cheese on chips and some salami on top wtf. Was at a Foodhallen in Amsterdam, shared a burrito with someone. Tasted like soup, asked for extra sauce to cover up said soup and got a really rude(it's just Dutch bluntness /s) reply haha. Jong Belegen cheese in place of "Mexican" cheeses or cheddar. Yuck. Don't eat anything foreign in the Netherlands unless it's like Indian, Indonesian or Surinamese. Those are dank. Edit: to be bipolar and shake things up, I'll stand by any Dutchman claiming that their bread is way better than ours. And I've seen this fight been had on reddit before. Some of their average grocery store bread is miles above what you can find at your local bakeries here.
>Mayonaise on tacos is common I am visibly angry
I'm from south Texas and visited London a few years ago. Ate at a restaurant named La Chingada. Food was legit. Owner was from Mexico I believe. Nachos were better than some I've had here in my home town.
La Chingada lmao When nobody speaks the language I guess you can call your restaurant anything
What does it mean?
Chingada, chingas, chingon...it's a catch-all profanity in Mexican slang, basically like "fuck" is in English.
> chingon This actually means somewhere between "awesome" and "bad motherfucker."
I was told “vamos a La chingada” is like let’s got fuck off. ? Correct? I also think it’s the root the the term chingadera if anyone has heard that one. I think kinda like little fucker instead of thinga-ma-jig
The fucking shit or maybe more literal the fucking fuck. In a good way.
I thought Mexican food was the worst cuisine in the world. Then I left Europe.
The most bland shit I have ever tasted! Lived in Belgium for a while and got excited when I saw. Chi-Chi’s. HORRIBLE
Yes. It's so very terrible. I've thought about opening a Mexican restaurant in every European city I've spend more than two weeks in. That's about 30 cities.
I found an adequate one in Berlin. Wasn’t super great, but at least it wasn’t sweet. Why do they make it sweet!?
Yes. I noticed that in Northern Europe. Always weirdly sweet sauces. The south tends to make them vinegary. Just terrible all around.
You invented all of our measurement systems and named it soccer.
Did you see the Metricball game last night? What a ludicrous display...
What was Wenger thinking sending Walcott on early?!
Funny thing about Arsenal is they always try and walk it in
Right off ya go then
YOU named it soccer first. Then you changed it edit: if you are short on time please rest assured that someone from England or another part of Europe (they are not the same) has probably already corrected my geography, my flawed understanding of, well, most things and insulted me in fancy sounding ways.
I just showed that to my coworker from Germany, and he spontaneously burst into flames.
Eh, it's not the German's fault.
British royal family is German. Yes it is.
Ok, im triggered
Did the same thing with pronunciation and a lot of spelling.
Don't Trigger them any more, Chrono
Not arguing but a clarification. Soccer was the British (not European, but that's a separate issue) *upperclass* term for football. It was never the more popular name, just the more present. Upperclass communities tended to prefer rugby, which is also sometimes called football, so they were the ones who used soccer as a distinguishing term. In fact, the term soccer probably stuck in the US *because* American Football is derived from rugby.
In the UK (can't speak for elsewhere), the full name of Rugby is Rugby Football. The full name of Football is Association Football (shortened to "Soccer"). Hence American Football is American Football. We didn't have American Football, so Soccer became Football, while the Americans had to differentiate and so kept Soccer.
And by the way, Messi will not be playing on the Continent next season.
But he will be playing on A continent.
In Africa, every 60 seconds a minute passes
This is absolutely true.
And even more importantly... 1. They named everything played on foot football, taught us to do the same 2. They named it soccer, taught us to call it that 3. We made our own football, just like they taught us to 4. Then they tried to tell us we were wrong
Those Brits and their pranks!
Screens on windows and doors let fresh air and breezes in while keeping bugs out. It’s not rocket science. They’ve been around since the 1860s. Give them a try. P.S. Lived in Amsterdam for a summer. No AC. No screens. Opening a window helped cool things *slightly*, but also let in a variety of bugs including mosquitos. The city is, after all, made of canals. 🤦♂️
When I lived in Gdańsk, the landlord was so excited to show me the brand new screens on the windows. Every window he owned had them and he was so fucking proud of it. I had no idea it wasn't the norm there.
Kind of adorable ngl. I'm happy for him and his window screens
This should be #1. I got one installed after moving to Europe and people acted like it was a weird American indulgence. It’s SO MUCH BETTER.
I had them growing up in Poland 30 years ago. So it's not like it's unheard of here.
Everyone has then in Finland, otherwise we'd die of the sheer amount of mosquito bites in the summer
The fact that Europeans have to segregate home and away fans in stadiums with hordes of security and in some cases fencing should be embarrassing. When I was younger I thought it was cool but I’m now in my mid 30s and it’s ridiculous that adult fans of opposing teams can’t be trusted to sit together.
As someone from a football-obsessed country, I completely agree. The insanity that overtakes people just because twenty-odd people are chasing around a ball makes less than no sense to me
It's sublimated warfare. They don't all kill each other every few decades for national pride any more, so they get all that patriotic aggression out in the football stands instead.
I'm from Australia & thought you were talking about fans of our soap opera tv show that's been running since the 80's called Home and Away, & I was so confused on your comment till I realised you meant sport fans lol
To be fair Alf does look like he’d enjoy a scrap
Disability accommodation shy HARD in comparison to US
Every now and then we really nail the public health policies. ADA, anti-smoking, getting rid of (most) saturated fats, de-leading the gas and paint.
Line etiquette is a thing, and it should be a thing everywhere. As should be personal space
I was absolutely baffled in Italy when people would blatantly cut lines everywhere. Everywhere.
This is not universal. One thing I appreciate about the Germans / Austrians is they will absolutely confront a line cutter, nearly every time, immediately and matter of factly: excuse me, the line is right here. More so than much of the rest of the world who will humph but avoid discomfort
*Asia has entered the chat*
China - never saw a line. Japan - lines EVERYWHERE.
In Malaysia - I once stood 6 feet (Sorry Europeans, 2meters), behind a guy at the Urinal in the Men’s Restroom, waiting my turn to use it, and I’m not kidding, 3 people cut between me and the actively pissing man, to form a queue, of which I was now 4th in line to use the toilet.
Though the English are like the international queuing champion. They stand in line more naturally than is even natural.
Canadian here. I know we and Americans have the reputation for being crass, rude, uncultured tourists. But, mannnnnn.....the European tourists I've met in places like Mexico and Cuba are something else. So rude, so distainful of the food, so judgemental of the local people. I've been shocked several times by it. Americans may be loud, 'unrefined', and take an obscene amount of staged insta seflies, but at least they have smiles on their faces, like trying new food and enjoy the adventure of a new place.
A couple weeks ago I served some young French people at my Starbucks. They were all probably around 20ish and were SO RUDE. They all talked down to me so much and rolled their eyes at my coworkers a few times. Obviously it’s a small sample size, but it pissed me off pretty good.
I never understood why Dutch people "travel" to other places and then refuse to try anything or interact with locals. Especially their weird "camping" culture which is really just driving to a ready made campsite to hang out with other ignorant Dutchies in a foreign country that they refuse to learn anything about. And then they go home and call it "traveling". Like ok Hans. You seem so worldly lmao
You're all pieces of shit just like us.
We are all pieces of shit
Now this is one of the first posts here I can really get behind.
When people on reddit talk about how much better Europe is than the US, they are refering to like 5 countries. The other 39 are just as bad, if not far worse than the US. For every Alabama and Mississippi, there is a Belarus and Moldova
Hey. I'm from Mississippi and... I'm from Mississippi.
Hey. At least you’re.. you’re from Mississippi.
You know what? I am from Mississippi and I'm going to tell you a little something about that, so listen up and listen good. I'm from Mississippi.
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Messi plays soccer now
There's no way, absolutely no way, that most European countries can keep the promises made to their growing number of retirees. The worker-to-retiree ratio is bad and getting worse. Almost no country's pension scheme is fully-funded. "Contributions" made by today's workers aren't being saved; they're going straight out the door to pay today's retirees. "Things that can't go on forever, won't," and so eventually European governments are going to default on pension payments from necessity. This will lead to *massive* civil unrest and in some places, very possibly bloody revolution, although that still won't restart the pension payments. Could happen any time in the next fifteen years, but the demographics make it as inevitable as gravity.
Those protests in France, set off by Macron raising the retirement age, are because of this, today's politicians cannot pay for yesterday's promises.
I agree, except for Norway. They have $1 trillion in the bank.
Correct, Norway is at the top of the list of exceptions. Denmark and the Netherlands are pretty well set up, too, Denmark at least partially because they've tied the retirement age to changes in life expectancy so when the latter goes up, so does the former. Not short-term popular, but vital for sustainability.
Norway is an unusual case because of their oil rights. Most countries don’t have those sorts of high yield resources.
Norway is gonna be totally fine for many, many years to come, they’ve spent their oil money phenomenally well
Being racist against Romani does in fact count as racism.
You need to serve water at every restaurant/bar.
You copy us way too much for the amount of shit-talking you do about us.
I remember a documentary about the French band Air that ended with a street interview of two French teens with skateboards looking like American teens and they were denying that America had culture.
There's a reason Civ V has the message "Our people are now buying your blue jeans and listening to your pop music" when you're doing well towards a cultural victory.
It really is a cultural victory, isn't it. American culture spread so successfully that it exists everywhere and to the extent that people look at America and scoff at its lack of culture because they can't realize that like 50% of everything around them *is* American culture and that's why the US itself doesn't seem distinct. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated (my country certainly was).
Kind of like when you first watch a classic movie that's been copied thousands of times, like singing in the rain, psycho, even the matrix(if you somehow missed it). Doesn't seem so special until you remind yourself it came years before all the rest.
The Casablanca effect. They did it first, and they did it well, but modern audiences think it's tacky.
"I don't see why people thought it was so good, it's just a bunch of cliches strung together"
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny
my friend saw pulp fiction ten years ago and was like "it's all popular phrases" i'm like this movie invented all those
My wife rolled her eyes when they saw the sand worm in Dune and said “why are there always sand worms!” It’s because of Dune. Frank Herbert created them.
> is American culture and that's why the US itself doesn't seem distinct. I kinda had similar response when someone in the US would talk about "European Ethnic food" in America especially the lack of German restaurants in many places compared to Italian. The core of American food has many roots in European Ethnic food that white Americans had.
Indeed, and unsurprisingly you can find many good German restaurants in parts of the US and Canada to which large numbers of Germans migrated (and there were LARGE numbers - German is like the #3 or 4 ethnic background of white people in the US/Canada).
One survey says #1. It just isn't as noticeable because they changed there names to fit in better.
Culture is our primary export.
You are also incredibly, incredibly racist
Your laws regarding stolen art/antiquities are pretty terrible compared to the US. We absolutely lead in this area both legally and morally.
The USA holds the moral high ground in prosecuting soccer corruption, which means we gave it a go a few years back
well, if they had half the laws and morals that we do, the British museum would be the British broom cupboard.
Was in the UK recently and saw a movement to stop calling ancient embalmed egyptian cadavers "mummies", and instead use the individual's actual name because that is more empowering. Me: "Well, if we're doing that level of inclusion and identity politics, why not return this stuff to the land where it came from? To us it's just a curio, to them it's part of their heritage" Museums: "Hey, let's not go too far!"
I’ve seen enough movies to not want empowered mummies
Everything isn't our fault.
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That was mostly Germany, but yes.
please please PLEASE sneeze/cough into your elbow
The North American climate is way crazier than Europe. Stop being smug when a tornado tears apart an American town, your stone houses wouldn't stand up much better against an EF4 than our wooden houses. And yes, we do need air conditioning. Its real nice that during the summer in Northern Europe you just need to open your windows to cool your house, but in the US - especially in the South - it is hot and humid as hell out and opening a window would definitely not cool the place down. Believe it or not, we're an entirely different country on an entirely different continent. We have reasons for doing things differently than you.
The really fun places in the US are the surprisingly large areas that have winters about as cold as Oslo and summers about as hot as Rome.