A German in America

[morbiczer]

I find the observation about the ATMs to be the strangest. Here in Hungary ATMs give out all sorts of bills, usually up from 1000 forint (~5-6 dollar) to 10.000 (~50-60 dollar) or even 20.000 (~100-120 dollar). (That's the highest bill we have.)

 

[Mark]

Is Columbus almost as big as Urbis?

 

[Aurora]

Welcome to Ohio!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Hey Jürgen!

I'm an army brat who has lived all over the USA and at one point used to live in Stuttgart. I've been back to Europe a couple of times- most recently Russia in 2005. Its refreshing to see the personal- not media- European perspective on the US once in a while.

I was reading about your view on public transportation. I agree- Europe has done a great deal better about public transportation than we have- here you find the best public transport in the big eastern and western cities. There are exceptions, though.

However, there is a dark side. It can lead to a certain complacency.

My original home town of New Orleans had a pretty good public transportation system, and it had a population around 600k. It was possible to live your entire life there without driving. Unfortunately, the downside of that was seen when Katrina hit. Many people didn't evacuate because they simply couldn't.

As for the ATMs- I can't speak to Europeans' experiences with them, but here in the US, there was a huge rash of gun/knifepoint robberies at them for a decade or so. Some people started calling them Mug-O-Matics. Eventually, the banks put in security cameras and reduced the amount you could withdraw, both in amounts and denominations, and that particular crime wave crested and receeded.

 

[dontpunkme]

Both New York and Chicago-style pizza are garbage. Sheer utter filth that should only be fed to stray dogs. If you want a true pie, come to New Jersey, home of the tomato pie.

And depending on where you are, some areas of the US have a tremendous amount of quality bakeries that can really make a good loaf (unfortunately, I've yet to discover a place that can make Irish brown bread).

And yeah, nothing can top the 1900 calories that is the Baconator at Wendys. Your full daily allotment of calories (and they serve it with a soda and french fries).

And yes, American city design is definitely different from European standards. Take a tour of Washington D.C. and you'll realize the city was designed using a spriograph. And they're so uncreative they have multiple 3rd avenues, 4th avenues, etc, and they do not believe in labeling the streets in many of the circles. (This was done strategically so an invading army would be confused.)

You're articles were definitely interesting. It's always entertaining to hear people from different countries take on the US.

 

[D.Shaffer]

I'd just like to state I've been enjoying your entries. It's always interesting to see a different take on various things you get used to, even if they're not QUITE par for the course for your area. I'm a NJ boy myself, for instance.

 

[GentleGiant]

Regarding ATMs (advice from a fellow European who has been to the US a couple of times):
I don't know if German banks have the same rules as Danish ones, but just in case they do... don't use an ATM unless it's an emergency!
Use your VISA card instead (most places take them and you really should get one if you don't have one)!
I found out that if I wanted to withdraw cash from an ATM I had to pay and extra 3% of the amount withdrawn to my bank back home in Denmark. Whereas if I used my VISA card I didn't pay anything extra (same as with buying things over the internet). Although 3% doesn't seem like much it quickly adds up.
Now, since our VISAs are debit cards, we can't get cash back from stores, so to obtain cash I would just pay stuff (like groceries) for some of my US friends with my card and they'd give me the cash instead. That way I'd always have reasonable amounts of cash on me without paying the extra ATM fee.

Cars
Americans really love their cars... just be glad that you're in a large city. My first visit was to a town a bit further south from where you are, Huntington, WV, and boy oh boy did they love them some pick-up trucks!
Another thing about about cars (and weather) that you're not going to experience, but I'll mention it anyway since it fits in with your observations about the US... people in LA seem to be mystified (and terrified!) of this thing called precipitation... more specifically, rain.
I watched in disbelief as a drizzle caused the entire freeway system through LA to slow down to a snail like pace. A trip that on any other day would take 20 minutes on the freeway, now tooks us 3 HOURS (I'm not kidding, the trip really took 3 hours and 10 minutes from "home" to where we were going - Santa Monica to Inglewood)!
They just seemed so unused to this strange phenomenon that most of them didn't know how to drive on a slightly wet freeway.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

I watched in disbelief as a drizzle caused the entire freeway system through LA to slow down to a snail like pace. A trip that on any other day would take 20 minutes on the freeway, now tooks us 3 HOURS (I'm not kidding, the trip really took 3 hours and 10 minutes from "home" to where we were going - Santa Monica to Inglewood)!
They just seemed so unused to this strange phenomenon that most of them didn't know how to drive on a slightly wet freeway.

That's an LA thing, I've never seen rain even near monsoonal rain you get during a tropical storm slow down traffic in any other city I've been in. But LA? It's like a drop hitting the pavement causes mass hysteria. Sometimes I wish they'd just accidentally nuke that part of California so nobody would have to deal with it again.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Sorry for not checking back on this thread for a while. But now there's news.

First of all, I've added a new entry of observations.

Furthermore, I've created a little YouTube video as my commentary on American bread. Please take it in the humorous spirit as it was intended - I don't want it to cause a flamewar as it did on other forums (people living outside the United States will probably find it funnier than Americans...).

I will post some replies to the other posts that have accumulated here later in the evening.

 

[GentleGiant]

That's an LA thing, I've never seen rain even near monsoonal rain you get during a tropical storm slow down traffic in any other city I've been in. But LA? It's like a drop hitting the pavement causes mass hysteria. Sometimes I wish they'd just accidentally nuke that part of California so nobody would have to deal with it again.

Oh it's definitely an LA thing, I think I made that clear.
I did experience the other type of rain, the tropical storm kind, and it DID slow the traffic down, pretty much no traffic was to be found.
Driving up from Florida in late January (back in '04) a friend and I hit the backside of a tropical storm just as we got to Jacksonville.
I had never seen anything like it (and haven't since)!
2-3 inches of water standing in the road everywhere just from the downpour and visibility down to 20 yards tops. It was crazy and we turned around and drove out of the storm again to try circumventing it. Managed to cross over the state up there and then up through the western part of Georgia... where we ran into a massive fog instead! Crawling pace on the freeway until we managed to spot a Red Roof Inn sign by the side of the road.
So, from 80 degrees (26 degrees C) in the shade in Florida to a tropical storm, then an immense fog and finally snow as we went up through Tennessee and Kentucky the next day... not exactly the kind of weather you experience on most trips through Europe.
Good thing we didn't drive the way back up we did down there, through the Carolinas, since they were covered with several inches of ice from an ice-storm.