So I felt like its time to post something like this again. I've been here for almost seven months now and I can relate to all the following things.
24 hour stores:
When I first got here, I was really confused when my host mum took me shopping to a mall on a sunday. Basically every store is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
No cash:
People never use cash to pay anything, except if it's like a little kid. But in America, you actually only use your master card or whatever, no matter what you're buying. Even if it's just a cookie or something.
No metric system:
America doesn't use the metric system like we do, they have ounces, miles, fahrenheit and all that stuff. People told me that they wish they'd use our system. Its really confusing.
Weird food combinations:
People here dip their fries in their milkshakes when we're at in n' out burgers or any fast food restaurant. It's strange to me, I tried it once, but I cannot relate why they do that. That's not the only weird combination though.
Greetings:
Every time I'm in a store, the clerks say "How are you", but its not meant as a question, its the American way to say hi. Your response is basically just "I'm good, how are you?", no matter how you're actually feeling.
Drinks:
First of all, the drinking age here is 21, which seems weird to me because I'm sixteen and able to buy alcohol in my home country. Its normal to drink a lot of soda (like coke, sprite, dr pepper,…) here and to put tons of ice into the cups. You get free refills everywhere and you never have to pay for water.
Tipping/Taxes:
You always need to pay people in restaurants that serve you extra. Like, you pay them for doing their job and it doesn't say how much it has to be on the recipe.
Same thing with taxes, you don't pay the price it says on the sign, at the checkout its always a different price and it freaking confuses me.
Coins:
Every coin has a different name, for example the 10 cent coin is called dime, but it has a smaller size than a five cent coin which is called nickle. And the dollar bills look basically all the same.
Clothing:
People wear workout clothes even if they're not at the gym, flip flops even though they're not at the beach and they go to stores in their pajamas. It seemed strange to me, but now I'm doing it as well.
Patriotism:
The American flag is literally everywhere. In every single classroom, on almost every house and on many bars. They sing the national anthem before every football game and say the pledge of allegiance every morning in school. Big difference to europe, I feel like we need more patriotism.
Pets:
I feel like everyone has at least one pet, many people have dogs and cats. What's strange to me, is that they don't walk their dogs. Most of them live in the backyards of people's houses.
I hope you guys don't get me wrong, those are just some cultural things that I wasn't used to until a few months ago. Europe must also seem really strange to Americans (f.e. paying for going to a public bathroom, no refills,..)