America, 5 things.

[GQBlues]

For you guys that like to argue about stats like obesity rate and so on, I recommend this interesting site.

http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/

The fact that things like obesity vary from county to county, city to city, neighborhood to neighborhood, and bar to bar account for different experiences.

It's all relative, Konfusus. Regardless where the concentrations are, there are roughly 105 million slim women in relative MUCH closer proximity to AMs in the US than anywhere in the FSU.

[Slumba]

I am kicking myself for not walking Aloe through a 24-hour Wal-Mart at 2AM in the morning 

[jone]

It's all relative, Konfusus. Regardless where the concentrations are, there are roughly 105 million slim women in relative MUCH closer proximity to AMs in the US than anywhere in the FSU.

If that is true, why did all of the fat ones blockade me in Wisconsin when I lived there?  I do confess that we have very beautiful women living in Southern California.  My ex wife and daughter among them.  If you do not know why you are hunting in an FSU country (aside from the obvious eye candy) then you should probably take your blinders off and have a look around where you live.

[whynotme]

I'd start my 5 things about USA from gigantic food portions everywhere ... its enouth to feed 5 people.
All holidays in America are about food. They eat everywhere. And all this food is completely inedible for my Russian stomach, even the so-called salad will be with croutons, bacon and abundantly watered with dressing.
Somebody tells that USA is a large working camp with heavy feeding.

[whynotme]

USA is a large village. I don't into account large cities (well, Seattle and Portland aren't small ones also, but anyway) but that's my feeling. I would not say that its bad, just does not suit for everyone. Distances just killed, no public transportation is a big problem, you feel urself in a kind of prison.

Great nature, parks and beaches. I was surprised - not many people there.

Houses look like sheds. Construction methods here makes me wonder - probably houses are built from cardboard. May be it is ok in Florida but in Seattle winter temperatures are around zero, rains and snows. When you open the door, you find urself on couch in living room and all passer-bies can see what u are doing.

Americans, why do you like carpet floors thats much? Its terrible.

[BillyB]

  there are roughly 105 million slim women in relative MUCH closer proximity to AMs in the US than anywhere in the FSU.

Doesn't matter. I like Slavic looking women and with modern technology, every woman in the world is only a few hours away from me.


Besides obesity, my wife also notices many American women don't care how they dress or look when they go out in public. I don't like women who wear pajamas and hair look like a mess. I also don't like women who walk, talk, dress and look like a man.

Great nature, parks and beaches. I was surprised - not many people there.

High ratio of immigrants and minorities go to parks where I live.

Houses look like sheds. Construction methods here makes me wonder - probably houses are built from cardboard.

That's what my wife said. I tell her construction is fine and America has lots of trees and wood is affordable. I also tell her if we build things with value in mind,  in the end we could afford to buy other things to make our life enjoyable. I'd rather live in a wood house than a concrete apartment any day.

Americans, why do you like carpet floors thats much? Its terrible.

On top of that Americans wear shoes in the house. My wife doesn't like carpet and since it was time to replace carpet in the heavily traffic places in our home, I replaced it with wood. Now when it's time to replace the carpet on the walls and ceiling, I wonder what my wife is going to ask for?

[SANDRO43]

the so-called salad will be with croutons, bacon and abundantly watered with dressing.

Yes, in many cases the guiding principle seems to be: the more stuff in a plate, the better. A confusion of ill-assorted flavours, as in:

my experience with fish in Florida, which often came served with corn and sliced champignons and beets, which, to me, made no sense at all.

[whynotme]

That's what my wife said. I tell her construction is fine and America has lots of trees and wood is affordable. I also tell her if we build things with value in mind,  in the end we could afford to buy other things to make our life enjoyable. I'd rather live in a wood house than a concrete apartment any day.

I meant not material only but planning decisions also. if americans wear shoes in apartments they need not place to take its off as well as place where to put coats and hats - couch in living room seems the proper place for it. 
Russian standards say that street and internal space should be separated by two (in some regions -three) doors, thats means vestibule be mandatory. Or you don't calculate heat loss? The level of the floor at home must not be a level of the street, the house must have a porch above the door and a windscreen, man has to be able to open an umbrella and not get wet.
I did not see many wooden houses. Frame-panel construction is not the same, its technology isn't very different from making post boxes  .

[vwrw]

If I were to list 5 things about America,  as whynotme I would note 1) the largeness of food portions. 2) Disfigurement of the fat people was another surprise. As Aloe, I do not see many fat people here (I guess most of them are couch potatoes and do not go out much); however, those that I see are disfigured as compared to fat Russians who manage to keep normal proportions. 3) I would agree with whynotme that USA is a large village.  Rustic patterns of behavior are prevalent. 4) USA's racial diversity is amazingly wide. I love it. 5) Perception of personal space is different. American person would say "excuse me" when walking by you with one meter distance. To learn where the american  traditions require to say "excuse me" was rather difficult for me to grasp.

[Hammer2722]

May be it is ok in Florida but in Seattle winter temperatures are around zero, rains and snows. When you open the door, you find urself on couch in living room and all passer-bies can see what u are doing.

Zero degrees in Seattle? I do hope you mean Celcius. I'ved lived in the Seattle area almost 20 years and don't think I've ever noticed a day colder than 18 degress F!!!

[Turboguy]

USA is a large village. I don't into account large cities (well, Seattle and Portland aren't small ones also, but anyway) but that's my feeling.

[/size]
[/size]Many of the large cities in America are more like continuous small villages.  That may not apply to NYC but it does apply to lots of larger cities.  I have to agree with you on that.

no public transportation is a big problem, you feel urself in a kind of prison.

The problem isn't that we have no public transportation it is that we have no demand for public transportation.  America is a society built on the automobile.  Ages ago when I was a kid living in a small town of 12,000 people and many didn't have cars the bus ran past my door every 30 minutes.  Now there are 3 buses a day and they are empty.   You feel like you are in a prison without mass transit and I would feel like I was in one if I had to depend on buses and the like.  I like not having to walk to a bus stop, not waiting for a bus, not changing buses to get where I want, not carrying heavy packages on a bus, not trying to make sure I finish up before bus service ends for the day.  I find driving a car, leaving at the moment I feel like it, going right where I want to go and putting my packages in the trunk liberating.  I think it is what you are used to that determines how you feel about something.

Houses look like sheds. Construction methods here makes me wonder - probably houses are built from cardboard. May be it is ok in Florida but in Seattle winter temperatures are around zero, rains and snows. When you open the door, you find urself on couch in living room and all passer-bies can see what u are doing. [/size]

I think it is another case of what you are used to.  I can't disagree with the cardboard statement since many of the outsides are basically plastic siding over top of sheathing that really isn't much different from cardboard but as was mentioned wood is cheap and most of the studs that hold the house up are 6" which is far stronger than the 4" studs of a few decades ago and packed with insulation that makes the house easy to heat and fuel efficient.  Yes, brick and concrete would last longer, maybe but American's don't really want a house to last forever.  We seem to keep trading up to newer houses and as the older houses have less value those with lower incomes can afford them.  American's seem to want houses that are beautiful, energy efficient, have lots of room and a yard that gives the space and outside time to putter.   I would say some of the things that I found interesting in Russia was the importance of security going through sometimes three heavily locked steel doors to get into an apartment.  Sometimes people from Russia are surprised that we worry about the outside.  Many Russian apartments have rather poor public areas but very beautifully furnished apartments.  I guess part of it is what we call "keeping up with the Jones".    Since many passerby's don't see the inside of a house keeping up with the Jones means paying attention to the outside as well as the inside.  Many of the houses do have big windows that would let someone see inside if they were close enough but most are also set back far enough that people can't really see inside.   I think the same applies to Russia in a different way.  Many Russian apartments have large windows that face other apartments and it is probably easier for someone to see in from the other apartments than passerbys in America. 

One of my observations is that the closer you pack people the less friendly they will be and the more space they have the more they will be open and friendly.  I think our wider spaces do contribute to the friendliness in many places and that is why people in NYC will be less friendly than those in Wisconsin. 

Americans, why do you like carpet floors thats much? Its terrible.

I always liked carpet.  It is soft on the feet even though I used to wear my shoes in the house.  Carpet however is loosing favor.  Now laminate floors seem to be the thing and carpet is old fashioned.  Most of the apartments that I was in in the FSU had area carpets so I don't know that carpets are uniquely American.  Area carpets here were the thing until about the 60's then wall to wall came in and now for the past decade or so laminate floors are the rage. 

I enjoyed your observations and comments.   

[SANDRO43]

One of my observations is that the closer you pack people the less friendly they will be and the more space they have the more they will be open and friendly.  I think our wider spaces do contribute to the friendliness in many places and that is why people in NYC will be less friendly than those in Wisconsin.

An old psychological discovery: take a cage and start adding rats or other animals to it, at a certain point they'll start fighting and even killing each other .

Proxemics scholar Edward T. Hall came up in 1966 with this diagram, showing personal reaction bubbles:

Crossing any boundary will cause some reaction, up to possible violence in extreme cases. The radius of each bubble varies with the cultural/social environment .

[GQBlues]

This is a good thread for reading opinions and perspectives of folks coming from other region....

The gals on this thread almost have the very same perspective as my wife did when she first arrived.

Her perspective of LA at the time was it is like a large village. Santa Barbara definitely IS a large village. She liked San Francisco very much, and fell in love with Manhattan. Those were places she termed real 'cities'. So I get the perspective. Especially when she noted that the sun in LA is 'too bright'. I found out the terminology was borne by the fact LA, as do a lot of US large cities, aren't clustered with tall structures and buildings. Unlike Chicago, NY, SF, etc...which is also 'why' the sun is so 'bright'.

I agree about the disfigured appearances of many of the obese folks. I'm not sure if this is genetic but many of these obese folks are fatter more in places than other parts of their bodies.

Yes, the US is a society of excesses, especially with food. We are wasteful in many of our daily function. Many folks in the US live to eat, and not eat to live. Which is why large number of our population have weight problem. That and processed food and not enough physical activity to burn off the fat. Coincidentally or otherwise however, this fact rings most true in poorer urban areas than not.

Home construction, while I prefer standards used here, I can also understand the perception of others. Different regions in the US are under different weathering conditions. Not to mention different catastrophic calamities. Brick constructed buildings and dwelling won't be conducive in California and the immediate areas because of earthquakes. Manhattan can afford to have skyscrapers shoulder to shoulder because the ground is mostly rock, thus, it can afford to support that particular type of infrastructure. Conversely, LA being in a hot earthquake zone and is generally laden with groundwater, can't be too indulgent with such structural landscaping. The few that it does have, are seismically fitted or retrofitted, stabilized and reinforced.

I agree with TG about mobility. I would very much prefer our mode of mobility than public transport reliance. But I do understand and appreciate the observation for our lack of public transportation. Today my wife feels the same way. Since having a car at her disposal to take her anywhere, everywhere and at anytime soon as she steps out of the house, without the nuances of public transportation, she doesn't feel slighted the least bit for our lack of public transportation anymore.

Floor carpet was largely introduce in *spec homes* after WW II. It was easier to manufacture than it was to mill additional wood for flooring since massive amounts of tracts were built during the decades of the 50s-60s. You can check any real estate medium and see when many of the homes were built, chances are 50s & 60s will be the majority. These days, thanks in large part to soft lumber import from our neighbors to the north, wood floors are vastly replacing those hideous carpeting. Especially since the introduction of engineered wood and laminates.

I, too, like our racial diversity. I just keep hoping and praying our politicians stop using this to divide us all to advance their stupid political ambition.

[Muzh]

An old psychological discovery: take a cage and start adding rats or other animals to it, at a certain point they'll start fighting and even killing each other .

Proxemics scholar Edward T. Hall came up in 1966 with this diagram, showing personal reaction bubbles:

Crossing any boundary will cause some reaction, up to possible violence in extreme cases. The radius of each bubble varies with the cultural/social environment .

Believe it or not, this is the reason drivers HATE another driver get in front of them.

[The Natural]

Having spent time in Germany, I would say there is little in Canada that would compare to the quality of the German autobahn. However, you have 80 million people living in a very dense zone and the autobahn only has 12 thousand or so kilometers. The non-autobahn roads are comparable to those in Canada, potholes and all

Is it only me or does 12000 kilometres of prime road not sound like a lot? Here in Norway one of the top topics in the upcoming election is bad roads and that most of the new roads built seems to be funded by toll stations. What really ticks people off is that this makes the roads unnecessary expensive as it's funded on borrowed money at a high interest rate at the same time as our oil money is partly used to lend out money for cheap road projects in Germany and elsewhere at low interests.

[Muzh]

Now I am beginning to think you are serious.  Even a conservative such as me knows this is not humane given where we are today.    The undesirables are our fellow Americans.  We created them.   However, I have no answers other than decades of social programs seem not to be working.

I'm sorry, we created nothing.
 
These were due to spontaneous regeneration and have been multiplying ever since. Or are you going to tell me that the rich is a new concept created by the lamestream media?
 
All these leeches want something for nothing and chicks for free. If anyone is to have chicks for free it should be those who can pay prime bucks.
 
Seriously, I want to see a show of hands of those who would love giving their last five bucks to some shmuck panhandling on a corner. Kick his ass. Maybe a beating will get some sense in them to get to work and stop mooching.

[GQBlues]

...Seriously, I want to see a show of hands of those who would love giving their last five bucks to some shmuck panhandling on a corner. Kick his ass. Maybe a beating will get some sense in them to get to work and stop mooching.

Not quite sure if the entire hand is necessary. Will a show of the middle finger enough? 

I can't say with certainty how it is anywhere else, but here in the Southland, we're pestered with these fellows in our street corners in many places. I used to stop by and occasionally 'donate' for these less fortunate fellas. Until I noticed seeing the same faces at *certain times of the day*, everyday.

They take turns, in 6 hour shifts. Many are provided for by the feds with free housing (likely free medicals, food stamps, and free whatever else) through section 8 and/or those little pockets of trailer housing tracts, much like what was used during the Katrina fallout. And just like what happened there, abused for 4 years running after, the same happens today with these critters. SNAP program is big business,too. The going rate for these charge cards has seen a hiked increase in premiums.

Some of these folks even bring along their dogs, puppies, child/ren to add effect to their stupid plight.

Those who aren't on 'shifts' actually get to stop-by to a nearby food donation centers to retrieve additional food, packaged, inspected and prepared for by volunteers (like my wife and I), courtesy of all the supermarkets that either have excess inventory or just simply given out for donations.

On the surface of this, one would surmise the 'system' is working because we're able to get much needed help for our less-than-fortunate folks.

Just ignore the prevalent drug addiction and alcoholism. Just ignore the BMWs jetting in and out of these trailer communities, etc..many even have the audacity to 'rent' out their trailers for additional 'income'.

Who needs to work and contribute to society when you have a government stupid enough to provide for you. We succeeded to establish such a wonderful system in the United States of Socialist America. Divided we've become, United to fall.

[Faux Pas]

I'm sorry, we created nothing.
 
These were due to spontaneous regeneration and have been multiplying ever since. Or are you going to tell me that the rich is a new concept created by the lamestream media?
 
All these leeches want something for nothing and chicks for free. If anyone is to have chicks for free it should be those who can pay prime bucks.
 
Seriously, I want to see a show of hands of those who would love giving their last five bucks to some shmuck panhandling on a corner. Kick his ass. Maybe a beating will get some sense in them to get to work and stop mooching.

I'll have to agree with Gator, that's not very progressive of you but, I like it 

Having been both a liberal in my early formative years and a far right neo-con nut job in some later ones. Now, I am just in the middle of neither one. The reason for that is, they are one and the same and it wasn't until years later I figured that part out

[Misha]

Is it only me or does 12000 kilometres of prime road not sound like a lot? Here in Norway one of the top topics in the upcoming election is bad roads and that most of the new roads built seems to be funded by toll stations. What really ticks people off is that this makes the roads unnecessary expensive as it's funded on borrowed money at a high interest rate at the same time as our oil money is partly used to lend out money for cheap road projects in Germany and elsewhere at low interests.

They have other roads, of course, but they won't be to the same standards as the autobahn. The point that I was trying to make is that Germany has a bit more than 80 million people squeezed into 357,021 km2. As a point of comparison, Canada has over 33 million people in a bit less than 10 million square kilometres. Having so many people concentrated into a much smaller territory does make it much more cost-effective to build amazing roads such as the autobahn, even more so when as you say you are using cheap credit to do so, but even there not all roads are built using the same standards of the autobahn. This is the problem with comparisons: what do you choose to compare. If you compare any road in the world with the autobahn, the other roads will be in almost all cases inferior in quality. If you chose a non-autobahn road, then the difference may not be all that striking.

[The Natural]

Misha, if they have 80 million in Germany and they have 12000 km of Autobahn, then in my country of 5 million we should have 3000 km of that quality. I guess we have 0, hehe. But still the Germans come here on holidays. I guess it's not the roads they come to check out 

[Misha]

Misha, if they have 80 million in Germany and they have 12000 km of Autobahn, then in my country of 5 million we should have 3000 km of that quality. I guess we have 0, hehe. But still the Germans come here on holidays. I guess it's not the roads they come to check out 

Why 3000? Germany's population is 16 times greater than Norway's and you have almost the same size of country in terms of square kilometres. If you had the same proportion of autobahn as Germany, you would need 750km Again, depending on what criteria you pick, I am sure you could make a good case that Norway is way superior to Germany  Let's go for the bear count, as Germany doesn't even have one, both Norway and Canada would be infinitely superior in that regard

[SANDRO43]

A major feature of German Autobahnen, the entrance signs: 

Ende sämtlicher Streckenverbote (End of all speed and passing limits)

About two-thirds of the Autobahn network has no permanent speed limit, although there is always an advisory limit of 130 km/h (81 mph).

Many major Autobahnen were constructed under the Nazi regime with concrete slabs, and served as auxiliary airfield towards the end of WWII:

[The Natural]

Why 3000? Germany's population is 16 times greater than Norway's and you have almost the same size of country in terms of square kilometres. If you had the same proportion of autobahn as Germany, you would need 750km Again, depending on what criteria you pick, I am sure you could make a good case that Norway is way superior to Germany  Let's go for the bear count, as Germany doesn't even have one, both Norway and Canada would be infinitely superior in that regard

Haha, Guess my math was bad there, 750 k it is. We don't have any bears in my part of Norway but it used to be many years ago. But they do have brown bears in other parts and of course ice bears in Svalbard where they also have the Russian bear, in Barentsburg, hehe.
Getting back on topic on what we like about the US though, I must say the diversity is for me the most striking. From the most artificial fantasy people of California to the hard working real people of many places elsewhere. I always get a good feeling watching the movie "Grumpy Old Men". This kind of America set in the state of Minnesota reminds me somewhat of home. Rough language and jokes and average life standards, and the great cast makes it all wonderful to watch.
I also like how Americans are always polite in public. If they accidentally bump into someone they tend to say "I'm sorry" whereas here they say at the most "Oi". And if you tell them something good that happened to you, they say: "Good for you". Even if it's just a line, it's positive and I like it.

[Misha]

True, I have to say that I like most Americans that I meet in real life. It is fascinating to listen to both sides of the coin when it comes to biases, notably the bias some Europeans have against wood frame construction. The reason why houses are still largely built using 2x4s or 2x6s in North America is that it offers a number of advantages. As GQ noted, they are much more likely to survive an earthquake, and they are easier to build and to renovate (i.e. it is much easier to take our walls, put walls in, or otherwise renovate a wood frame house than one made of concrete).

[ML]

And wood studs with thick insulation between provides much better 'r' values than concrete, stone, bricks, etc.  I even have an extra one inch layer of Thermax outside the studs.

My walls and attic are super insulated which, along with triple pane windows (with Argon between) and passive solar orientation, gives me less than half the heating bill of some of my neighbors (if I were to heat with oil full-time rather than my abundant wood); and my A/C only needs to run to take humidity out of the air in summer.