this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
307 points (97.5% liked)

Asklemmy

44156 readers
1395 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 29 points 2 months ago (34 children)

British.

I found a lot of things weird, but I did go to Florida like 8 times so it’s to be expected and maybe some of these are exclusive to that state.

  • I found it weird that alcohol seemed to be sold only in liquor stores. But you can buy a machine gun in Walmart.
  • The food. Don’t get me wrong it’s nice and all but the quantity. Take sizzlers, you go in order your main meal then get an endless buffet for free. Like I couldn’t eat my steak when it arrived as I was full from the buffet.
  • syrup all over breakfast items and people bigger than id ever seen were gorging and then taking a box home too.
  • enthusiasm: grown ass adults whooping and hollering as we were queuing for rides. I’m a man child myself but it was startling.
  • Jaywalking. Wtf

To throw out some positives. Everyone I met was lovely and nothing like the nut jobs we get to see online. People were polite, friendly and accommodating.

Beautiful nature and national parks.

load more comments (34 replies)
[–] Dagnet@lemmy.world 26 points 2 months ago

Sizes for clothes, drinks and fries are all bigger than in Brazil. A medium size shirt in the US is easily as big as a large in Brazil. For drinks I would usually groan every time I forgot to buy a small drink since I literally can't drink a medium soda in the US in less than an hour and I hate wasting food.

[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 26 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Well I've just read every comment on this thread and I'm relieved to realize that our recitation of our National Pledge of Allegience at every opportunity is in-fact seen as totally normal.

[–] gondwana@feddit.org 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I noticed too many churches in Texas.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (15 children)

Canadian, so it's not all that different, but why. can. I. buy. liquor. in. a. PHARMACY?

Don't know if this is just a California thing, but it was weird as fuck. What's even weirder, in light of this, is they didn't go whole hog and sell cigarettes too. 'Cause helf.

Side story: Went into a Dollar General and bought a can of Sapporo. Ok, not so weird, it's functionally a super basic grocery store with a bunch of other cheap goods. Guy at the counter said, "Oh yeah, they make this beer in some place very far away". Looked at the can - I'm pretty sure he meant Japan, not Guelph, ON Canada.

He wasn't wrong but I did chuckle.

load more comments (15 replies)
[–] cadekat@pawb.social 23 points 2 months ago (10 children)

Canadian checking in.

Biggest oddity to me is that the default for restaurants is one bill, and waiters get annoyed if you ask them to split it by person.

Like why would I want to either:

  • do math correctly splitting the bill while trying to leave; or
  • be worried I ordered something more expensive than the average and unfairly make others cover it?

It's complete insanity to me.

load more comments (10 replies)
[–] No1@aussie.zone 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

Seems to have deliberately taken the opposite path of anything British:

  • Drive on the wrong side of the road
  • The light and power switches are upside down
  • Weights & measures. Imperial? Ha!
  • Screw your English dictionary. Ima put z's everywhere, drop the letter u and randomly pronounce words like buoy so you think there's an animal in the water over there

It kinda makes me laugh to think about it as just anti-British 🤣

[–] Zron@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago (3 children)
  • we invented the modern car, y’all are driving on the wrong side of the road
  • a switch is a switch, if you don’t like the direction it goes, just flip it over and put the cover back on, half the switches in my house go one way, and the other go the opposite way, some of them are even sideways.
  • y’all sank the ship that had the US copy of the metric standard on it, and also invented the imperial system in the first place.
  • if you look at the entomology, the US largely uses the original English pronunciation of things, it’s the British who have slowly changed their pronunciation over the centuries. We did have a guy who intentionally changed a bunch of the spelling, you are right about that.
load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Kraiden@kbin.earth 22 points 2 months ago (15 children)

Electric kettles (or hot water jugs depending on where you are) are just not a thing there. Apparently it has something to do with your 110v AC system. They don't boil as fast, and so never really took off. Just a little factoid that blew my mind, considering how commonplace they are everywhere else.

load more comments (15 replies)
[–] butsbutts@lemmy.ml 22 points 2 months ago (4 children)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] LANIK2000@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The god damn warning labels on absolutely fucking everything. Bro, I just wanna eat at a restaurant without wondering why the menu has a god damn "at your own risk" label... Also can't go 1 step in a water park without seeing a life guard, they're fucking everywhere. Not to mention on the rare occasion they aren't there, you just can't do shit. Land of the free my ass, feels like the optimal way to do anything is to always have a lawyer by side.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] scytale@lemm.ee 20 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Drive thru ATMs. Also, people just sitting in their cars without driving.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] AgentStarling@lemmy.ml 20 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Sugar in hot drinks by default. Asking for coffee-no-sugar seems to trigger incredulity. At least this was my experience in the South. New York is another country altogether, no eyebrows raised there.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago (4 children)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 2 months ago (3 children)

How annoying waiters are. I don't need small talk and I don't need you asking if everything's okay every five minutes. Just let me eat in peace!

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] eezeebee@lemmy.ca 16 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I'm Canadian. I went to a concert in Michigan (Third Eye Blind) and half the crowd had some article of clothing with the American flag on it. Not really that weird, but it's more than I'm used to seeing Canadians sporting Canadian flag clothing.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Minarble@aussie.zone 15 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Donald Trump. I mean seriously WTF?

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] JustAnOrdinaryCreep@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Guns. Paying for being medically treated / not having a proper healtcare system. Weird relationship to Socialism.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›