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gwendolynlerman · 4 months

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Things that surprised me as a European tourist in the United States

This is based on my experience as a Spaniard traveling to the United States (specifically New York City and Washington, D. C.).

Like many people around the world, I have grown up in contact with U.S. culture through literature, film, and music, so I didn't experience much cultural shock, but some things still surprised me.

All vehicles (cars, trucks, school buses...) are huge! Most cars are pickup trucks or SUVs. The most common brands came from the United States, but I also saw many Japanese cars, especially Nissan and Toyota (mostly Prius, USAmericans seem to love this model 😂).

Customer service is great, not only in restaurants or places where one is expected to leave a tip but also in museums and subway stations.

I heard many different languages spoken by locals, including Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish, as well as European languages spoken by tourists, such as French, German, and Portuguese. (I think that this is mostly the case in big cities, and especially NYC.) In general, the United States is more ethnically diverse than that in Europe, or at least Spain.

People wear face masks more often, although I guess that this is transient due to flu season. Still, way fewer people wear them in Spain.

Taxes are not included in the price. (I was aware of this but used to forget about it at first.)

Toilets are not as deep as in Europe (the water is really close to your butt 😖), and many flush automatically. Public restrooms always have seat covers but normally do not have a toilet lid.

The doors are really heavy! No wonder many people (mostly men) held them open for me. I once had to throw myself against the door to open it. What is the deal with doors in the U.S.? (Is it a NYC thing only?)

People were quite loud (and this is coming from someone who grew up in a country that is renowned for how loud we talk) and played music/videos without headphones in the subway 😑

Cops are surprisingly chill despite the reputation that they have. A guy was insulting a couple of them from across the subway platform, and they just smiled and waved at him. In Spain, it is a crime to insult a police officer, so I was surprised that they were so chill about the whole situation.

On that note, there were a lot of cops around the city at all times (even at 5 a.m.). I counted nine of them in Penn Station!

Drivers honk all the time because of every minor inconvenience. On Thanksgiving Day, there were a lot of traffic jams, and people were honking as if that would magically clear the streets... And, of course, if one person honked, the rest honked as well, so walking on the street on the main avenues was really deafening 😐

Traffic lights are quite far away from where cars have to stop.

Fire truck sirens are really loud and sound like emergency alarm systems. (It reminded me of those TikTok videos ranking them.)

People say "Excuse me" in the subway when going in or out, which was a nice change from the shoving and pushing I'm used to in Madrid.

I saw a lot of people carrying around huge reusable water bottles. (Here's an explanation for why USAmericans drink so much.)

People called me "Ma'am" instead of "Miss". I know it's the polite way to address people, but it was very weird 😂

New Yorkers (maybe USAmericans in general) love to use cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) when giving directions. Someone once told me, "Go west on Broadway" and I was like "I have trouble orienting myself when I use Google Maps, do you think I know which direction I'm going in at all times??".

There are lots of caution signs about worker safety on construction sites, both in English and Spanish, which leads me to think that there are many work accidents 🤔

As a solo female traveler, I was a bit concerned about my security in a city that I have heard is dangerous and in a country where mass shootings are a relatively normal occurrence (unfortunately), but I felt mostly safe. I was surprised to see many posters that read, "If you see something, say something".

Related to the above, I was shocked to see "This is a gun free zone" posters in public places and "No guns allowed" posters on supermarket doors.

I was really surprised to see ads with phone numbers with words in them, like the one below. After doing some research, I discovered they are called vanity numbers and are easier for people to remember. (If, like me, you're wondering how to dial these numbers, apparently you just press the number that corresponds to the letter on the keypad.)

I smelled marijuana everywhere! Although illegal in Spain, you can also smell it sometimes, but it seemed ubiquitous in NYC. (I personally hate the smell, which is why I noticed.)

#langblr #english #united states

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