"The fact that so much American cheese is coloured orange surprised me."

[bluemagicrose]

So instead of doing some schoolwork due Tuesday I decided to spend my night reading this.

Oh dear lord.

Some of my favorites:

"I cannot imagine why nobody yet mentioned root beer. From a German perspective, that is the single weirdest thing to learn about, tightly followed by the taste of "grape" juice."

"4700 kinds of toothpaste."

"I was startled to

Comments

[roganrules]

The crazy part to me is that you can only turn left on red on circles. I think the accidents would happen when someone doesn't realize that it only applied to circles and he/she tries to turn left on red on a regular street. Aiken is kind of a crazy town to drive in because it has a bunch of one-way streets because of the grid set-up and a lot of streets have weird turn lanes where the lane that you think will still straight will actually become a turn lane. Also, people just ride their horses down the street a lot of times. Just pure craziness.

It makes me sad that a lot of people haven't even traveled outside of their own state. At the same time, I have traveled outside of my state multiple times, but there are still so many places within Arkansas that I haven't traveled to yet. Having a passport in Europe definitely seems like a necessity. I think I read that because of the EU that people don't have to use their passports as much within Europe, but that is still kind of a recent development and only applies to countries that are part of the EU.

I would hate living somewhere that doesn't have good customer service. I was kind of surprised by the comments about things people liked in the US, especially customer service stuff, because I found it kind of crazy that they don't have good customer service in other countries.

The patriotism and flag comments were interesting to me as well. I know that the flags became a bigger deal after 9-11, but even so, I don't understand why people in other countries wouldn't want to show patriotism for their country with flags. *shrugs* I found it intersting that no one mentioned state flags or school flags because I thought those would be more interesting or surprising than American flags everywhere.

I was also really amused about the yellow school bus stuff. It makes me wonder if other countries have school buses, and if so, what color(s) they are.

[bluemagicrose]

I think the patriotism stuff is way over done here. I get it, we love America. We don't have to puke American flags every time we go somewhere though. The patriotism stuff is just a cultural thing. I'm with the Europeans on this front, you can love/be proud of your country without having a flag everyone and being all "America, fuck yeah!"

Come to think of it, I've never seen anything about school children in school buses in Europe. How else would kids get to school? Maybe they're not necessary there?

[roganrules]

I definitely think it can be overdone here, but I also think it is important to have pride in your country. I don't think everyone needs to have a flag in front of their house, but I do think it is a good thing to show that you have pride, especially when your country is at war. I hate the wars that we are in right now, but I am still damn proud of the soldiers involved and have no problem showing pride in honor of them. I just think the flags and things like singing the national anthem at sporting events and cheering for USA teams in the Olympics are good ways to show pride. I don't know any other way to show pride that would be visible to foreigners.

I guess school children in other countries could take public transportation (city buses, subways, trains, etc), but what about field trips? Wouldn't schools need to provide transportation for those?

[bluemagicrose]

I guess we just have differing opinions. Just because you don't have a flag on your house or sing "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch doesn't mean you don't love America. You can still thank servicemen and women when you encounter them without going crazy with the America love.

[roganrules]

I wasn't saying that. I was just saying that I don't see anything wrong with people choosing to have flags on their houses because a lot of people I know that do that do it because a family member is in the service or a veteran. My family doesn't hang a flag outside our house. I don't know if you have been to baseball games or not and I am sure that you were exaggerating for effect, but they play "take me out to the ballfield" for the seventh inning stretch. Believe me, I have been to plenty of baseball games. :) On that subject, I don't really have a problem with the national anthem being played at sporting events or bands playng songs like "God Bless America" or "America the Beautiful" as part of their pregame or special military show around Veteran's Day that most college bands have.
Having said that, I do think the America love can be overdone, but I think that it has more to do with rhetoric (people saying that America is the best country and no other country can be better, etc), not flags and songs at sporting events.

[bluemagicrose]

They do it at MLB games.

And there's a difference between doing it on Veteran's Day and doing it all year round. I get why, I just don't like how crazy it can be.

[roganrules]

I just googled that and apparently it was started after 9/11, but only a couple of teams do it for every game. A lot of teams just play it on Sundays and holidays. It is also used for post-season games and special things like the All-Star game. "Take Me Out to the Ballfield" is also still played for most seventh inning stretchs so technically we are both right. No sport is more American than baseball so maybe that plays a part in it.

I do understand what you are saying and your reasons, but I guess those songs just don't bother me at sporting events, especially things like baseball and football since they are so American. *shrug*
I think that in general Americans are more vocal and visual with regard to things they love (country, sports teams, etc), and I don't know if I would want it any other way, but I do get that we have differing opinions on that and that's fine with me.

[moerlin]

Hmm, I actually did get to school by school bus, but I was the exception to the rule. (As in, my school was one of only two in our state that actually had school buses.) They're no different than regular buses though, they do not stop at or even drive by every kid's house (such a waste of time! Everyone was on their own when it came to how to get to the bus stop), etc.
Mostly, kids just go to school in their own or neigboring towns, so they can walk/ride their bike/take public transport, or if they go to school in a different city/district altogether, it's mostly public transport or your parents driving you, though the latter is very rare.

And hee, I actually do not currently have a passport (expired recently), but I still get to travel within all of the EU. ;) But yeah, we still usually have passports.

[bluemagicrose]

I don't think most buses stop at houses here either. I know I had to go to a bus stop. But yeah, they're mostly just not needed then, cause the schools are pretty localized for everyone? Here you can go miles with only one school in the area. It's pretty crazy.

[moerlin]

Oh, thank god. ;) I only remember at one time driving behind a school bus in MI, and - kid you not - it stopped at two houses that were literally next to each other to let off two kids, and each time they'd pull out the stop sign and turn on the warning lights and everything. I'm guessing that was because it was an elementary school bus then or something?

And yeah, population density is much higher here, so we have schools in pretty much every town. Sadly, mine was ~30 miles from where I lived. I was pretty sure going to school in my own town would've been better, but the parents wanted me to go to the other school; what can you do when you're 10? ;)

[roganrules]

The town I live in is basically two baby mountains with the highway in between them so the school buses have to make more stops for safety reasons. The street that I live off of is really hilly and curvy with lots of blind spots for drivers and there isn't space for sidewalks because the road drops off like mountains do so it isn't safe for kids to walk very far. For that reason, the buses stop more frequently.
Since most schools don't use school buses, how do you guys do transportation for field trips? Just curious.

[moerlin]

Okay, that makes sense. What will never make sense to me is the unwalkability of most American cities, though.
And field trips were also done using public transport, or on rare occasions they'd just charter a bus, but that was maybe once every 5 years or so...

[roganrules]

There are definitely not enough sidewalks in most towns, but there are some walkable cities/towns. Where I live isn't really walkable, but there is a really nice trail system in northwest Arkansas that is eventually going to connect all of the cities/towns (they are working on building part of it around the interstate right now). I guess Americans would rather drive/take public transportation than walk, but it would be nice if places were more walkable.

Okay. We don't really even have public transportation where I live. Most of the field trips I went on were in elementary school, and I can't really picture a teacher and a couple of parents being able to take kids on public transit and not have problems (lose a kid, etc), but I guess it would be easier if the kids were used to taking public transportation. Sort of related, did you ever see the show Magic School Bus? When I think about field trips, I always think about that show. ;)