Another Canadian.
All-green money is weird, about as weird for us as ours is for you. Once I knocked over some products in a store and then picked them up. The staff acted like that was saintly, so I guess other people just make a mess and move on? Drive through liquor stores are weird, and seem like an invitation to drink and drive. Paying at a hospital is weird just in concept, although thank god I’ve never had to deal with it down there.
Uhh, other than that it’s been pretty similar in the places I’ve been. Etiquette around “sorry” is famously different, but aside from giving me away as Canadian it has little impact.
Edit, to add a couple positive things: Amazing Mexican food and barbecue not only exists but are ubiquitous. Coding jobs pay good money.
Everyone has an air conditioner, although Canada might be the weird one there.
Canadian here, British Columbia.
Going to a Wal-Mart in a small-ish town and counting 38 CCTV cameras across the outside front of the building. Ours, in a city with 28× the population, has only 6.
Inside that same Wal-Mart, going into a checkout line without first checking out the customers, and the very next guy ahead of us was an open carry: a semi-auto (AR-15 like looking weapon) slung over his shoulders, a handgun in a holster on his waist, and a lump on his right ankle above his boots. And two knives on his belt. Dude looked like he was ready for some urban warfare.
The sheer amount of infrastructure decay. Sure, even Canadian towns that haven’t seen economic good times look run down and dilapidated, but American towns really kick that up a notch. Most small-town buildings look like they haven’t seen a makeover since the Carter administration.
Unusually authentic Mexican food. Up here 90% of Mexican places are run by white dudes who make semi-authentic “fusion” dishes that are mainly just spicy. Cross the border and less than 15 minutes in, there is one family-run chain (Rancho Chico, Rancho Grande) with super-cheap 100% authentic foods run and staffed solely by Mexicans. And like, holy shit, that’s good food.
The sheer number of people who support and vote for a party who will do absolutely nothing for them, and will enact policies that will drive them even further into poverty and destitution just so their Parasite-Class campaign donors can get even more obscenely wealthy. Conservative voters are just weird, man.
Fast food portion sizes. It’s out of control. Drinking 1 liter of soda for lunch shouldn’t be normalized. BTW most people are super friendly and nice, in Michigan at least.
Oh, and why is all the cheese orange ?
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.
It’s not the healthcare that bothered me most, although it did.
It’s the cognitive dissonance around the unavailability of healthcare in order to avoid anxiety over the fact that a traffic accident can bankrupt you with no relief. Ignoring the risk takes some serious mental gymnastics and basic math failure to get there, but when brought up in this environment - where a TV show about a teacher who has to cook and sell meth to get hospital money is actually a plausible plot where no one actually examines the mercenary care at all and the main character just pays it - it’s just a part of their existence.
Not understanding that few other people live like this - cubans don’t live like this - is absurd.
When I watch “alone”, it’s so depressing at the end when they ask them what they’ll do with the money they won. And they say “pay for my wife’s cancer treatment”. Like omg America
It’s awful
Yeah, as an American it’s disturbing and makes it hard to believe we can change things. You’ve described it very well.
Maybe that explains the amount of mental health issues in the population?
Why were Cubans emphasized out of all people?
A natural impoverished (by us) enemy just a stones throw away.
What’s natural about a blockade?
obviously nothing, but we did it anyway and forced a nearby country into near starvation, thankfully they were resilient enough to hold out but not before we labelled them our enemy
It really is a tremendous injustice. Hopefully with global shifts in power they get some breathing space. The world would grow with a growing and prospering Cuba. They’ve had and have a lot to offer.
Because cubans are considered a poor, third world country (despite the definition being something different) and because USA considered them an example of evil communism. Sure, communism then was far from ideal, but at least now they have healthcare (according to OP)
everything is chlorinated. i get painful rash if i ingest chlorinated water, so basically everything was undrinkable. this was also true for soft drinks the time i visited Vegas, so my options for hydration were extremely limited.
Do you mean fluoridated? Was the drinking water really chlorinated?
Typically yes water is chlorinated. By the time it hits your cup, most of it’s gone and is save to drink. If you let the water sit out longer, all the chlorine should dissipate.
I think it might depend. Chlorine should, but chloramine doesn’t (which I only know because the latter can really mess up home aquariums). Since our water just has chlorine, I leave it out overnight before doing water changes.
Yes public/city water systems often do use chlorine in the sanitation process: https://www.safewater.org/fact-sheets-1/2017/1/23/what-is-chlorination
And you can really smell and taste it when you’re used to rural well water.
In north america, yes. i have municipal water, i’ve stayed in hotels all over europe, and i’ve never had the feeling of drowning in a pool when drinking tap water before going over there. the worst thing i’ve encountered in europe is filtered tap water, which tastes like charcoal but is drinkable. the chlorinated water just made my throat close instinctively.
To name a few:
Calling yourself Americans, after the entire dual continent. There are two continents and many other countries in the Americas, you know… [I know you know. And, what are you supposed to call yourselves, ‘USAians’? ‘Americans’ makes more sense and is easier to roll off the tongue. But it’s weird.]
Holding the door open for me. Smiling at me on the street. Those are sure signs of a swindler, but it’s the norm in the USA. [I am not suggesting USA folks are swindlers, only that those actions are what swindlers in much of the world use. USA people are generally super nice and a genuine pleasure to be around.]
Turning right on red light. Red means stop. It’s weird and confusing.
Edit: I added a third thing.
Edit2 in []
We are far from the only people that refer to us as Americans.
Very true. I added context as you commented. I’m not putting you down for it. It’s the term that makes most sense. It’s just weird. Not wrong or dumb or stupid or anything else insulting. It’s just a weird term to use, even though it’s the one that makes most sense. I honestly meant no disrespect or offense. I actually like USA and its people (I mean, there are crazies everywhere, but they don’t define the rest of you). I genuinely apologize if I offended you. Seriously, mate, I meant no offense at all.
Edit: clarity
No problems at all, I just see this opinion a lot and think its weird when people think we’re the only ones that say it, when it seems pretty common for other nationalities to do it too.
It is very common. Actually, I don’t think I’ve heard it as anything else. It’s still weird to me hahaha
You can even turn left on a red if it’s from or into a one-way street. I think that is state specific though
It’s pretty much everywhere except for NYC and Montreal Island.
Don’t you mean “from AND into”?
From OR onto?
I’m just imagining someone making a left from a one-way onto a two-way, and it seems like it would be a very bad idea in that situation?
Aww c’mon, I was gonna deliver this in a much more conspiratorial tone!
With regards to right on red. It (legally at least) requires that you must first stop at the light. So if you are turning right the idea is that you are supposed to first check for active traffic and treat it as if it is a stop sign. If someone ahead of you is waiting to turn right and then goes. Then you are supposed to pull up and then stop again before turning. Though in practice a lot of people will at best treat it more like a yield sign and just roll through without stopping. In super low traffic times or places where traffic is a non-issue (like a rural road where as you pull up to the light you can clearly see open roads without anyone) then this isn’t really an issue aside from learning bad habits. Though heavy traffic places are much more of an issue.
Regarding the red stoplight:
In Germany we have a rule that you may turn right if theres a sign permitting you to do so. In that case the traffic light is to be treated like a STOP-sign.Functionally the same but inverted in the states, there are signs that tell you when it’s NOT allowed. Just a matter of which is more efficient, signing when it’s allowed or signing when it’s not.
I’d prefer the need to look for the sign instead of hoping nobody ripped it off.
The technical term is 𝕌𝕊𝕠𝕟𝕚𝕒𝕟 just so you know
No replies on the holding the door and smiling being the sign of a swindler? That actually sounds like you live in an exceptionally hostile place. I’m swedish, as in people not exactly known for showing a lot of warmth to each other in public, and I always hold the door, and smile at people very often. The smiling part might be somewhat unusual here in Sweden too, but not unusual as in bad or a sign of a swindler. Most people seem to appreciate these behaviors. Either that or I’m absolutely delusional and everyone secretly views me as a swindler ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Calling yourself Americans, after the entire dual continent
But we never use “America” to refer to North and South America collectively. You can say “the Americas”, or just “North and South America”. And there’s no adjective that means “of the Americas”; you can say “North or South American”. But just “American” unambiguously means “of the USA”.
I’ve always wondered if disagreement over this comes from the fact that in some parts of the world, North and South America are considered to be one continent just called “America”, whereas we consider them to be two separate continents. And we don’t have a word for the pair of continents, any more than we have a word for Europe and Africa together. (I mean we do have “Eurasia”, which kind of pokes a hole in the hypothesis, but maybe that’s a special case because a brief glance at a map makes it clear it’s pure fantasy to count those as separate continents.)
Yeah, I always wonder how often there’s a need to refer to inhabitants of two continents together as a single entity. Like, if you say someone is South American or North American, that is never confused with being someone specifically from the US. When would those terms be insufficient?
The A in USA stands for “America”
I’ve never been there, but apparently you guys don’t have blackberries, and have grape jam?
Edit: what you don’t have is blackcurrants, not blackberries.
We absolutely have blackberries. In my neck of the woods, there’s apparently 2 species of blackberries, one of which is highly invasive. I was going for walks about a month ago, specifically routed to pass by as many wild blackberries as possible, and they were very delicious!
Do you have blackberry jam? Or is it a different berry I was thinking of?
Edit: it’s blackcurrants, isn’t it?
I’m pretty sure we have blackberry jam, but I’m not much of a jam person, so I can’t say so from personal experience. Although if we have the berries, I can’t see why we wouldn’t also have the jam. Looks like blackcurrants is probably what you were thinking of, although they’re technically available in the US now.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackcurrant_production_in_the_United_States
I avoid anywhere with blackberries and raspberries when they’re in season; that’s where the bears tend to hang out, and I’m not super keen on surprising a bear when I’m out hiking.
Surprised a family of bears (sow and two yearlings) trying to walk out of my basement last week in the dark. That was not fun.
That sounds quite terrifying! I’m in a pretty urban environment, so I don’t think there’s any bears hanging out on my usual routes, only coyotes, but I will keep that in mind whenever I venture out of the city.
Nice username. 😏 Dynavap fan? 🍃🍃🍃
We definitely have blackberries. We don’t really have blackcurrants though, may be thinking of that?
Yep, currants took a hit because they were a vector for a pine tree infection that rocked our logging industry and led to a ban on currant growing like a hundred years ago. Currants aren’t banned at the national level anymore.
And even through that, we have had creme de cassis as a liqueur that a decently built out bar would have.
TIL, that is so interesting! I should start selling my blackcurrant jam in the States, it’s delicious.
Thanks for the info!
We’ve definitely got blackberries and blackberry jam, but grape does tend to be the norm in a lot of areas. I prefer raspberry myself.
We have both blackberries and grape jam. Though grape is more likely to come as a jelly rather than a jam.
Grape jelly is more popular than jam, but we have both. Grape jelly is kind of an essential foodstuff in a lot of houses for making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which is a common food for children.
I never understood the need to display multiple US flags in your yard. We get it, you live in america. You love America. We get that too. Are you afraid someone will think you no longer wish to be American if you took your flags down?
It took me (an American) going to Ireland and Northern Ireland to realize how odd the excessive flag waving is. Still odd, but those two have the US beat.
“Those two” have a few reasons to want to wave their flags.
But the Republic and Northern island need to fly those flags so you know where you are and whether it’s been taken over.
Okay, maybe not, but when I was in America for a few years we decided the ridiculous fixation was so people knew that they hadn’t been taken over … again.
Currently live in the Republic of Ireland and I have no idea what you’re talking about? Were you here on Saint Patrick’s Day? There’s a significant amount of Palestinian flags in windows here for pretty obvious reasons but other than that I don’t think I’ve seen a flag since, again, Paddy’s day.
No, leave them up so I know to avoid you.
I think for some it’s a mix of patriotism and having poor taste in decor. I know people who also have American flag swim shorts, sunglasses, etc. Also, it’s not exclusive to America. My British side of the family (especially the ones who’ve met the former Queen) have a weird amount of UK flag decor too, ranging from clock faces, throw pillows, and even an armchair covered in a giant union jack.
As long as it’s the UK flag, and not the English flag, I’ll give them a pass. Stay clear from anyone in an England flag, drunk or sober, football or naught.
Honestly I assume most people with an American flag in their yard are racist trump fans these days
You know what’s a funny one? Flag pins. Every politician in America, take a look, they will ALL be wearing a little American Flag pin, always.
I have to assume other politicians in other countries don’t always wear a pin of their country.
Funnily enough this is exactly how people think including our house.
I took mine down when Roe v Wade was overturned and the Progress Pride flag went up. I had been considering putting the American Flag back up recently if Democrats start winning again.
People from every country like to pretend that patriotism isn’t a natural part of living but will stick their heads so far up their own asses when talking up all their food, culture, teams, or any other number of arbitrary things.
And while there has been some divergence in Patriotism vs Nationalism, they’re essentially the same damn thing but with better connotations for one now lol.
Shoes in the house
I grew up in a home where we just never thought about wearing, or not wearing, shoes in the house. Like, we obviously didn’t track mud all over the place if our shoes were that dirty, but if we were wearing our shoes inside, nobody said anything or cared, it was just whatever. Married a Kenyan who put her foot down and was like, “Are you crazy?” It’s apparently a big thing elsewhere in the world. In Kenya alot of roads aren’t paved, things get dusty, and it’s just common sense that you don’t walk all over the house with dirty shoes, so I get it from that perspective.
Yeah that’s a huge part of it. Few Americans (me included) frequently walk outdoors on anything but sidewalks or paved roads in their normal day to day travels. When I go hiking I take those shoes off before I get back into the car, but my daily driver boat shoes which rarely touch actual dirt? I don’t have a problem leaving those on in most places, my house included. Same I imagine for Americans where their job is construction or something where your shoes are dirtied, talk the work shoes off when you get home, but it’s fine to wear more casual shoes
Edit: what a strange thing to get downvoted about
As an American, it drives me crazy. Then there’s those heathens who lay on the bed with shoes on!
American of asian descent, absolutely ludicrous! It would perhaps be more forgiviable if all of the floors were furnished in hardwood and tile, but they’ll wear shoes even on carpet! Immediately after entering one of these heathen’s houses, I long for the soft, lucious, kempt, carpets of my own abode, compared to the repuslive, stiff, flat and even crunchy carpets of my white friends. Frankly it offends me, deeply. I must slap my friends silly before entering my home to remove their filthy clogs.
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urp….i think I may vomit…
What shoes are those? Those are dope
Thanks!!
You’re welcome!
I had a pair of adidas that looked like them maybe 30 years ago, they were the best, most comfortable shoes I’ve owned
I wear my street shoes inside except winter. Both my work boots come off regardless. Also have house slippers. But I’ll be damned if me or someone put their shoes on a bed, or even a couch for that matter.
Both my work boots come off regardless.
No one asked, but now I need to know: when would you only take ONE work boot off?
I have two sets, one summer and one winter. Though not sure why put it that way lol
Only place I’ve live where this is taboo is Chicagoland. And that’s to be expected with the muddy snow.
Here in the South we usually don’t have carpets, no reason to take our shoes off.
Thinking that there is no reason to take your shoes off is the most American thing in the world. There is poop, pee, puke, pollen, pollution, parvo and prions out there, among other things.
In Japan the entryway of a house is usually a step lower than the rest of the house. It is considered part of the outside, where the shoes stay, as well as all of the dirty things from the outside that are on the shoes. And symbolically, your troubles from the outside world are not brought into the house either. It’s a major faux pas to wear your shoes in the house past this step and bring all that shit inside. Interesting contrast
yep, living in San Francisco made me a shoes off indoors guy, for every p you listed*
*except for prions. mmmm, delicious prions
Ever walked into a public toilet? Well, that piss is now all over your floor at home.
As is spit from the street. Remnant dog poo, bird poo, etc etc.
Take your shoes off. Please.
It’s not carpets that I take my shoes off for - it’s so I don’t track public bathroom and outside street debris into my house.
Yeah. No carpets, dogs coming in and out. I only take mine off if they are legit muddy, it’s a lost cause, I am not going to make everyone take off their shoes. We aren’t eating off the floor. I am also willing to sit on the ground outside, turn cartwheels, etc. Really just not that paranoid about dirt.
Up north I understand everyone has carpets.
Some places there is much more sitting on the floor.
It seems situational to me.
Nobody is putting their shoes on the furniture though, they are putting them on the floor.
As an American this is gross to me too
Oh man YES
That is always a weird one for my brain to work around.
Do I just live in a weird bubble? I live in the US and I am rarely at someone’s house who doesn’t remove their shoes nowadays. I certainly grew up wearing shoes at home, but that’s changed significantly over the past 20 years or so.
I’ve been wearing moccasins indoors for decades.
Sooooo comfortable!
As soon as I get home, all of my outside items are exchanged for comfy inside items. It’s like a physical form of masking.
Family eating at shooters (and the whole hooters/twin peaks concept)
Need to take the car for a 500m trip because there is no sidewalk and a highway to cross
The car thing really blew my mind. My hotel was 400m from the office but 1.6km by car. Colleagues were waiting for a taxi while I walked. I had to cut over a couple of car parks and a bit of grass (zero sidewalks) and was there in a few minutes while they turned up 15min later since they were waiting for a taxi.
The worst part, they all jumped in cars to go 300m down the road for lunch. Yeah, I walked. With looking for a parking space then walking from the space to the restaurant, they got there after me.
I adore Americans; they’ve been nothing except kind and generous to me in every part of the country I’ve visited but damn, the money they’re wasting alone just starting their engines and the wear and tear on the vehicles blows my fucking mind. Build some sidewalks, guys!
Many of us would like this, but it’s dangerous or even illegal to get to some places by walking in large parts of America. And zoning laws make it really difficult to change.
Depends on the state, but biking can be legitimately faster in cities with gridlock traffic. Particularly if there are biking greenways. I unintentionally beat friends back from a beach after they hailed a taxi, and I ebiked the ~3km home. In their defense, the terrain is extremely hilly, and some of them aren’t super comfortable on the city ebikes.
It’s illegal to walk to Costco
It’s illegal to cross the street some places
How so ?
Ilegal to walk to to Costco sounds so much non sense to me ? like you can’t go shopping without a car ? Legally speaking ? That makes no sense
It’s a joke, buddy.
Being overly fake nice because you want a tip. Tbh I’d be more inclined to tip you if you left me alone and stopped talking to me.
The whole tipping thing in USA is weird. Everyone wants a tip, it’s entirely random (as a non-American) how much tip to give. Just pay your staff a wage they can actually live on ffs.
As an American I agree it’s fucking weird. Tips should be for exceptional service and not an obligation.
There’s actually a loose set of rules to it. Im not sure where the specific numbers came from, but 22% of the bill as a tip is considered “excellent service”, 18% or so is considered “mid” or “acceptable” service, and anything below that is a sliding scale of how bad you think they did. 0% is either you being rude and/or saying “i dont believe in tips”, but giving a $0.01 tip is basically saying “fuck you, you piece of shit,” (because fishing out a penny or writing it in takes more effort than opting out).
Those numbers used to be 12, 15 and 18. They’ve increased, but I’m not sure why, since they’re percentages. They keep up with increased food prices automatically. Not sure why tip growth has outpaced food prices.
It may also be my region. Its always been this way for me for at least the last 15 years or so.
Now, those squarepay terminals that suggest 30% tips or similar can eat rocks.
Yeah but how do you consult those rules? How often are they updated? How do you get notified of updates?
The fact that there are no answers to these questions and therefore everyone is working with mismatching rule sets makes the whole thing useless. You can be totally well meaning and still piss off a server because somehow you don’t know what the currently acceptable magic number is.
I recently visited the states for the first time in a decade and didn’t find out until afterwards that 15% is now considered by some people to be “low”. Sorry everyone who I tipped, I shafted you without realizing it. 🤷♂️
We don’t even get this memo. I thought it was still 15, 18, and 20. And I’m wholey against mandatory tipping, but always do so because I don’t want the underpaid staff to starve. I have enough friends in food service who can barely pay their rent with multiple roommates.
Depends where you are, but I think a lot of times they’re happy just to get anything.
Parts of Greece apparently also do tips. Is that new? :/
I’ll try to avoid stuff you know is weird.
- Adjectives. You can’t just have a thing. It has to have an adjective. For example: Milk. I wanted to buy milk. I get to the milk section, and there’s no such thing. There’s x milk and y milk and about a dozen other variants. Where is the basic milk (it turns out, I wanted “4% milk”) in this damned place?
- Fresh produce. In fairness you’ve gotten loads better on this one after subsequent visits, but beyond some basic staples like potatoes, carrots, corn etc it was really limiting what fruit and vegetables you could get in the supermarket. Also: baby carrots are weird.
- Your cheese is radioactive yellow. Cheese is not supposed to be that colour - but you seem expect it to be for some reason, so your producers add yellow colouring to their cheese.
- Your eggs are weird. I’m not sure what yous guys do to to them, but it’s like you blast away half the shell and are left with a porous super-white textured inner shell. They need to be refrigerated and last a fraction of the time they’d last if you just left them alone and sold them as they are laid.
- Your bread tastes weird. Maybe it’s sugar or preservatives in it, I don’t know. Bread is meant to have a really short ingredients list like flour, water, salt yeast and maybe a touch of oil and sugar. Take a look at the ingredients on your bread and it’s 5 lines long.
- Portions! Your food portions are ludicrous. I’d much rather pay half the price for half as much food as they offer on the menu.
- Money. You have this weird unconscious pecking order thing in your culture where you value people more based on their bank balance. You show a weird unconscious level of respect to someone who is rich. And similarly, unconsciously look down on someone poorer than you. Not in a mean way - just as a “I’m better than this person” way that is hard to quantify. You are aware at some level roughly how rich everyone you deal with is. I see this trait far less in people under 20. I hope there’s a cultural shift on this one, because money on its own is a weird way to measure someone’s worth.
- Your police are run by the local counties. I think your schools also? I know you have state and federal police also, but most places only have police and schools at those levels.
- I’ll mostly stay clear of health, because you know your health system is weird. But I will say that it’s weird that very few of your hospitals are run by government. They’re mostly run for profit. Health is meant to be a government service.
- Outside a few cities, you barely have public transport of any sort. LA is a mega metropolis, and it’s train network is a joke for that level of population - something like 100 stations for 18 million people?
- You have no idea what’s going on. Most of you couldn’t name the UK Prime Minister (this one has been hard to keep track of, in fairness), the German Chancellor or any of the G20 leaders aside from USA and maybe Canada/China. You don’t know about geopolitics beyond whatever you guys are doing. Your world news is literally stuff USA is involved in.
- I’ll finish on a weird one: you guys are lovely. This may because I’m white and have an exotic accent to you guys, but almost everyone I’ve ever encountered from the USA in or out of the country has been wonderful. You don’t seem to think of your fellow countrymen you meet as ‘good’ by default. There’s a lot less connection and respect to each other than other nations I’ve been to.
Tipping
Oh we realize, but it’s difficult to stop once it’s been ingrained in the culture. Not only that, employers took advantage of that and therefore tipped employees have a much lower minimum wage.
Technically they have the same minimum wage. If they don’t get back up to minimum wage in tips, the employer is legally required to make up the difference. The issue is most people don’t know this, and so employers get away not doing it. This is one of the many forms of wage theft, the most common form of theft in the US.
And minimum wage isn’t a liveable wage in most of the US now. Well, unless you split rent amongst 4 working people in a single bedroom apartment. That’s only an exaggeration in some of the US.
Which means tips up to minimum wage are just extra money in the bosses’ pocket.
Or the servers do know that and don’t want to collect on a few extra bucks to lose their job the next day.
I only stopped there for transit on a flight to Mexico. Just before boarding my flight I was told that I need a visa for the US, which is extremely weird because normally airports have transit zones where you don’t need any visa. But apparently the US is special, so you actually have to enter the country before going right back into the airport. This nonsense made me miss my flight.
Also I remember in the airport there was a security guard doing nothing but shouting nonstop that it’s not allowed to carry water. Why not simply put up a sign?
Americans don’t read.
We read, just not posted signs without a skull on it or something cool like that.
If it is important they would put it on a hat.
I’d also say sign fatigue (plus general fatigue) is a thing. When you go to an airport security line there’s like these giant signboards stood up like the 200 Commandments, each with a mix of pictures and walls of text of for things you’re not allowed to bring on a plane. Or some things you can check and not carry on or you can carry on and not check. And you’re also expected to know all of that while you are in transit, stressed, and maybe also sleep deprived.
Too many signs to properly pay attention to them all.
Am American, don’t know what this says
We weren’t elected to read.
W.r.t. water bottles, I think it’s because people don’t look at or think about the signs that are often posted. A loud person yelling specifically at you is much more likely to make someone stop and ask themselves if they have a water bottle.
I’m definitely not defending it, but that’s my take on the matter. The whole water bottle thing is just security theater anyways.
Or you guys like to be shouted at. There is no other country that does this.
You’ve been here. So you’ve witnessed first hand our lack of social cohesion. We’re not a civilized people. We’re barely above feral and deeply ensconced in tribalism. Capitalists did a great job gaslighting this country into this situation where we’re aware of their abuse but somehow still manage to blame one another instead of the abuser. The Business Plot didn’t fail, it bided its time and rolled out slowly and surreptitiously.
Canadian ex-infantry checking in with an exception to that assertion.
I definitely haven’t been shouted at in any of the European airports I’ve been in (from memory, KEF, HEL, AMS, MAD, BCN, NCE, and BER, so not super representative of the continent), so to me, it seems like an American phenomenon. I haven’t been to Canada enough to know what it’s like there. It’s also somewhat recent. I’ve been flying for 25ish years now, and I feel like the yelling has only been happening for the past, I dunno, 5-7 years?
As others have said, I don’t think it’s that we like being shouted at. We just have a large number of people who are, uh, “ruggedly individual,” to put it in nice terms. Those people don’t really think about others enough, so you have to yell at them to get them to pay attention to the world around them. I’m the type of person that looks up the rules before I leave and makes sure I have all of my shit out of my pockets before I even enter the security line to ensure I don’t reduce the efficiency of the security checkpoint. I often feel a bit exasperated with the people who don’t think about others in those situations.
As a means of dealing with it, I’ve found that smiling, making eye contact, and nodding at the TSA agent doing the yelling makes them less likely to yell at me while simultaneously making me feel a bit less frustrated—expressing nice feelings and trying to show some common humanity with the people I’m interacting with makes it harder for me to feel angry. Not saying that’d work for everyone, but it’s helpful for me.
Just before boarding my flight I was told that I need a visa for the US […] This nonsense made me miss my flight.
I WOULD HAVE FUCKING LEFT IF YOU’D LET ME ASSHOLE
Not like that, they didn’t let me board my flight from Europe to Texas. Even though I had a connecting flight to Mexico few hours later. Why can’t they have a visa free transit zone like every other country in the world?
So they can rob noncitizens using asset forfeiture laws. Never travel in or through the US if you need to transport large sums of money or valuables.
Actually, the better advice is never travel in or through the US. I wish that were an option for me.
A couple of times I’ve travelled Air NZ route that goes London-Auckland via LAX. The plane has to stop to refuel I guess. All the passengers are forced to queue up to be fingerprinted and have their eyeballs scanned, while a security guard walks up and down screaming “STAY IN THE LINE!” Then they’re herded into a lounge barely big enough to hold everyone (first class passengers have their own little pen next to the toilets). Apologetic air crew distribute apples, crisps and bottles of water. For hours. Through a glass wall is a view of the rest of the airport: shops, cafes, bars, space to stroll. But hey, at least you get to not miss your flight, and the US is safe from Kiwi tourists.
I don’t know if they still do this, I avoid the route.
did london via LAX as well. This was my only experience of the US:
Arrive LAX and do the whole enter the US customs, the agent asks if anyone has had access to my baggage to which I answered “everyone here with security access”. The shit head was not impressed and let me know.
LAX is also just the worst fucking airport. I remember feeling shocked the first time I flew to LAX. I thought that a city like LA would have a nice, efficient airport, given how much traffic that airport gets and how much money LA has. It’s been 10 years since I was last there, but I wouldn’t be surprised if LAX was just as dingy and disorganized now.
I’m sure the whole security theater bullshit would occur no matter what airport you flew through, and I don’t know if the experience would have been any nicer anywhere else. I just don’t like that airport, I’m in a bad mood, and I want to complain about things on the internet.
Because fuck you, that’s why.
Also, freedoms or something, I dunno.
Because fuck you, that’s why.
America in a nutshell.
I only stopped there for transit on a flight to Mexico. Just before boarding my flight I was told that I need a visa for the US, which is extremely weird because normally airports have transit zones where you don’t need any visa. But apparently the US is special, so you actually have to enter the country before going right back into the airport. This nonsense made me miss my flight.
Not like that, they didn’t let me board my flight from Europe to Texas. Even though I had a connecting flight to Mexico few hours later.
I am no longer on your side. if your journey is :
European country X -> Somewhere in the US -> Texas -> Mexico
Then of course you’re going through security controls, etc etc. You’re going from the international processing and flights part of the airport to the domestic flights part of the airport, which is the zone where any asshole in that country can travel in, so you’re properly entering the US. Of course you need proper clearance and visas and all that.
I initially assumed your journey was
Non US country-> Somewhere in the US -> Mexico
which you’d be completely right
No domestic flight, just Europe -> Texas -> Mexico.
i’m back your side fuck that airport
China did that to me too, except I didn’t miss my flight. After getting off the plane they made us go through immigration and when they asked how long I was staying I said about 3 hours. Stamped my passport with a 1 day visa haha
The US doesn’t do sanitized transport because there’s not really a need in most airports. The vast majority of passengers are Americans or coming into America. It’s also self reinforced, because once others learn they stop doing layovers in the US. It might make sense for a few large airports like Atlanta, JFK, and LAX.
