based on knowledge of the US : many things that other places take for granted or fight to preserve, you guys struggle to obtain.
based on my trip : fucking nothing, I visited new york and stayed at a run down, pre paid hotel. I ate food from stores or carry out. I can’t exactly critique the healthcare system, tipping culture, driving culture when I had access to a fairly modern public transport system, didn’t need medical assistance and didn’t need to tip 50 people just to eat one thing.
EDIT: it’s like asking tourists in antalya at the beach what they think of turkey, they’re fucking tourists, they aren’t affected by the dictator and his bullshit
I was just in Göcek and Ankara and I had some wildly interesting interactions with locals when they asked me how I liked Turkey.
“I like it, very beautiful country, lovely people, great food.”
“So you’d move here?”
“Uh… perhaps not”
“So you don’t like Turkey”
👀
lol
those fuckers have some nerve asking you that shit, when we have so much brain drain that most high streets are basically completely catering to elderly people with hearing aid and similar stores on each one, because all the working age people leave to live abroad.
No shit rich foreigners don’t want to move to turkey.
source : part of the brain drain for both turkey and the UK. fuck them countries.
My girlfriend and her sister are also in the brain drain. Definitely a sad state of affairs, so many of her friends and friends family’s have been either political prisoners, or had ongoing court cases, etc.
I’ve been trying to learn Turkish so we can move her family over here too and I can actually chat with them, but I fear they’ll need to work on their English so they can get around.
Juxtaposition of pearl-clutching Puritanism w/ a 21 drinking age against beer available in a 7-11.
Pick a fucking lane
I’m from Alberta Canada. I’ve worked up North in camp jobs, and have been working in the trades with the rowdiest people our country has to offer.
Every time I’ve been to the states I’m shocked at how aggressive a large portion of your population is willing to talk to people. Every time I’ve gone there I’ve had at least one negative aggressive interaction with one of your citizens. I’m a large man with a beard and tattooes up to my neck, I’m a pretty intimidating looking dude paired with the Canadian politeness we’re known for. I do not understand how this keeps happening. And I see you guys do it to eachother too! It’s fucking wild.
I give you my silly example. We were on a work trip with a college. We were talking in English. I said something like: I wanna try a hash brown! Never had one.
This dude replies to a conversation he wasn’t part of: THEY ARE JUST POTATO! very angrily.
Yeah… I know… Turns out I love potato
I’ve been to Montana, Texas, Florida, Seattle, and Tennessee and Las Vegas most recently. Also worked at a tourist town with lots of Americans for several months in Canmore and the Americans there seemed to have a similar attitude.
Go fuck yourself. /s
Just kidding, but yeah, we suck as a people. But I’ll be friendly to ya when you land in my neighborhood.
It should be pointed out that MOST Americans I met were not like that. But it’s a large enough amount that it’s always been a noticeable difference from home.
As an American I think it’s largely that we generally suck at dealing with negative emotions. For many that means bottling it up and being kind anyways, but we have the assholes and you learn to walk away, or clap back, or whatever works for you and they just get angrier at being dismissed. They aren’t mad at you, they just suck and we’re bad at helping people not suck, especially since they tend to love guns
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
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
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!
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?
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
