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What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Old Dec 23rd 2016, 8:47 pm
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Originally Posted by uk_grenada
Scandanavian countries never salt their roads.
It should also be noted that as temperatures decrease, the effectiveness of salt decreases. Salt lowers the freezing point of water, but if the air temperature is below -10C or so, the salt doesn't lower the freezing point enough to melt the snow, and even worse....

A large percentage of snowfalls occur between -4 and 0C temperatures. If you live in a location where the overnight low temperatures are regularly below -10C, you can actually make driving conditions significantly worse if you salt the road. You can have a snowfall, use salt to try and clear the roads, but if there's nowhere for the melt to go (blocked drains by snowbanks etc), and it drops below -10C at night, you create an ice rink on the roads, that will make driving (regardless of the type of tires / drive-train you have) a major challenge.

If you don't salt the road, and have a layer of snowpack on top of the asphalt, then you can use specific winter tires, snow chains, 4WD etc. to be able to get around (just slower). Communities will also put sand on the roads in particular locations that can have traction issues (hills, sharp corners) to assist drivers in reducing the amount of accidents on those locations.
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Old Dec 23rd 2016, 8:52 pm
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Not all of Canada salts roads. When I lived in Edmonton many times the temps were too cold for salt to be useful, so they didn't use salt. Sand was used though.

Where I am now winter tires are not legally required, many do use them, but many also do not and ice and snow are more an exception then a norm so unless going up the mountain passes where they are required or you live up north no real need, a good rain tire is more useful.

M+S all seasons with 3.5mm tread are also acceptable as a winter tire in this province.
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Old Dec 24th 2016, 1:22 pm
  #378  
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Originally Posted by SultanOfSwing
I'm with you there, I ****ing hate Jeeps.
Grand Cherokee: the choice of douchebags everywhere.
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Old Dec 24th 2016, 3:46 pm
  #379  
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Originally Posted by Hiro11
Grand Cherokee: the choice of douchebags everywhere.

The only Jeep is the CJ type that resembles the old WW2 jeep. I bought one from AutoSource while deployed to Bahrain for 13,000 drove 18 years trouble free and sold for 6000.
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Old Dec 24th 2016, 10:49 pm
  #380  
 
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Originally Posted by Hiro11
Grand Cherokee: the choice of douchebags everywhere.
Especially those that buy one with the big V8 Hemi in it and go around polluting the planet.

and guess what we don't give a toss what pricks like you think about us.

Last edited by lansbury; Dec 24th 2016 at 11:19 pm.
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Old Dec 24th 2016, 11:16 pm
  #381  
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Originally Posted by CAdreaming
Being told my accent is cute. Every hour

Being told I am cute
I'm from the boro. I'm not cute. My accent especially isn't cute

Lack of orange squash I can dilute

Restaurants which close at 9pm



No one understanding the phrase swan out of
No stranger in the UK ever told me I was cute, I'll take it (I think it's a great way to build customer rapport, conversation starter, etc.) ... and as a greying 50 year old bloke it does my ego no end of good having youngish South Carolinian girls fawning over me

Squash and Ribena are both available as standard in my local Publix supermarket.

Do you live in the middle of nowhere? Restaurants stay open late in Florida.

'Swan out of'??? Is that Northern (UK) for 'duck out of water'?
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Old Dec 25th 2016, 2:25 pm
  #382  
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Originally Posted by mrken30
Do you mean orange squash/cordial?
Yep and only maybe once a year when I'm ill! 😳
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Old Dec 25th 2016, 2:33 pm
  #383  
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Originally Posted by zzrmark
No stranger in the UK ever told me I was cute, I'll take it (I think it's a great way to build customer rapport, conversation starter, etc.) ... and as a greying 50 year old bloke it does my ego no end of good having youngish South Carolinian girls fawning over me

Squash and Ribena are both available as standard in my local Publix supermarket.

Do you live in the middle of nowhere? Restaurants stay open late in Florida.

'Swan out of'??? Is that Northern (UK) for 'duck out of water'?
I live in the east Bay Area of San Fran and on the whole people do seem to eat much earlier than in the U.K.

Swam out of meaning walk out of somewheee with a bit of an attitude. Maybe it's a northern term. Hmm might start a thread on the cultural differences between north and south U.K. 🤔
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Old Dec 25th 2016, 3:35 pm
  #384  
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Originally Posted by zzrmark
No stranger in the UK ever told me I was cute, I'll take it (I think it's a great way to build customer rapport, conversation starter, etc.) ... and as a greying 50 year old bloke it does my ego no end of good having youngish South Carolinian girls fawning over me
It always seems to me that the word 'cute' is used rather differently in the US.
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Old Dec 25th 2016, 7:24 pm
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Originally Posted by CAdreaming
Swam out of meaning walk out of somewheee with a bit of an attitude. Maybe it's a northern term. Hmm might start a thread on the cultural differences between north and south U.K. 🤔
Ah, gotcha. 'Swanning off' is how we Southies might say it.
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Old Dec 26th 2016, 7:40 am
  #386  
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Originally Posted by AdobePinon
It always seems to me that the word 'cute' is used rather differently in the US.
How long has the US had the common & garden contemporary usage of "cute?" As I understand it, cute is an abbreviation of "acute," and was originally used to describe endearingly clever or perceptive behavior from a child, for instance. From there it gradually morphed to simply mean good-looking, attractive or whatever - maybe post WWII.
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Old Dec 26th 2016, 8:18 am
  #387  
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

'Have a nice day'...
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Old Dec 26th 2016, 8:36 am
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Originally Posted by uk_grenada
'Have a nice day'...
Smile and nod, it is not an insult.
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Old Dec 26th 2016, 9:29 am
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Originally Posted by Pulaski
I think the difference that struck me is how quickly it became normal to drive distances that would be considered insane in the UK. The distance to our nearest Walmart is the same as driving from the house where my mother lives in Gloucester all the way to Cheltenham, driving five miles for lunch or thirty miles for dinner has become quite normal - despite the massive difference in the price of petrol, we spend as much on petrol as we did in the UK because we drive 3-4 times as far!
I have had it pointed to me (on facebook) numerous times by my british counterparts that I shoud not complain about the price petrol because I pay about a quarter of the cost of the price per gallon of what is paid in the UK... my usual reply 'yes I do but I have to drive my kids to school because busing is not provided like it was when I lived in the UK ( I used to drive my girls 3 miles each way but we moved house and I now drive them double that). I also have 36 trip commute rouund trip for work and my husband has a 10 mile round trip for his job... so I may pay a quarter of the cost... but mile for mile I far exceed that of most of my british counterparts.
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Old Dec 26th 2016, 9:35 am
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Default Re: What was the biggest culture shock when you moved to the USA?

Originally Posted by Ash UK/US
I have had it pointed to me (on facebook) numerous times by my british counterparts that I shoud not complain about the price petrol because I pay about a quarter of the cost of the price per gallon of what is paid in the UK... my usual reply 'yes I do but I have to drive my kids to school because busing is not provided like it was when I lived in the UK ( I used to drive my girls 3 miles each way but we moved house and I now drive them double that). I also have 36 trip commute rouund trip for work and my husband has a 10 mile round trip for his job... so I may pay a quarter of the cost... but mile for mile I far exceed that of most of my british counterparts.
Yes, when we worked I had a ten mile round trip to work and my wife a 44 mile round trip. Both were easy and relaxing, just country roads with no traffic... Although my wife had to watch out for large wildlife on her trip home, after eleven pm.
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