Things which surprised/shocked you about specific US cities

iusedtoknow

SpaceTime wrote: »

ut the washing machine had a 350 rpm spin and was utterly tiny! It was like they went to a discount electrical store and found the crappiest washing machine that cost less than €100 and shoved it in. Even the brand was unheard of. So, you got a load of almost sopping wet clothes out and had to hang them on the balcony. No when most of us think of Spain, they think of the Costa del Sol. I was up in the North of Spain and you had to crack your clothes off the washing line in winter as it was about -7ºC on the balcony.

I eventually gave up and actually purchased proper washing machine and a dryer and put it out on the balcony. Life changing, literally.

Same with us when we rented in Madrid, bitterly freezing in the winter, it'd take sometimes 2 days to actually dry our clothes outside...dryer changed our life completely.

In barcelona it was never a problem, even in winter. In the summer you put the clothes on the balcony and they'd be dry in 30 minutes

Dave1442397

InTheTrees wrote: »

I like the controls on the US washers and dryers too.

Hot, warm or cold. Gentle or regular. on/off. Easy.

You usually need to read a small book to figure out the european machines. Why do I have to set it to temp 7 and cycle 12??? And then put the detergent in a little slot on the side? Argh.

That's so true! I had to get my reading glasses to figure out the dryer at my parents' house in Ireland.

Celly Smunt

I guess the general vastness of the country still stumps me. I remember when I used to travel a lot coast to coast by car for work I'd have to fill to the brim in nearly every city I'd hit. None of this "ah sure I'll fill up in mullingar before Galway" stuff. The vastness of the farms and never ending corn fields are unreal.Also to add,there really is nothing in Nebraska.

City wise I love Austin,cant think of a better place in the states for culture and good time vibe.I also like Philly.New Hampshire and Maine are hidden gems.

Can't stand DC or New York. I'm sure when you visit these places for holidays or for a weekend shopping they can seem appealing,but any prolonged time in New York can really strike an nerve.And the traffic,lord the traffic.

In saying all that,nothing used to make me happier than leaving buffalo and heading for Niagara. Crossing over into Canada,hitting St.Cathrines and knowing I was only 60 minutes from the CN tower used to give me such relief.

For me there is good and bad in America,sometimes it can be really horrible but then something amazing can happen around the corner.

Anybody notice the crazy look you get when they have an offer on and you don't avail of it?,I remember being in KFC in Wisconsin I think and didn't want the buy one get one for a dollar deal or something like that and you'd swear they'd thought id needed to be sectioned.

SpaceTime

jaymcg91 wrote: »

In NY a lot of the places have restroom codes printed on the receipt that you have to key in. Much more efficient IMO.

They have those in Paris too and the WCs are still disgusting anyway as they just don't clean them more than once a day.

SpaceTime

InTheTrees wrote: »

I like the controls on the US washers and dryers too.

Hot, warm or cold. Gentle or regular. on/off. Easy.

You usually need to read a small book to figure out the european machines. Why do I have to set it to temp 7 and cycle 12??? And then put the detergent in a little slot on the side? Argh.

Main reason is that Europeans speak 24 official languages (and that's just in the EU) and I think we (and I think Ireland's heading this way too) are just a lot nerdier about stuff like that too. Using letters/numbers or symbols avoided having to make 24 different front panels.

Digital displays are making things easier though as you can just select your language and the machine will display it. We still have umpteen cycles though.

My oven, made in France has about 12 cooking modes !!?? I have no idea why I'd ever need to set it to more than about 2 of them.

Same goes for European road signage (which Ireland only sort of half uses with a bit of American / Australian and a few home-brew ones that mean the exact opposite (the red circle here meaning you must/should do something rather than forbidden) thrown in to keep the German tourists confused.

But the general Euro idea is to use symbols where possible rather than words as there's a distinct possibility that drivers may not be able to understand Danish or Czech.

ceadaoin.

SpaceTime wrote: »

They have those in Paris too and the WCs are still disgusting anyway as they just don't clean them more than once a day.

Once a day is being generous! Some of the toilets I saw in Paris looked and smelled like it had been a while since they'd seen a mop and bucket.

SpaceTime

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Once a day is being generous! Some of the toilets I saw in Paris looked and smelled like it had been a while since they'd seen a mop and bucket.

C'est la tradition!

The issue actually comes down to the fact that waiters and restaurant staff will not clean toilets as they don't see it as part of their job. So, they usually get a contract cleaner in once a day to do it. Someone pees near the toilet, then people stand further back to avoid standing in the pee puddle and then it gets worse and worse...

Some places are better though, mostly non-touristy places as they really don't give a toss because they simply get the tourism without trying in Paris and just herd them around the place.

I have seen horrendous customer service in Paris that would actually nearly embarrass me as someone who lived in France for a while. Like in Starbucks near the Louvre a 'waitress' knocked a cold coffee of a table onto someone's lap. She didn't even make eye contact. Just went "pfftt!" and walked off to get a "mop" which she didn't even seem to know how to use .. just spread the coffee all over the floor then went "pfft" "ou! la!" and walked off.

The tourist asked if she was going to apologise and she shrugged and walked off.

If you ever need to use the toilet in Paris go to the Carrousel du Louvre (fancy shopping mall under the louvre). You pay about €2 but it has the most amazing jacks known to man. You can pick what theme you want, it has reading material, it's spotlessly clean, perfumed, attended, etc etc.

They have Le Wi-Fi (wee-fee) etc etc etc.

A company called Point-WC operates a network of these around Paris and you can actually get membership !

le capitalisme français

http://www.pointwc-corporate.com/les-implantations-pointwc/

shamrock55

How nice new yorkers are: one complete stranger swiped his card through the turnstiles for me one morning when i was getting on the subway, my card had run out, i wouldnt mind but he was going the opposite way, also getting off another train a black lad called out to me just as i was getting off, i had left my wallet on the seat and he was handing it back to me (hey buddy your wallet) i thought that was sound, there was only 5 bucks in it but still

SpaceTime

shamrock55 wrote: »

How nice new yorkers are: one complete stranger swiped his card through the turnstiles for me one morning when i was getting on the subway, my card had run out, i wouldnt mind but he was going the opposite way, also getting off another train a black lad called out to me just as i was getting off, i had left my wallet on the seat and he was handing it back to me (hey buddy your wallet) i thought that was sound, there was only 5 bucks in it but still

Yup, had that in NYC and oddly enough Paris too (nearly fell over on both occasions).

Guy in NYC swiped me through one morning and in Paris my card wouldn't go through on a Metro terminal to buy tickets and a very abrupt and snooty lady stuck her Visa card in and paid! She then refused point blank to take cash for it and just walked off as abruptly grumbling not to make a fuss and not to look a gift horse in the mouth!

Most unfriendly city customer service wise in the US I was in was actually Seattle.
On a few occasions I was told to "hurry up" in queues and stuff like that in department stores when I was trying to find my credit card!!

I think the Seattleites fancy themselves as a bit hipster/alternative/grungers with a major attitude.

They just seem to specialise in cutting sarcasm which is something I didn't really encounter anywhere else in the US in that context.

rossie1977

Vegas, the real city that never sleeps. you can get a steak and a bottle of champagne in basically every hotel in town at 4am on tuesday if you want..try that anywhere else.

San Francisco, the only city i have been to that can be roasting hot one day and freezing cold the next.

Orlando, the distances between the theme parks are vast. even the disney parks are so far apart you either need to drive/get a cab or take the transport provided ie boat, monorail.

Phoenix, the quietest big city downtown in america surely. most small west of ireland towns have more people and cars on the street at 5pm on a monday evening than you will find in downtown phoenix.

Miami, receives more than twice the annual rainfall of dublin. if you are unlucky enough to be caught outside in one of the city's famous thunder storms you won't be long figuring how why that is

Big Nasty

Nothing worse than being in a queue behind someone who has had 5 mins to get their cash / card ready but only starts to root out same when the cashier rings up.

SpaceTime

I had my card in my hand. They were just damn rude / sarcastic.

Basically the card didn't swipe on first try due to a worn out reader.

Big Nasty

SpaceTime wrote: »

I had my card in my hand. They were just damn rude / sarcastic.

Basically the card didn't swipe on first try due to a worn out reader.

Fair enough. But you actually said you were trying to find it.

ProudDUB

InTheTrees wrote: »

I like the controls on the US washers and dryers too.

Hot, warm or cold. Gentle or regular. on/off. Easy.

You usually need to read a small book to figure out the european machines. Why do I have to set it to temp 7 and cycle 12??? And then put the detergent in a little slot on the side? Argh.

Thank you ! When I moved back here, I had to get my sister in law to come over and show me how to do a load of laundry without blowing the house up. I think she's convinced I wore dirty clothes, the entire time I was away.

One of life's great comedies is the Irish Mammy going to visit her offspring in 'Murica for the first time...& seeing all the beds in the house being stripped, sheets n'all into the washer, then into the dryer and then back on the beds & all done in just a couple of hours. It can be too much for them sometimes.

No taking 2 days to do all the loads, no 14 trips in and out to the clothes line, no hunting for clothes pegs, no peering at the sky all morning long wondering if you should bother putting the washing out, no frantic running back out when it rains to rescue them, no tripping over overflowing clothes baskets in the kitchen, no clothes horses blocking the view of the telly, no hours and hours of ironing of sheets & pillow cases.

Then the final insult to "How It Should Be Done", no roasting everything in the hot press for at least a week. Because it is one of the laws of nature, that you'll catch your death of cold if you sleep on sheets that haven't been properly aired. Seeing it all done and dusted in just a couple of hours, has driven more than one poor Irish Mammy to drink.













.............a nice cup of tea of course. :P

spideog7

A lot of dryers in the US are run on natural gas, especially anywhere that has a mains gas supply. I know plenty of people who use clothes lines too though, it's no different to the automatic cars really, you just grow up used to one thing or the other, not really much reason for it. I hate dryers they shrink clothes and tear them shreds and they're never as fresh as they would be hung out in a nice stiff breeze :-) Herself won't be without one though, I reckon if her clothes had been hung out all her life she wouldn't have half as many pollen allergies as she has!

avetolaugh

iusedtoknow wrote: »

San Francisco: I had been years ago on vacation, and then was offered a job here - so took it.

What I was surprised by: The amount of homelessness. Some of it self-inflicted, you'd have people wanting to come to Haight Ashbury and live in a flop house, sit at the top of golden gate park with their dogs, high or meth'd out. A few were interviewed and were kids from other parts that wanted to "experience" the haight for a while before heading back to their families
You also have homeless people with mental health issues, many of whom are actually from out of state and bussed in and left. Many of these are ex-cons or schizophrenics that their home states (ahem..Nevada is the main culprit) just don't want to look after.

The cost of living: Rent is off the charts, we are in a rent control and still pay 2600 a month. We tied ourselves in a couple of years back, now it is even worse

The anti-tech movement: A lot of tech companies are down in the valley, and there are startups paying crazy money in the city. Landlords can charge what they want, making it hard for minimum wage earners to survive. The arts are suffering, this in turn is causing some parts of society to be very "anti tech". Commuter busses are egged, flyers are dropped in their neighborhoods telling their neighbors what they do at the company, and how much they earn etc. I'm lumped in with it all , even though I am in pharmaceutical technology and not part of the new brand of start-ups

San Fran is such a beautiful city, the different neighbourhoods, the hills, the parks beside the sea.
My 3 enduring memories of San Fran were sunshine, amazing fresh oranges and the smell of piss. The homelessness is crazy, and I was stunned to meet a guy who was homeless as a "lifestyle choice".
Oscar Wilde said " We and Americans are divided by a common language" - I found a good few of the Americans I met were very polite, found Irish (well, my) level of swear words in normal conversation to be a little offensive to them.
Their positive "lets do it" attitude was a pleasant surprise too.

brooke 2

avetolaugh wrote: »

San Fran is such a beautiful city, the different neighbourhoods, the hills, the parks beside the sea.
My 3 enduring memories of San Fran were sunshine, amazing fresh oranges and the smell of piss. The homelessness is crazy, and I was stunned to meet a guy who was homeless as a "lifestyle choice".
Oscar Wilde said " We and Americans are divided by a common language" - I found a good few of the Americans I met were very polite, found Irish (well, my) level of swear words in normal conversation to be a little offensive to them.
Their positive "lets do it" attitude was a pleasant surprise too.

Was shocked/surprised at the fact that no one swears in the States - well, not anyone
I met on my numerous visits there!

SpaceTime

brooke 2 wrote: »

Was shocked/surprised at the fact that no one swears in the States - well, not anyone
I met on my numerous visits there!

You've obviously never been to Boston or NYC. They make up for ALL the swearing that the rest of the US doesn't do.

ProudDUB

Ah they do swear. You knock a hot cup of coffee into someone lap in a coffee shop, and you are just as likely to hear a four letter expletive, as you are here.

What they don't do, is the recreational and conversational swearing that we do over here. So you just won't hear the F word, or Jesus or yer bolllix being worked into every every other sentence, the way it is here. We do curse to a shocking degree here. Sometimes it can be very funny, but most of the time it just sounds horribly crude imo.

Religion plays a role over there too, especially in bible belt states, where swearing is a big no no. Not only would they never use the traditional four letter words, but damm or even Godamm wouldn't be used either.

yew_tree

New Yorkers get a bad wrap alright....In the times I have visited I have found them for the most part great people. You will get the odd a**hole but most cities have them. Maybe it helps in that I am not your typical tourist, I don't tend to walk down the sidewalk, glaring up the buildings or walk slow....dam even in Dublin that is annoying.

Mars Bar

ProudDUB wrote: »

Ah they do swear. You knock a hot cup of coffee into someone lap in a coffee shop, and you are just as likely to hear a four letter expletive, as you are here.

What they don't do, is the recreational and conversational swearing that we do over here. So you just won't hear the F word, or Jesus or yer bolllix being worked into every every other sentence, the way it is here. We do curse to a shocking degree here. Sometimes it can be very funny, but most of the time it just sounds horribly crude imo.

Religion plays a role over there too, especially in bible belt states, where swearing is a big no no. Not only would they never use the traditional four letter words, but damm or even Godamm wouldn't be used either.

I use the odd swear word for emphasis myself but not one family I stayed with in America used swear words so after a while, I found myself using it less and less. Last week, I went to the pub here and was overhearing a conversation beside me about the football on T.V. and it made me quite uncomfortable just how often they were cursing. If they could only hear themselves! It would never have bothered me before I went to America.

brooke 2

Mars Bar wrote: »

I use the odd swear word for emphasis myself but not one family I stayed with in America used swear words so after a while, I found myself using it less and less. Last week, I went to the pub here and was overhearing a conversation beside me about the football on T.V. and it made me quite uncomfortable just how often they were cursing. If they could only hear themselves! It would never have bothered me before I went to America.

Same here. I have stayed with family in New York, Boston and Connecticut and have
never heard a swear word from any one of them. Was hugely embarrassed myself
when I inadvertently spluttered '****' as something fell out of my hands. The silence
from all present was deafening!! No mad guffaws of inane laughter from any of
them, as would have happened here in Ireland!!

**** = shi*t!!

pgmcpq

brooke 2 wrote: »

Same here. I have stayed with family in New York, Boston and Connecticut and have
never heard a swear word from any one of them. Was hugely embarrassed myself
when I inadvertently spluttered '****' as something fell out of my hands. The silence
from all present was deafening!! No mad guffaws of inane laughter from any of
them, as would have happened here in Ireland!!

**** = shi*t!!

Indeed ... my OH frequently sends me to stand in a corner and think about what I have done .

SpaceTime

spideog7 wrote: »

A lot of dryers in the US are run on natural gas, especially anywhere that has a mains gas supply. I know plenty of people who use clothes lines too though, it's no different to the automatic cars really, you just grow up used to one thing or the other, not really much reason for it. I hate dryers they shrink clothes and tear them shreds and they're never as fresh as they would be hung out in a nice stiff breeze :-) Herself won't be without one though, I reckon if her clothes had been hung out all her life she wouldn't have half as many pollen allergies as she has!

American dryer are also *very* hot compared to the one we have here in Ireland anyway. The US one used totally wreck my clothes where as the German Miele one takes a bit longer but the clothes come out nice and non-wrecked which is a good thing! The European one seems to use a lot more air circulation and is just generally a lot less harsh. I've never had jeans come out so hot I couldn't touch them, where as in the US that was fairly normal. They remind me a lot more of an oven or a kiln in terms of their power output!

There are some gas dryers available in Ireland but they're pretty rare, I think the main issue seems to be the gas regulations here are a lot tougher. The american ones literally direct heat the air by burning the gas just after the blower and the fumes pass through the clothes in the drum. From what little I know of it, there seems to be a *much* tighter set of rules on gas appliance design here. Open flues are still very common in the States on new appliances like domestic hot water heaters where as boilers here seem to usually be a balanced flu completely sealed from the room (air comes in and exits outside)

Apparently US dryers actually cause 15,000+ house fires every year! I just feel a little safer with our big geeky German dryer with all of its heat pumps than the flame-throwing version we had in the US.

It's all swings and roundabouts though. Some things about the US are better than Europe, some things about Europe are better than the US. It's largely down to priorities though. Both EU countries and US states offer excellent standards of living though. Also, I find sometimes people tend to compare "small village Ireland" with "Metropolis USA" rather than "small village Ireland" with "small village USA" in which case a lot of the time Ireland's small places tend to win hands down.

Big US cities are definitely more 'urban' than anything we have here in Ireland though. Dublin's not exactly a massive place and the other cities are tiny.

If you want to compare LA or NYC, you'd really need to look at London, Paris, Madrid etc.

Boskowski

Its like what Ireland probably will be in 20 years in terms of local business landscape.

Every smaller town seems to consist of nothing but a really weird local business landscape a la restaurants, nail & sunbed studios, hair dressers, yoga studios, estate agents and montessori creches. No groceries, bakeries, butchers, hardware shops and the like. All that is covered by the Walmarts & CVSs. Which makes the places look like something from Golgafrincham's 1st space ship.

SpaceTime

Boskowski wrote: »

Its like what Ireland probably will be in 20 years in terms of local business landscape.

Every smaller town seems to consist of nothing but a really weird local business landscape a la restaurants, nail & sunbed studios, hair dressers, yoga studios, estate agents and montessori creches. No groceries, bakeries, butchers, hardware shops and the like. All that is covered by the Walmarts & CVSs. Which makes the places look like something from Golgafrincham's 1st space ship.

That's actually happened in France really dramatically and I really hope we don't make the same mistake. Despite their history of foodieness and all the culture of small village life, they've allowed Carrefour, Auchant, E.Leclerc and others to build ENORMOUS hypermarkets that now totally dominate retail.

You get a smallish town and some ENORMOUS hypermarket (like 4 x the biggest Tesco have here) and suddenly everything revolves around that and not the village. It's left a lot of small towns totally hollowed out or, if there's a lot of money in the area, just full of small ridiculously upmarket boutique shops.

The Dutch and the Belgians actually limit that by planning which has kept a lot of their towns and cities much more vibrant.

Whether that happens or not will all depend on the kind of decisions we make.

All I would say though is that I think in general Irish politics is actually less corrupt than the US. They don't really consider it 'corruption' but the way lobbyists work over there and the amount of stuff that is just handed over to big business (increasingly) is totally wrecking the US at the moment in a lot of ways.

Ireland's corruption tends to be way more about local string pulling than corporate buy-outs of politics. Also, you've a lot more diversity of political points of view here as we don't have a 2-party system. I just hope we've finally learnt the lessons about planning though. There were far too many stunts pulled over the decades.

I was up in Iceland recently and I think their planning has completely wrecked the place.
There was absolutely no density to shopping in Reykjavik. Tralee would have more shops tbh.
Everything had been scattered into the suburbs into quite bland developments that would remind you of Sandyford Industrial Estate type retail.
I just hope we never go that route on that kind of scale. It was all quite high quality and pleasant, but just sooooo spread out and car dependent.

dave2pvd

SpaceTime wrote: »

All I would say though is that I think in general Irish politics is actually less corrupt than the US. ...... Ireland's corruption tends to be way more about local string pulling than corporate buy-outs of politics.

I'd agree with you in some ways. However, the severity of the Irish economic meltdown was magnified by something rather more sinister than local string pulling.

Further, the US has plenty of string pulling going on at the local level.

It would take a long thesis to contrast and compare, but on the whole, Irish and US politics have similar corruption. The only difference is scale - there is a LOT more money in the US and the corruption and 'giving' to businesses that are so globally influential can affect the entire world economy.

SpaceTime

The severity of the Irish crash largely came down to notions of Irish exceptionalism and total denial of reality when various economists and also the European Commission warned of impending doom. The small establishment went into groupthink mode. When you look back the country was largely in denial then after the crash everyone knew it was coming...
The Irish print media in particular was the dog that never barked and the whole political class partied. all I remember were feel good articles about how we've never had it so good and hype and more hype about property. there was no analysis about why houses were changing hands for prices higher than Beverly Hills just ... yay! were all loaded.

Meanwhile in Wall Street a credit bubble was about to blow.
there isn't really very much difference between Ireland and US bubble markets like Nevada other than the debt in the US wasn't born by small banks regulated and c underwritten by states. The US debt got left in the big banks, wall St and the two federal mortgage guarantee agencies.

Individual debts in the states would also be dealt with much more aggressively by repossession and much more humanely through rapid bankruptcy. Ireland had Victorian laws that dragged the recovery process out and still has attitudes to bankruptcy that are more like you should be punished for life for bad debts where as Americans tend to write off their losses, deal with it and move on.

Neither jurisdiction held the financial sector to account afterwards either. Madoff is often cited as an example of the US judicial system dealing with it, but that was just simple fraud on a vast scale and he admitted it when charged.

The banks have just continued on largely like nothing happened and regulation is still pretty poor stateside. Ireland's simply no longer trusted to regulate the banks as it's now gone to EU level regulation so it's unlikely to happen again.

Hazys

shamrock55 wrote: »

How nice new yorkers are: one complete stranger swiped his card through the turnstiles for me one morning when i was getting on the subway, my card had run out, i wouldnt mind but he was going the opposite way, also getting off another train a black lad called out to me just as i was getting off, i had left my wallet on the seat and he was handing it back to me (hey buddy your wallet) i thought that was sound, there was only 5 bucks in it but still

Boston folks are supposedly some of the coldest people in the US but tbh i think they are 100x more friendly than Irish people. I dont if thats just because Americans in general are more outgoing so they are more likely to talk to you. While Irish people are more introvert and if a stranger talked to them they rather ignore them than be caught talking to a "weirdo".


Another thing that i don't know if it is cultural or due to difference levels of social confidence but if there was a person blocking my path I would say "Sorry" not "Excuse Me". Its weird that its our natural make up is to apologize to the person who is blocking our way. I remember once in a similar situation, the guy blocking my path turned to me and said "Don't apologize to me, i'm in your way" and steps out of the way. I have made the conscious effort to say "Excuse me" instead these days.

Is it a lower confidence thing or cultural? or a bit of both?

Novella

Hazys wrote: »

Another thing that i don't know if it is cultural or due to difference levels of social confidence but if there was a person blocking my path I would say "Sorry" not "Excuse Me". Its weird that its our natural make up is to apologize to the person who is blocking our way. I remember once in a similar situation, the guy blocking my path turned to me and said "Don't apologize to me, i'm in your way" and steps out of the way. I have made the conscious effort to say "Excuse me" instead these days.

Is it a lower confidence thing or cultural? or a bit of both?

This!

My boyfriend is American and I moved to the US a couple of months ago. I was constantly saying sorry to people if they were in my way and one day he was like, "No one understands you when you say sorry, you need to say excuse me!"

I had never even noticed. I was so used to sorry being the word to say to politely have somebody move. I think it's just an Irishism.