re: #375 iceweasel

It’s so interesting— the US is just damned interesting in that we’re such a huge country and so diverse. Driving, everything— different habits in different places. I feel more ‘alien’ in certain parts of the US as a New Yorker than I ever do in London. Which makes sense. London and NYC are very similar in some ways— more like each other than NYC is like some other large American cities.

The bif difference for me in re the UK is that Americans drive more. Really—it makes a huge difference. We travel pretty damn extensively within our own country.
Not so much in the UK or other places in Europe.

People like to point to Americans not having passports as if that means we’re provincial, but in reality we have way less vacation time and way more to explore in our own country.

Jimmah adds: a lot of these smug British bastards who cite that passport stat only use it to go to hideous places like Brit strongholds in Spain, where they will only see other Brit tourists and eat in sad places run by expats who serve them fish and chips, — they go to the same place in Spain every year and pretend this gives them title to cosmopolitanism.

Iceweasel adds: this is completely true.

That’s true. The USA isn’t one monolithic culture. The changes are readily apparent within the states and easily noticed when you cross the state lines. Some states might be similar but there are major differences as we all know. In Europe it might be seen as being one monolithic culture but we here know that there are differences between say Ohio and Oregon.

There’s even a form of, damn the word escapes me now. It’s when you adapt to a new culture. The same thing happens when you move from state to state. You adapt to the state culture and often even begin to pick up the local dialects or accents. This is even observable with foreigners who maintain their particular accent but begin to use the local or state dialect.

In many respects the EU is an adaptation of the US concept. That being the “united” “states.” While our difference are not as stark say between Spain and Germany there are similarities in our differences. The same is true with local laws as they change between states in the USA and change between nations in the EU.