7 Weird Things about the USA (a European Perspective)

- This is Jack from tofluency.com

and in this video I'm going to talk about

seven things that I found strange

when I first came to the United States of America.

Now to give you a little bit of context

I am originally from England,

but I've been living in the U.S. since 2011.

I absolutely love it here, the culture, the people.

Everything about this country, to me, is just fantastic.

But there are certain things I found strange

when I first moved here.

So I'm going to share those things in this video.

And I'm also going to explain whether

I still find these things strange or not.

So stick around, let's go through these seven things

and I would love to know your opinions about this too.

So I've got a question for you at the end of this video.

First one is free refills.

And I first experienced this when I was traveling in 2007.

And I can't remember what sports event I was watching,

but I went to a sports bar in Washington, D.C.,

think it was ESPN Zone or something like that.

And back then I drank Diet Coke, so I ordered a Diet Coke.

And it came with a lot of ice, talk about that later,

and I drank my Coke.

And then the server just came over and just refilled it,

and I didn't know why he did that.

And I was in that weird place thinking,

it must be free because he would of asked me otherwise.

He would of asked, "Oh, do you want other Coke?

"And you have to pay for it."

Or at least let me know that I have to pay for it.

So he filled it up and I thought it must be free,

but maybe it's not.

So I decide to play it safe

and just have two or three Cokes.

And I thought I can pay for two or three Cokes.

But I didn't go crazy, thinking it was free.

And then I got the check at the end

and they only charged me for one Coke.

So in America when you get coffee, when you get soda,

they give you free refills.

Not always with coffee, but if you got to restaurant

and you get a coffee, then they're gonna refill it for free.

And if you go to a bar and get a Coke or a Pepsi

or any other of the wonderful sodas here,

then they are going to give you a free refill.

So I found that incredibly strange at first.

Now I love it, especially the coffee part.

When you're having brunch on a Sunday morning for example

and they say, "Do you want more coffee?"

Like yeah, I do want more coffee, thank you.

The next one is seeing American flags everywhere.

There are certain towns that you drive through

and it just seems like every house

has an American flag flying outside.

Now in the UK this isn't very common,

unless the World Cup is on.

So when the World Cup is on your see the Saint George's flag

flying out of cars and houses.

Now people have very specific opinions

on people having flags flying in the UK,

I won't go into that here.

But you never just see a flag pole outside someones house,

and in fact I can't think of another country that does this.

So this I why I find it really strange.

You drive through towns and the American flag

is outside nearly every house.

And yeah, I found it strange at first, but I love it.

America is a fantastic country

and people are very patriotic about the ideals.

And I love that.

I think it's a great thing to fly the flag.

So, yeah, strange at first, but I love it.

The next one is a very common thing that people bring up

when they first to America, and it's tipping.

Tipping in restaurants and bars,

and seems like everywhere these days.

And it was strange at first, very confusing.

You don't know when you should tip

or how much you should tip.

Do I give them just a dollar for this beer?

Or 20%?

I'm in a coffee shop, do they get tips in Starbucks?

Do they get tips?

And it's even just knowing that your bill is going to come

with a little tip area on there, that you have to fill in,

and then do some math to work out

what the total is gonna be.

I remember being quite flustered,

where I didn't feel very calm about it.

When I had to think, okay, 20% of this equals that,

and then do all the additions and all that type of stuff.

I'd love it when restaurants give you,

if you wanna tip 20% this is how much you should tip

and this is your total.

So you just fill it in and it's nice and easy.

But, yeah, tipping is a strange thing here,

when you first get here.

Because again you don't know how much to tip.

And I know it works the other way around too.

I hear stories about Americans going to Japan,

going to restaurants in the Japan and trying to tip.

And they just won't expect it, they will not expect a tip.

Let me know if you have experienced that

or know someone who has.

But here it's the opposite, you don't have to tip,

but you do have to tip, if that makes sense?

You always tip when you go to a restaurant especially,

or to a bar.

Again, strange at first, but now it just seems normal to me.

Now the next one I didn't think you're going to find

in many lists of strange things you'll encounter

when you go to America.

But I find this really strange.

So if you've never been in a men's toilet before,

or a men's restroom, there is a place where you pee,

standing up, and there's a place where you go to sit down,

on a regular toilet.

And these regular toilets are in cubicles,

but there's a gap right down each side of the door.

And it's not a small gap, it's at least an inch.

Sometimes it's two inches.

And this means when you sitting down on the toilet,

people can just walk past and look inside, just like that.

So when they're at the sink washing their hands

and they turn around,

sometimes you make eye contact with people.

It's very strange.

Now people have tried to explain it by saying, well,

it allows you know if the cubicle,

I think that's the right word, is occupied or not.

I say well, there's a great system,

where you lock the door in the cubicle

and on the outside it's red,

and when you unlock it, it's green.

So you know red means there's somebody in there,

green means there's nobody in there.

And then some else said, oh it's in case people

do illegal things in the, I hope it's called cubicle,

in the cubicle.

So then people can see if they're doing illegal things.

Think, well, that's not a good reason

to have that hole in the door.

So by my tone you can probably understand that

I still find this very strange.

That there is a big hole between door

and the wall, in public restrooms.

The next one is a little more obvious,

and it's that they write the date in the wrong order here.

Where in UK, and I think the rest of the world,

you go day, month, year, makes sense.

Small, bigger, bigger still.

But in the U.S. they'll put it month, day, year.

So they go from the middle sized number first,

then the smallest, then the largest.

If that makes sense?

And I just don't understand the logic behind it.

I remember getting into an argument once with somebody,

well not argument, a discussion,

a friendly debate about this.

And I just wasn't convinced.

I just wasn't convinced about why this is done.

I don't know where it comes from,

let me know where this comes from.

Having said that, it seems normal to me now.

So, yeah, it's funny the types of things

that you think you're never gonna get used to,

but you actually do.

'Kay, the second to last one is this.

Things have to be really cold here,

or certain things have to be really cold.

For example, if you go to the supermarket

in the middle of summer and it's a 100 degrees outside,

the supermarket is absolutely freezing.

Or if you go to the Mac store, the Apple store,

or the cinema, it's freezing inside the cinema.

So they don't just put the air condition, the AC,

and make it comfortable.

They make it really cold.

So I remember once my wife and I

were going to the cinema in July and she said,

"Oh, I'm just gonna grab a jacket",

or a sweatshirt, whatever it was.

Cardigan I think.

I said, "Why do you wanna Cardigan?

"It's 90 degrees outside."

Said, "Well, it's really cold inside the cinema."

I was thinking, yeah right, it will be fine.

But it was freezing.

And then the other thing is that

people like cold here is drinks.

Lots of ice, ice, ice in everything.

Ice, ice, ice.

Beers have to be really cold.

Nobody ones to drink a beer that's chilled,

they want it to be really cold.

Ice everywhere.

Get a water or soda, it's just full of ice.

The whole glass is full of ice, and a little bit of soda.

That's why they give you free refills I think

because they don't put, there's hardly any Coke or Pepsi

that fits in there because of all the ice.

But yeah, everybody wants ice.

Ice in everything.

This is something I've not got used to.

I put a little bit of ice in water every now and then.

I'll have a beer that is room temperature,

especially if it's a bitter or an IPA.

I don't need things to be really cold.

Now this last one, I think it's become really popular,

especially of the last five, 10 years.

It might have been popular before, but I've seen it gain

in popularity recently.

And there comes in a time in fall,

where it's mainly females I have to say,

go crazy over something.

It's September and they start talking about this,

and they're crazy about it, and it's pumpkin spice.

Now I'm not gonna lie, I'm not entirely sure

what pumpkin spice exactly is and what's in it.

So let's just have a quick look.

Ingredients, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg.

But yeah, It just seems like September and October

and November, everything has to have pumpkin spice in it.

Like cakes and especially coffee,

everyone promotes the pumpkin spice latte.

And people go crazy of it.

I never understood this, I found this very, very strange.

But doing some research,

I also found that they put it in things like

hand soap and Pringles and cereal.

It is related to Halloween, pumpkin, Halloween, fall.

All of this is related.

But it just seems to take over everything.

So all local businesses and places like Starbucks

will advertise pumpkin spice everywhere

because they know people go crazy over it.

But maybe I'll try it this year.

I tried it once or twice, I don't really get it.

Maybe this year it'll be normal to me,

but at the moment, still find it very strange.

Okay, so those are the seven things that I found strange

when I first experienced the United States of America.

Again, some of those things have become normal to me.

And I'm gonna make another video on

words that I found strange at first

and whether they still seem strange to me now.

And America, it's just a fantastic country to be in,

but whenever you have grown up somewhere

they're always going to be certain things

that you find strange.

So if you have lived here for a certain about of time

or if you have been to America before.

Then let me know what you found strange about the culture

or the food or anything really, when you first visited.

And if you are learning English, than get my book,

"The Five Step Plan For English Fluency".

They'll be a link to download this in the description.

It's free to download, so go do that now.

And while you're here, why not stick around

and watch another video.

I'll leave some on your screen now.

Thank you for watching, buh-bye.

(relaxed music)