7 Weird Things about the USA (a European Perspective)

15,869 views ・ 2019-07-15

To Fluency


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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- This is Jack from tofluency.com
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and in this video I'm going to talk about
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seven things that I found strange
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when I first came to the United States of America.
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Now to give you a little bit of context
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I am originally from England,
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but I've been living in the U.S. since 2011.
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I absolutely love it here, the culture, the people.
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Everything about this country, to me, is just fantastic.
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But there are certain things I found strange
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when I first moved here.
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So I'm going to share those things in this video.
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And I'm also going to explain whether
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I still find these things strange or not.
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So stick around, let's go through these seven things
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and I would love to know your opinions about this too.
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So I've got a question for you at the end of this video.
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First one is free refills.
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And I first experienced this when I was traveling in 2007.
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And I can't remember what sports event I was watching,
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but I went to a sports bar in Washington, D.C.,
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think it was ESPN Zone or something like that.
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And back then I drank Diet Coke, so I ordered a Diet Coke.
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And it came with a lot of ice, talk about that later,
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and I drank my Coke.
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And then the server just came over and just refilled it,
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and I didn't know why he did that.
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And I was in that weird place thinking,
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it must be free because he would of asked me otherwise.
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He would of asked, "Oh, do you want other Coke?
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"And you have to pay for it."
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Or at least let me know that I have to pay for it.
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So he filled it up and I thought it must be free,
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but maybe it's not.
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So I decide to play it safe
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and just have two or three Cokes.
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And I thought I can pay for two or three Cokes.
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But I didn't go crazy, thinking it was free.
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And then I got the check at the end
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and they only charged me for one Coke.
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So in America when you get coffee, when you get soda,
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they give you free refills.
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Not always with coffee, but if you got to restaurant
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and you get a coffee, then they're gonna refill it for free.
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And if you go to a bar and get a Coke or a Pepsi
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or any other of the wonderful sodas here,
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then they are going to give you a free refill.
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So I found that incredibly strange at first.
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Now I love it, especially the coffee part.
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When you're having brunch on a Sunday morning for example
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and they say, "Do you want more coffee?"
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Like yeah, I do want more coffee, thank you.
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The next one is seeing American flags everywhere.
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There are certain towns that you drive through
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and it just seems like every house
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has an American flag flying outside.
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Now in the UK this isn't very common,
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unless the World Cup is on.
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So when the World Cup is on your see the Saint George's flag
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flying out of cars and houses.
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Now people have very specific opinions
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on people having flags flying in the UK,
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I won't go into that here.
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But you never just see a flag pole outside someones house,
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and in fact I can't think of another country that does this.
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So this I why I find it really strange.
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You drive through towns and the American flag
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is outside nearly every house.
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And yeah, I found it strange at first, but I love it.
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America is a fantastic country
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and people are very patriotic about the ideals.
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And I love that.
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I think it's a great thing to fly the flag.
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So, yeah, strange at first, but I love it.
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The next one is a very common thing that people bring up
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when they first to America, and it's tipping.
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Tipping in restaurants and bars,
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and seems like everywhere these days.
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And it was strange at first, very confusing.
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You don't know when you should tip
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or how much you should tip.
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Do I give them just a dollar for this beer?
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Or 20%?
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I'm in a coffee shop, do they get tips in Starbucks?
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Do they get tips?
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And it's even just knowing that your bill is going to come
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with a little tip area on there, that you have to fill in,
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and then do some math to work out
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what the total is gonna be.
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I remember being quite flustered,
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where I didn't feel very calm about it.
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When I had to think, okay, 20% of this equals that,
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and then do all the additions and all that type of stuff.
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I'd love it when restaurants give you,
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if you wanna tip 20% this is how much you should tip
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and this is your total.
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So you just fill it in and it's nice and easy.
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But, yeah, tipping is a strange thing here,
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when you first get here.
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Because again you don't know how much to tip.
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And I know it works the other way around too.
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I hear stories about Americans going to Japan,
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going to restaurants in the Japan and trying to tip.
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And they just won't expect it, they will not expect a tip.
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Let me know if you have experienced that
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or know someone who has.
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But here it's the opposite, you don't have to tip,
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but you do have to tip, if that makes sense?
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You always tip when you go to a restaurant especially,
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or to a bar.
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Again, strange at first, but now it just seems normal to me.
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Now the next one I didn't think you're going to find
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in many lists of strange things you'll encounter
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when you go to America.
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But I find this really strange.
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So if you've never been in a men's toilet before,
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or a men's restroom, there is a place where you pee,
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standing up, and there's a place where you go to sit down,
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on a regular toilet.
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And these regular toilets are in cubicles,
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but there's a gap right down each side of the door.
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And it's not a small gap, it's at least an inch.
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Sometimes it's two inches.
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And this means when you sitting down on the toilet,
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people can just walk past and look inside, just like that.
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So when they're at the sink washing their hands
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and they turn around,
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sometimes you make eye contact with people.
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It's very strange.
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Now people have tried to explain it by saying, well,
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it allows you know if the cubicle,
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I think that's the right word, is occupied or not.
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I say well, there's a great system,
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where you lock the door in the cubicle
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and on the outside it's red,
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and when you unlock it, it's green.
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So you know red means there's somebody in there,
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green means there's nobody in there.
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And then some else said, oh it's in case people
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do illegal things in the, I hope it's called cubicle,
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in the cubicle.
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So then people can see if they're doing illegal things.
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Think, well, that's not a good reason
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to have that hole in the door.
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So by my tone you can probably understand that
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I still find this very strange.
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That there is a big hole between door
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and the wall, in public restrooms.
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The next one is a little more obvious,
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and it's that they write the date in the wrong order here.
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Where in UK, and I think the rest of the world,
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you go day, month, year, makes sense.
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Small, bigger, bigger still.
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But in the U.S. they'll put it month, day, year.
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So they go from the middle sized number first,
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then the smallest, then the largest.
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If that makes sense?
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And I just don't understand the logic behind it.
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I remember getting into an argument once with somebody,
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well not argument, a discussion,
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a friendly debate about this.
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And I just wasn't convinced.
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I just wasn't convinced about why this is done.
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I don't know where it comes from,
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let me know where this comes from.
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Having said that, it seems normal to me now.
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So, yeah, it's funny the types of things
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that you think you're never gonna get used to,
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but you actually do.
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'Kay, the second to last one is this.
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Things have to be really cold here,
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or certain things have to be really cold.
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For example, if you go to the supermarket
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in the middle of summer and it's a 100 degrees outside,
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the supermarket is absolutely freezing.
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Or if you go to the Mac store, the Apple store,
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or the cinema, it's freezing inside the cinema.
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So they don't just put the air condition, the AC,
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and make it comfortable.
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They make it really cold.
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So I remember once my wife and I
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were going to the cinema in July and she said,
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"Oh, I'm just gonna grab a jacket",
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or a sweatshirt, whatever it was.
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Cardigan I think.
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I said, "Why do you wanna Cardigan?
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"It's 90 degrees outside."
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Said, "Well, it's really cold inside the cinema."
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I was thinking, yeah right, it will be fine.
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But it was freezing.
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And then the other thing is that
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people like cold here is drinks.
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Lots of ice, ice, ice in everything.
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Ice, ice, ice.
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Beers have to be really cold.
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Nobody ones to drink a beer that's chilled,
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they want it to be really cold.
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Ice everywhere.
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Get a water or soda, it's just full of ice.
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The whole glass is full of ice, and a little bit of soda.
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That's why they give you free refills I think
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because they don't put, there's hardly any Coke or Pepsi
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that fits in there because of all the ice.
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But yeah, everybody wants ice.
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Ice in everything.
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This is something I've not got used to.
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I put a little bit of ice in water every now and then.
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I'll have a beer that is room temperature,
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especially if it's a bitter or an IPA.
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I don't need things to be really cold.
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Now this last one, I think it's become really popular,
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especially of the last five, 10 years.
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It might have been popular before, but I've seen it gain
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in popularity recently.
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And there comes in a time in fall,
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where it's mainly females I have to say,
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go crazy over something.
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It's September and they start talking about this,
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and they're crazy about it, and it's pumpkin spice.
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Now I'm not gonna lie, I'm not entirely sure
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what pumpkin spice exactly is and what's in it.
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So let's just have a quick look.
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Ingredients, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg.
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But yeah, It just seems like September and October
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and November, everything has to have pumpkin spice in it.
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Like cakes and especially coffee,
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everyone promotes the pumpkin spice latte.
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And people go crazy of it.
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I never understood this, I found this very, very strange.
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But doing some research,
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I also found that they put it in things like
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hand soap and Pringles and cereal.
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It is related to Halloween, pumpkin, Halloween, fall.
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All of this is related.
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But it just seems to take over everything.
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So all local businesses and places like Starbucks
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will advertise pumpkin spice everywhere
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because they know people go crazy over it.
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But maybe I'll try it this year.
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I tried it once or twice, I don't really get it.
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Maybe this year it'll be normal to me,
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but at the moment, still find it very strange.
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Okay, so those are the seven things that I found strange
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when I first experienced the United States of America.
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Again, some of those things have become normal to me.
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And I'm gonna make another video on
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words that I found strange at first
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and whether they still seem strange to me now.
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And America, it's just a fantastic country to be in,
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but whenever you have grown up somewhere
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they're always going to be certain things
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that you find strange.
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So if you have lived here for a certain about of time
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or if you have been to America before.
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Then let me know what you found strange about the culture
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or the food or anything really, when you first visited.
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And if you are learning English, than get my book,
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"The Five Step Plan For English Fluency".
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They'll be a link to download this in the description.
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It's free to download, so go do that now.
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And while you're here, why not stick around
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and watch another video.
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I'll leave some on your screen now.
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Thank you for watching, buh-bye.
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(relaxed music)
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