<p>I actually believe that America is unsafe because of all the guns and would never venture out at night alone in any city - and I feel completely safe on the streets of Tel Aviv at any time.</p>
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<p>This stereotype of cities being cesspools of crime, violence, and corruption isn’t limited to those outside the US. Even nowadays, I encounter plenty of American out-of-towners and suburbanites…even those from the tri-state area whose perceptions of NYC seemed to be derived from old gritty crime drama movies/TV of the 1970’s and '80s. </p>
<p>It’s always amused me at how their faces paled and they attempt to admonish me…a native-NYCer about NYC “dangers”…even when the actual reality is that NYC since the late '90s has become far safer than it was during my childhood in the late '70s and '80s. </p>
<p>And I walked to school and took the subway alone starting from the age of 6…and it was what other kids at that age did. A reason why I find the outrage over the parent of a 9 year old “free range kid” for allowing him to take the subway alone after being given appropriate precautionary tips and instruction to be odd. By the time I was 9…knew the subway system like the back of my hand. Moreover, the subways nowadays are much cleaner and safer than they were when I was a kid.</p>
<p>^^^^cobrat, when I was a little girl, I thought NYC was just like the part shown in West Side Story. I just couldn’t understand why anyone would want to live in New York City.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4, you should take up spanish. I just took up Italian a year ago, and knowing French and Spanish has made it a breeze.</p>
<p>It’s been proven, too, that learning new languages is a really good brain ex. as we get older.</p>
<p>Yeah, all of this aside, no matter how much I have enjoyed my travels all over, back when the world was less “at war,” I’d still rather be an American than anything else.</p>
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<p>That always makes me laugh when I go abroad. People always say that Americans are ignorant, but it’s funny to hear foreigners ask me if I have a gun, if I know George Bush, or if my car is worth more than their house.</p>
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<p>And it helps on the CR section of the SAT!</p>
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<p>Absolutely. There are more opportunities to advance yourself in America than anywhere else in the world.</p>
<p>“but his wife was convinced that all of America was dangerous and overrun by gun-wielding thugs. I told her that I can go walking outside my house at any time of night with no concerns and she was shocked and somewhat dis-believing.”</p>
<p>As an American, I believe it by reading crime statistics and about the NRA Lobby. If people in America think they are safe by the huge gun ownership, think again!</p>
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<p>^^^^^I love learning about other cultures, and I think there’s a lot we could learn from them, but I agree. I feel very lucky to be an American!</p>
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It depends on where in Europe, in Paris they sell food like roasted chestnuts near the sidewalk. I think people do eat and walk.
I’m with maikai, enough with the anti-American. Americans are most friendly people on earth and the cops are more effective here. I was in the UK last year when the riots broke out in several areas, the police couldn’t do anything for the first few days. It wouldn’t happen in US.</p>
<p>People in the EU eat while walking. Every country I have ever visited, though I can only talk about 6 or 7 of them, has stands from which folks buy food and eat it on the go.</p>
<p>I like that I basically learned languages because I enjoyed them. It makes travel more fun, and if I hadn’t learned at least one, I would not have been married to this guy for 36+ years.</p>
<p>The discussion about knowing where other countries are is quite amusing to me. A number of Americans can’t identify the states in our country. When I worked as an admissions counselor in Upstate New York, I had a youngster from Long Island ask me if I was from “up there because I talked funny.” I said that I was from Iowa and the young person asked if that was in New York. That still makes me chuckle.</p>
<p>It’s been my experience in Europe that the ‘real’ people in Europe are not anti-American. They are quite curious about Americans and tend to seek them out to learn more. There are some parts of some countries in Europe that this isn’t the case. In China the experience was the same, once people heard you were American they came over to ask questions, have pictures taken with you, etc. There has been plenty of propaganda about the “rude Americans” so you do find some people that buy into that. In my experience in the US, it’s more often you run into rude “foreigners” from many European countries. Asian visitors, however, are very pleasant, at least the ones I have come in contact with.</p>
<p>I can honestly say that I have never come across any rude tourists in my life. I have come across tourist stereotypes, however nearly all online. Funny how people get onto a computer and suddenly it’s all anonymous (or at least they think so) and they think they can be as rude as they like! IRL, I know no one who is truly prejudiced against tourists (American or otherwise) or foreigners generally (exception for immigrants - sadly I see quite a bit of real prejudice against immigrants). I find it really sad that people judge others knowing nothing about them but the country they come from</p>
<p>I travel quite a bit myself - my own reasons are the language, the history and the scenery. When I went the USA a few years ago, my overiding impression was that it was very beautiful (at least where I was, in NH). I didn’t meet a great many people, but most were pretty friendly. I also saw appreciation for art in some fabulous ice sculptures (never seen that the UK) so don’t sell yourselves short on that. I would like to go back to see some of the national parks, as I really enjoyed it a lot last time. I also love visiting France and am going back again this year. Learning languages should be appreciated in my biased opinion because language is a beautiful thing for its own sake. I enjoy learning French and Russian. Although I will say that although I enjoyed visiting a lot, I feel very lucky to be a British citizen, and there is no other country I would rather be a citizen of.</p>
<p>I agree with the graffiti thing - I think in the UK we are too lax on people who spray tags all over walls. (although I love street artists, and people who paint actual pictures on the walls/pavements)</p>
<p>The thing I found hard in the US was the currency! The banknotes looked so identical, I found I had to be very careful when paying for something. In the UK, our notes are different sizes and different block colours depending on value (bigger the value, bigger the note) so it’s really easy at a single glance to pick the right note out. Although I guess if I was in the US for a length of time I would get used to it and it would stop being a problem</p>
<p>S1 raises show and commerical Boer (meat) goats. I definitely think Americans need to eat more goat meat!! The earlier poster was correct–it is the #1 eaten meat worldwide.</p>
<p>cobrat,</p>
<p>Again, your comments are far outside the context of what I said. I’m not sure how anything you said addresses the idea of Americans accused of being crass and rude abroad in the EU.</p>
<p>But with regards to this new context…
Again, all cities have pockets of English challenged (or non-English preferred) areas, but in NYC these are not so pervasive as to cause the general population to be multilingual. </p>
<p>IMHO, you are doing the ethnic neighborhoods of NYC as grand injustice here. You are painting them as arrogant / anti-social / English-not-tolerated / outsiders-unwelcome people. In fact many of these communities are the most vibrant and friendly of our city! Normal safety precautions assumed, I have never felt unsafe or unwelcome in these neighborhoods.</p>
<p>Sure, there are the small minority who confuse “maintaining their cultural identity” with being anti-social to the country/culture which adopted them, but these people are typically the minority… mostly losers who feel disenfranchised by both cultures.</p>
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<h2>I am already anticipating your next change of context. Next we will be talking about the mean streets of bad neighborhoods. At that point we will have gotten as far from the original context (Americans being rude when abroad) as we can possibly get! ;-)</h2>
<p>And finally, your whole first amendment / Nazi diatribe…
Where the heck did that come from?! Where did ANYONE in this thread even suggest that foreign languages aren’t welcome or should not be used. My beef was the implication that Americans were less intelligent than Europeans, because we generally speak English alone. I went on to say most Americans are not multilingual, because they don’t need to be.</p>
<p>Surely, you couldn’t be accusing me of advocating English-only. As I said, I speak four languages and use Spanish when it is more convenient for the other person. I have yet to encounter a situation where I HAD to use Spanish. I use it to be polite when it’s clear I have better fluency in Spanish than they do in English.</p>
<p>And if you look at my other posts, you’ll see I was one of the few advocates for foreign students being accepted in our State University systems, which would imply our State Universities should be multilingual.</p>
<p>cobrat, Seriously, you really need to stay in context and address what is said, rather than address wild assumptions from your own mind.</p>
<p>I think we can learn to conserve. For example, we in the US have become accustomed to a/c turned up very high in public places. We have to bring a sweater to the grocery store and the theater in the summer. Our European friends are amused that we feel that we can spend our money on this. I think we can turn down the a/c a bit. Another conservation step that some neighborhoods are beginning to look at is not providing bags for groceries. In many places in Europe you would assume that you had to bring bags. Most families have a pile of bags ready, and a rolling cart to transport it all from the market. If you don’t have your bags with you, they often charge you one euro. I think this is also an easy thing for us to do.</p>
<p>When I lived in France 25 years ago, other than the chestnuts being sold in the streets, it was not common to see people eating while walking in the streets, and certainly not on buses and on the subway. It seems to be a little more common now. We have a great photo of our girls eating waffles and nutella spread on a street in Paris, and they were not alone (though probably tourists were the majority of those partaking). I framed it because they both had nutella mustaches and looked so cute.</p>
<p>I’ve seen plenty of “Ugly Americans” in my travels. Saying they are a myth is complete denial. But I believe they are certainly the minority of Americans who venture out into the world.</p>
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<p>That was certainly my experience when I lived in France as a 23 y/o right out of college! I was invited out for dinner or other activities about 4-5 nights out of the year, and I was there alone, knowing no one when I first arrived.</p>
<p>I was recently visiting Scandinavian countries , with a week of that time spent with my in-laws.
I can’t help but make some comparisons of their lifestyles to ours . What we as Americans could learn from them is how to use energy more efficiently and get the changes we all need for the future…
What they could learn from us is better manners , such as opening or holding a door for an approaching person in public. Also , when bumping into a person accidentally, ackknowledge it with an " excuse me, pardon me …etc "
Besides just our restaurant meals , everything is bigger here, I think. I cooked for the family over there and it wasn’t easy with their standard sized ovens , which to me are closer to the size of a microwave. I was pleased to see though , that their produce has improved dramatically since I was last there, which is why I don’t understand why veggies are not as important as they are here with dinners</p>
<p>Oh – another really cool thing about Germany (or at least Germany in the late 80’s): The TV commercials are WAY better than the programs, funny or beautiful, very well made. And they’re clustered together at one point during the hour. When my brother was living there, he’d turn on the TV to watch 15 minutes of commercials and then turn it off when the program came on.</p>
<p>Just thought of another thing others could learn from Americans:</p>
<p>How to wait your turn in line at the grocery store, bank, etc. It blows me away how some cultures will just shove their way right in front of you in line! Grrrrrr…</p>