Language, Currency & Advertising
Everybody speaks, as you would expect, in English but there are a lot of variations depending on the state and the person. Packaging has two languages though, English & Spanish. Americans speak loud and in very high pitch.
There are many channels on TV. What you watch is very US-centric, talking about US-internal affairs. It gest pretty boring if you are a non-American-happen-to-be-in America. Art of advertisement has advanced too well here, they know how to sell. You will see the real consumer of the product praising it rather than the company itself.
US currency is.. oh no, I won’t tell you – you should know it. Hint, it is called buck in slang. All paper notes are of same size. It is difficult to distinguish among different denominations; same is the case with coins. 5c (cents), 10c & 25c are called nickel, dime & quarter respectively.
Burger & coke is the most “American” American food & drink respectively. Pizza, burger and chips are the most favourite ones. Food portions are quite big here. I always struggled to finish a portion. Three sizes are available usually, kids, small & large. There are many small ice cream factories around locally. I intended to buy ice cream from one such factory & so approached the counter. The salesperson asked few questions before dispensing:
Q: Can I help you?
A: I want to buy some ice cream.
Q: Which flavour?
A: Vanilla
Q: Soft or Hard?
A: whichever you prefer (I wasn’t sure what he meant)
Q: Size
A: Small (I thought it would be appropriate)
Q: Cup or Cone
A: hmmm…. Cup
It was getting little scary by now, how many more question do I have to answer before setting my eyes on ice cream?
He takes cash & disappears inside (hopefully to fetch my ice cream). It turned out to be at least 4 scoops worth of ice cream, I was wondering how big the large portion would be!
Few Funny Facts about USA:
– Americans drive on the wrong side of the road (as it appeared to me!)
– Hotel names are numbers e.g. 99 Restaurant
– Americans play a game with an oval shaped ball, probably the only game in the world played with non-round ball.
– They call this game Football but it is played with hands.
– The actual football as rest of the world know it, is called soccer
– All countries have their own country dialling code, e.g. 92 for Pak, 44 for UK. But there is no code for US. Code 1 is used commonly by US, Canada, Mexico and Caribbean.
– It is not possible to tell from a number whether it is a mobile or a landline. All numbers are tied to an area (or a state)
– You have to pay for listening to an in-coming call also
– Roads are long & long, you can find building number in 1000’s. We went to a restaurant and its building number was 2245.
– Every country has an internet Domain, e.g. uk for UK, .pk for Pakistan. But USA (though it has .us but) doesn’t use any domain.
– 10 to 15% Tip is compulsory no matter how you were served. Service is excellent throughout though.
– Prices are shown without tax. You get a shock on paying counter when $60 item suddenly turns into a $75 one.
– Petrol is called Gas. And gas is called hmmm… Natural Gas.
Driving!
And my driving! I rented a car with GPS and started driving. It turned out to be easy; you just have to drive on the other side. What I found difficult was to remember which side is the driver side. Often, I would go the right side door (passenger side here), open the door and get shocked on seeing the steering missing, oh it is on the other side! Then I would go to the other side, sit down start the car and try to shift the gear with left hand, only to hit the door. Looking through back mirror also confuses, just try in your car then you will what I mean! But so far so good, I’m driving very well! I drove up to Cambridge, the town of two best universities in the world namely MIT and Harvard. It was summer holidays so there were only few students there.
Read first part of USA visit Here
Read my Restaurant Yatra Here https://kashif-ali.com/2010/07/food-fun-in-usa-jul-2010/
Next I’m off to Washington DC next, the capital of USA, read my visit to Whitehouse here: https://kashif-ali.com/2010/08/washington-dc-jul-2010/
Nice account of your visit to US. Regarding the dialing code, US international dialing code is actually “1”. it is just that people living in US also dial telephone numbers in the international format. Regarding internet domain, “.com” is the US domain, since they pioneered the internet.
Nice post buddy!…Reminds me of my experience with american portions at restaurants…specially those pepsi or cola buckets, which is enough for whole family ha ha 😉
AOA
Congrat’s for joining the family in uk.
I think now u can write a safarnama same like mustansar if u add some other details which u are hidding currently.
Very nice! so you enjoy the big American meals………thats one of the best thing about America…driving would have been very tough for you……you should have practiced it in Sweden….i hope you would have find the American people quite friendly…….do discuss your visit to MIT and Cambridge,we are looking forward to that….take care.
Americans dont appreciate soccer, because its illegal to cheat and soccer doesn’t allow cheerleaders. Although, they like to win, in politics, business, war etc. Soccer will never really catch on in the US because Americans don’t like to kick a ball. They like to kick a**.