James' Trip to America

From the 20th July until the 12th August, I was standing on American soil in the wonderful state of Missouri near St Louis. This was my first visit to the United States, my first trip on a plane in over 8 years and also my first trip and plane journey by myself. I spent 3 weeks in this humid state and here are my impressions...

Food Impressions

Food, Supermarkets and initial impressions

One of the many stereotypes of the US are related to the food and I have to admit, most of these are true. Although, this isn't necessarily a negative attribute as I am a fond lover of food, especially in larger quantities

Portion sizes are unbelievable, being from the UK where food portions are menial at best, it was a great surprise to see large food items on larger plates. Everything, food-wise, appeared to be larger, whether that be a meal or items you would purchased from a supermarket. The best example are probably the tinned items. A typical tin in the UK will be slightly larger than a can of a soft drink (possible 30% larger than a can of Coke). By comparison, it appeared to me that they were nearly double in size and the larger sized tins seemed synonymous with buckets! (ok, maybe I am exaggerating the bucket part but not by a lot! and apparently, these weren't the largest on offer!). Again, this was a pleasant surprised as being a highly metabolised eating machine. Yet, I still didn't have a weight gain and am still a feeble 60kilos, around 120lbs for you non-metric lovers.

With the exchange rate between the dollar and the pound being so great, around £1 to $1.92, I got a lot of value for my money as you can imagine. Therefore, food items for the most part were half the price for me in comparison with the UK. So, I am not only getting nearly "double" the amount of food, I am also getting it half price. Being situated in an agricultural region on the US, the prices were lower still.

Walmart, the adventure that is. It is quite laughable to say that I actually had fun on my first Walmart visit. Just to clarify, I love food but I despise shopping for it. Walmart is no different to the other supermarkets I am used to here (Asda, a large supermarket here is owned by Walmart I believe and made for a great comparison). However, noticing the differences between my experiences is what made the trip enjoyable. I am certain I receive some "funny" looks from people as I was mesmorised at almost everything in the supermarket. This "awe" as some would probably not call it was based on a few things:-

Size: of the food items (i.e. they are rather large)
Brands: the shock of certain brands not being present there. Some seemingly international brands seemed to not make it this for
Rebranding: how certain items are rebranded for the American market. The example that comes to mind are the Nestle KitKat(s). They have a more retro / traditional design to the packaging
Diversification: from groceries, i.e. an all purpose store from food to hardware. Although our supermarkets do offer a range of other services, food is still the major part with clothes, electronics etc... being the subsidiary. However, in Walmart, it seemed food did not take most of the floor space which was surprising
Plastic bags: plastic bags still seem all the rage in the Walmart. Here in the UK, eco-friendly is the aim of the game were you have to pay for plastic bags. However, we have different, more versatile canvas style bags that you purchase and are free if one is broken. This is to encourage consumers to not waste and reuse their bags for their shopping. I did notice these style of bag in a more "up-market" supermarket but is not standard across the board
Rotating coolness: just a little thing that amused me, at the end of the checkout, all the bags were situated in a rotating device which I thought was pretty neat

Food Retailers, Restaurants and Services

A fair few times during my trip, I went to various food places from Fast food "joints" to Restaurants. The impressions stated in the above section are carried forward in terms of size and price. However, the main difference I noticed between the UK and US in this sector of the economy is related to customer service. Employees of food businesses in the UK are not well-known for their hospitality shall we say, or least very neutral. Obviously, this isn't true across the board but you will understand why I state this as I continue.

This is were the shock came in, the first trip out was after my 11 hours of semi-continuous flying (2 connections), and I went to a barbecue place. The waitress there seemed very friendly, very forward and overall, seemed more involved and interested in me, as the customer. My first thoughts were, may just be a one off as you get random people who are just that way in retail. However, after a series of trips to various food places, it appeared to be the norm. As you can imagine, this was a pleasant surprise after my experiences with "neutral / robotic" type employees in the UK. This is just a generalisation on my part but an assumption that has grown in my experiences. Probably related to the extent of which tipping is a major part of going to a food place which is another different. Tipping still occurs in the UK but it does not appear to be as extensive as in the US, almost an unofficial rule that everyone follows which was quite interesting, 15% is the rate?

When you are in a food venue, you need a drink to compliment your meal. As a standard rule, I will always as for Coke as to avoid confusion (the only time I really drink it). However, this resulting in some interesting results in the US which I shall elaborate upon. Firstly, the size of the drink is ridiculous. With no exaggeration whatsoever, the small soda container is the same size of even larger than the typical UK soda container. The look on my face must have been quite amusing as the kind people who I was staying with laughed after they told me this drink was a small and my subsequent jaw drop. And, its refillable! ... for free!!! (exclamation marks are required). On a similar note, the amount of ice is insane as well, you would never find that much ice in a drink as standard in the UK. Moving on from the size, and onto the taste. Cherry coke in particular, is 5 times sweeter in the US than the UK (this seemed to be a rule of thumb for most drink and food products, a much sweeter taste). We actually discovered this is due to the majority of food and drink items using a different sweetener than in Europe due to some trading disputes many decades ago when the US stopped using sugar cane and now use corn syrup which is sweeter (or something along these lines). And finally, the confusion between the waitress and myself. Coke to me is a standard, generic type for that black carbonated drink such as Coke Cola or Pepsi, however, you really have to make the distinction over where I was staying. And, every single time I got it wrong, I would say Pepsi, and they would only serve coke and vice versa.

Moreover, it was interesting to discover what food nationalities were different, in terms of volume. Mexican, as you can imagine is extremely popular over there (some really nice food as well!) which is not as apparent over here in the UK. You can find Mexican restaurants here but are not as frequent as in the states. Italian seemed very popular which seemed on par with here. However, the major distinction seems to be with Indian and Chinese, in particular Indian. The indian influence is related to the UK connection with India so it plays a major role in our food culture, whereas American did not have that influence. In crude terms, our Indian is your Mexican.

The Blackcurrant story

My favourite drink is blackcurrant juice and before I flew over, I was asked by "unaware of the trouble they were letting themselves in for" hosts of this. However, the blackcurrant is "tumbleweed" fruit in the US. This is due to a nation wide ban on the fruit many decades ago due to a disease that was killing many crops (if I remember correctly, and if its not accurate, it was something similar). So basically, the blackcurrant was banned until very recently so you will not find any products from it apart from European imported products are places in the North East were it is making a come back. This was quite a shock to me as blackcurrant is really popular here in all forms, ranging from fruit juices, flavour for sweets and an added extra to Lager to make it tolerable!.

We underwent a little road trip to try and find this illustrious fruit drink and eventually found 2 jars of very rich concentrate. Similarly, we eventually got a package from a UK import country and the people I was staying with, are now converts to the wonderful fruit. To any americans reading...if any, try blackcurrant and never look back!

Blackcurrant itself is a very strong juice, that will stain your insides purple but worth it.

Food Summary

To summise, my impressions of the Food on my trip are basically as follows:-

The food and drink is larger
The food and drink is sweeter
Food workers are more friendly
Tipping is very prominent
Mexican is very popular
No blackcurrant, how disappointing

So basically, I loved the food aspect of being the states!

Infrastructure

Roads, Lights and Roundaboutlessness

Roads are a pretty standard infrastructure across developed countries but there are distinctions between various countries and between the US and UK in particular. The most distinct difference is related to the driving position, we on the UK drive on the left whereas most of the world does not such as the US. I did not drive in the US, but was merely a passenger but it still caused me some confusion as you begin to predict movements in the car even as a passenger.

This confusion was also amplified by the whole traffic light situation in the US which is different in the UK, yes, traffic lights can be different! From a cosmetic perspective, US lights are smaller, more compact and are generally overhanging over the road on a pole. UK lights are larger, more bulky and are mainly angled on the side of the road and are only really overhanging on larger motorways and similarly complex infrastructure. As the US transport network relies heavily on traffic lights (over our notorious roundabouts), they appear to be more complex. Here are some observations:-

Amber and Red filter lights in certain areas. I have only ever seen green filter lights in the UK (btw, filter lights are the arrows in traffic lights incase you were wondering).
Flashing red. I have never seen a flashing red light before, which is like a Stop sign I am told (quite a clever idea)
Stop Sign madness: May have just been the area I was in but I have never seen so many stop signs in my life
Yield: This is just a term difference, here the equivalent sign is called Give Way. Most instances were you would see a stop sign in the US, a Give Way sign would be apparent in the UK
Go through red? The most confusing aspect of the traffic aspect of the US is were you do not have to yield at traffic lights unless it states. For example, if you were approaching a T junction and where turning right, you can go through if your way is clear. You just cannot do that here, if there is a red light, you just cannot go through. This took me a week to adapt to.
Roundabouts just do not exist in a functional sense, I did see 2 however, but they were ornamental in purpose, i.e. to make the area look more attractive. Roundabouts are all the rage in the UK and my daily trip to college would take me through 9 roundabouts and this is only a 8 mile trip.
For the most part, roads appear to be much wider and have more lanes. Probably due to the standard car size being pretty hefty.

Similar to lights, are the signs. The signs were different ever so slightly from minor to major. Minor differences such as the Yield sign instead of the Give Way as well as certain types of signs (such as for motorways etc...) were of different colour. Signs are generally standard as the same message needs to be portrayed by different designs are generally used. In the UK, speed signs are mainly white cycles with red borders, with a black number place on them. Different instances of this are if they are placed on top of another sign but will still have the same style and colour (excluding LED signs). An interesting sign different is related to Services on the highways / interstates. On an English motorway, you would have a small blue sign that states Services with a distance placed on it. However, in the US, the signs have logos of the business that are situated at that service area such as the infamous McDonalds.

Urban Areas and the McDonald effect

The concept of having specific areas dividing by terms of a zone is something unfamiliar to me. To elaborate, there are areas that are designed for commercial, residential and industrial functions and another function cannot intrude on another area. Therefore, you will not see houses in a commercial zone if my understanding is correct. You will find similar situations in the UK as its general business practise to nucleate to an area so you will have shopping districts and residential areas. However, there is no strict rule for this and you will find mixes of area functions in particular with commercial and residential. Furthermore, the commercial zones appear to cluster around the main roads so when following a major highway, you will be met by a continuous barrage of commercial businesses such as many many many food outlets. Comparatively, a trip in my local city along the major roads, you will drive through a conglomerate of houses, shops, factories all intermixed. So the urban structure between our two nations appears to be quite different. Similarly, it took me a bit longer to get my bearings of the area as many towns appeared to be merged into one another due to the shopping plazas bridging the gaps between the urban areas.

Distinction between areas did seem more difficult. My impressions are that it much easier to identify an area in Britain as there are definitive regions between a settlement whether that be a village, town or city with clear markings of this.

The McDonald effect as I call it, is by its name, biased towards McDonalds as the effect applies to many food retailers such as Subway and other brands. Every small stretch of a main roadway, there would be yet another McDonalds, another Subway, and many other retailers. I was staying in the region surrounding St Louis and a trip to this city, we directly passed 6 McDonalds which is a fair amount when outside of a city area. Obviously, in a city, you will find many franchises and retailers in a small area as a city can support it (unless it is ridiculous). However, in a more rural region, it seemed quite odd to me. One thing, if your car broke down on the highway, you would not go hungry.

St Louis appeared to be a very typical American city. It had skyscrapers, large roads and a gridded pattern. I only visited a small portion of St Louis but got the impression it was very different to my home city in the North East of England. The skyscrapers is the first different but that is not uncharacteristic of England, but my areas geology cannot support large buildings so that was not a "cultural difference" - just that of region, but interesting nevertheless. The grid like pattern was the most odd, the gridded pattern seems to be a wide spread base for all structures from cities to roads. When flying over from Minneapolis, it was intriguing to see the road pattern (boring to you I imagine). England by comparison is the total opposite, a mangled mess of curvy roads and chaotic urban planning. The only straight, gridded areas of the country are from over 2000 years ago from the Roman area. The St Louis area reminded very much of the GTA games, as they were based on American cities, I am not surprised, but was an amusing comparison nevertheless.

The architecture is very different. This is probably more to do with geography and climate than anything else. In my region of England, our so called storms are pathetic rain storms with polystyrene sized hale, 1 inch of snow per decade and wind that can blow a twig off a tree. So, being in Tornado country, I can imagine that the buildings much be built differently. A fair few of shopping centres or similar buildings use glass in their construction which would be ripped apart by any strong wind or weather conditions. Therefore, a lot of non-residential buildings were made of brick. We are very much a brick nation but the brick architecture being used seemed a lot different in the St Louis which I found quite interesting. Everything seemed to be using lighter, more brighter colour with larger but smooth blocks. Houses for the most part are made of wood which is the complete opposite of the UK were brick is the material of choice for houses with glass and steel being a business choice.

Cars and Gas (Petrol as we call it)

No doubt, the standard size of car that I was seeing were a whole class of car above what I am used to. What would be considered a small, economical car in the region I was in, would be medium sized family car over here. I have never seen so many trucks and 4x4s in all my life. Again, it is probably more of the rural area I was situated in at the time but the cars are absolutely massive. Less then 0.1% of cars that I saw were what I would consider a small car, and these small cars that I did see were parked and seemed to be inactive. I advise you googling for the Ford Ka and Smart car to see what a true small, economical car really is! lol

The gearbox situation was interesting to know, in the UK, 90% of cars will have a Manual gearbox and you would have to pay a much higher price for a car that has an option for an automatic. However, it is the complete reverse in the US with over 90% of the cars which appear to be automatic transmission. You have to go out of your way to find a manual apparently which is a major different in my opinion. A definite benefit, especially if you are coming from the UK as a manual would be quite confusing being on the other side so an automatic will soften the jump between the driving sides.

There are some slight "cosmetic" differences in cars and their accessories as well. The indicators, for the most part, do not have the amber light such as in European cars. This is replaced by a red light which appears to be an extension of the brake light. An example of form over function and I unlike other things I have witnessed, seemed to be a backward approach as its more confusing than the colour distinction (using amber). Also, the remote locking mechanism from most cars appears to be the horn, unlike the computerised locking sound effect from cars I am used to in the UK. I thought a lot of people were beeping their horns in the first few days.

Gas, what a joke! If you are an European and in particular, from the UK, the price of gas here is going to make you laugh. With the exchange rate being as it is, almost $2 to £1, the gas is half the price we pay for it. However, remember that it is all relative as apparently, our average salaries are much higher so comparatively, we pay the same amount compared to our wages. But, being an Englishman going to the states, you can go mad with petrol! Similarly, the gas stations themselves are so much more advanced. The pumps themselves will automatically fill up your tank and have a card reader, is that not just awesome. Note: England is quite backward. New technologies, infrastructure and anything that would improve the country, are very slow in being introduced by the government / businesses and other authorities. So, even something as simple as a card reader in a gas station is beyond us. It appears to be very little investment in our country despite what you must think.

That is why I probably seem more impressed with things US residents may take for granted, and I am a naturally excitable person anyway.

Fashion

A small section on fashion as there were not very many major differences in fashion and could be based on area as well. I would say as a major generalisation, that clothes I would see people wearing in everyday life is more elaborate but climate is probably going to play a major role. Its a rarity you can wear shorts here and not be cold.

However, the only major distinction is actually quite odd. The difference is on a clothing item called Crops. These are basically the clothing level between shorts and trousers (or pants as you call them). They are sometimes called three-quarters (3/4s) so are quite descriptive of what they are, they cover 75% of your leg. A comparison with wading pants. These are quite popular over here, or at least in the area I live in. Then, I was abruptly informed that these were some sort of laughable commodity as they have connotations with something. Being a stubborn Brit, I stuck through it (as I do not own a pair of shorts) and was amusing to see the reactions of certain "younger folk". So the moral of the story, if you are going during the summer time into the US, BRING SHORTS!!!!!

Flying, Planes and Airports

To reiterate, this was my first trip by myself, my first trip on a plane in over 8 years, my first trip on a plane by myself, my first trip to America, my connecting flight and it was bleeding scary and at the time, I was 17 lol I shall outline my itinerary for the trip so my experiences with the whole flying process will make more sense:-

Flew from Leeds/Bradford (UK) to Amsterdam (NL) - took 1.5 hours
Flew from Amsterdam (NL) to Minneapolis (US) - took nearly 9 hours!
Flew from Minneapolis (US) to St Louis (US) - took around 1 hour
Flew from St Louis (US) to Detroit (US) - took around 1 hour
Flew from Detroit (US) to Amsterdam (NL) - took nearly 7 hour (less this time woohoo)
Flew from Amsterdam (NL) to Leeds/Bradford (UK) - took around 1 hour

Leeds/Bradford Aiport

This airport is situated in the North of England outside the city of Leeds and is a pretty small airport. I had quite a pleasant experience here. Everyone is really friendly at this airport, including the security people who like to pass a few jokes. As its quite a small airport, its hard to get lost as its basically a 2 store corridor. Not much to really say about the airport, everything went really smooth on both the outbound and inbound trip. It is not the most advanced airport in the world but gets the job done.

Amsterdam Airport

Amsterdam airport can be described in 3 ways: Huge, Confusing, Robotic. The airport is absolutely massive and its quite easy to get lost if you do not know what you are doing. I must admit that I got lost on my home journey which I blame on the layout of the airport, my fatigue and my stupidness :) I am sure you really want to know about my lost story so I shall explain:-

I needed to find gate D6
I had to go to a small gate called D4
Then find a staircase hidden behind a wall which is not marked (or at least clearly)
Go through a miniature security checkpoint
Find a sub-gate of this gate as it had A-G gates such as D6 G

This was different to the other airports and gates in my trip so was confusing, plus my tiredness did not help. Amsterdam is a bit of an erratic airport. The airport appears to have a different method when they expand, unlike Heathrow in London where they added a whole new terminal, the Dutch had quite a seemingly bright idea (based on my purely subjective assumptions) as they just expanded the run ways instead of the buildings. Therefore, instead of have the gate attached directly to the terminal, most of the planes are accessed by shuttle so you are driven to and from your plane. Therefore, the road surface for the aircraft at Amsterdam is absolutely massive. I am sure this saves on expansion costs.

The condition of the airpot seemed very clean and very modern, I have no complaints concerning this. However, out of all the airports in the trip, the staff here seemed not necessarily unfriendly, but regimental and robotic (i.e. very little emotion in their proceedings). This is based on my personal experience except for one luggage help clerk who was quite friendly and jolly. Obviously, without spending many trips there, I cannot make a certain conclusion but robotic is the word of choice.

Minneapolis/St Paul Airport

This airport seemed rather large and appeared to be a grid like structure, i.e. 4 long corridors with spider web slight extremities, with long connecting bridges, patrolled by people on buggies. I really liked this airport, was impossible to get lost, very open with lots of space and many many food places. The amount of buggies in the airport did amuse me some what but considering the size, I wish I would have taken one. I had to run across one side of the airport to another as I was at the wrong gate :)

St Louis Airport

I did not spend much time in the St Louis airport but seems slightly smaller than Minneapolis but who knows as I had been up for 24 hours at this point (which is much more than I am used to). Had a blue colour scheme and seemed quite clean and just looked nice. I know the look of an airport does not matter in the slightest but looked the nicest. I had to deal with customer service here over my misplaced baggage here and went quite well (got it delivered to the house I was staying at the following day).

My outbound trip was pretty neat. The check-in area was all touch screens and had a single paper boarding pass which made the process easier. The staff there seemed very friendly. Ironically, we dealt with the same person at check-in as in the luggage incident 3 weeks prior and was extremely helpful, Val I believe was the name. Very pleasant airport.

Detroit Airport

I was in one of the 2 terminals at detroit and this one was just this endless corridor that went on forever. Quite easy to get around and even had a monorail inside the terminal which was quite interesting. Not really much to this airport but an easy passthrough for my connection.

Flight Experience

I was flying with KLM and Northwest for my trip, with KLM operating the Leeds to Amsterdam flight and Northwest for the rest. The planes for the most part were average, I was not concerned about the small 1 hour flights as it was not enough time to become uncomfortable. That said, the flight to St Louis had leather seats! and that was comfy!. I flew on a Boeing 747 for the trans-atlantic flight.

The journey there was on a more modern 747 which had the integrated entertainment system inside the seats. You had a selection of 30+ movies to watch, music to listen, games such as Solitaire and Bejeweled as well as a map of your location and other geography information. This made the nearly 9 hour quite tolerable and went quicker than I expected but still dragged forever. I had the displeasure of sitting in the middle of the 4 row of people which wasn't the most comfortable place in the world. The food was awful, but that is standard for planes.

The return journey, I had a great time being on the oldest 747 that Northwest airlines owns so it had no entertainment system like the inbound journey. You really want to check the plane that you are on before you leave to see what facilities it has got. Fortunately, I had my ipod this time around which was filled with Audiobooks and musics to keep me occupied. Similarly, I decided to book a better seat for $50 which was in the tail of the plane and had more room. It ended up I actually had 2 seats as the airline classed it as 1 seat randomly enough. This meant I could actually lay down on the plane. So I strongly recommend booking your ideal seat as quickly as possible as it makes the flight much better. Flying by its very nature isn't the most fun experience unless you go Business or First class so try and make it as best as you can!

The staff on the planes were very friendly, quite talkative and a bit comical so that is always a plus point.

US Customs and Immigration

Just as a note for anyway entering the US, it has slightly a different policy for travelers compared to some other countries. On the plane, you will be given 2 documents to fill out if you a non US resident / citizen or 1 if you are from the US. These are an immigration form and a custom declaration form.

If you are a US citizen, you fill in the customs form, stating what products you are bringing into the US and other details relating to that. If you are not, you also fill in the immigration form which is basically a visa waiver. You need to fill out who you are staying with, how long you are planning on staying and similar questions. You will give these forms to customs when you enter the airport. My visa waiver form was stapled into my Passport.

This is not the case if you are entering the Netherlands, i.e. Amsterdam. However, if you are entering the UK are you are a non EU citizen, then you will have to fill out an immigration form like the US.

All the staff involved in customs for the US were very friendly which is always a nice experience. All this is based on my experience on my recent trip.

Weather and Geography

A major part of my trip was the difference in geography and weather, something which I am interesting in. I have a few stories to tell with the weather so stay tuned...

Geography and Insects

Trees....Trees after Trees after Trees and guess it, more Trees. I have never seen so many trees in my entire life. England used to be like this over a 1000 years ago but most of the landscape is farmland and trees are in small isolated pockets in, nature reserves or Scotland. So, seeing 100s of miles of trees was really really strange, such dense forest. The area around St Louis seems to be just solid rock, all the major roadways are carved through the rock. The vegetation is very similar, green grass...very shocking.

The insect life is slightly different though, some really really noisy crickets that just would not be quiet until a storm was coming. I had an funny experience with a certain insect. I asked what insect it was and was quickly informed that it was indeed an ant. An Ant that was the size of my thumb!!!! not the 5mm monsters I am used to at home. Being in the middle of the Summer, there were load of insects and even they seemed to be bigger.

Storms

An English storm is quite pitiful, a bit of rain, some wind and if its really bad, a few flashes in the sky. I had the fun and scary experience of being in 2 storms whilst being in Missouri. The first storm was a mix of heavy rain, persistent and loud thunder with a barrage of lightning. The houses next door and opposite where hit by lightning during this storm. The sky was green which is apparently a bad sign. I am going to be honest, I was slightly, only slightly scared during this storm. I have never heard thunder so loud in my life and generally loud cracks. The lightning was striking the solid rock around us which ended up shaking the house which was scary for someone not used to it.

However, the second storm, I was prepared. The second storm was mainly a lightning display with intense lightning bursts for 2 hours which was a spectacle to so the very least. Continuous and multiple strikes every second. These strikes were very large and persistent with a up to 6 strikes in a single spot which was amazing to watch. As the storm moved away, fork lightning filled the scare with wonderful splendor. I have around a 10 second clip that was captured during this time on a digital camera in video mode. The quality isn't the best but you get the idea. It was an absolutely spectacular event to witness and we only had the very edge of the storm, not too far away, a tornado had landed but was too far away to go and see. There was a freak incident with this storm however. The storm passed over is in a curved south east then for no apparent reason, a client column of cloud from the storm did a full 180˚ turn and flew over at an incredible speed.

Scary stuff but a thrill to watch, especially when my region of the UK hasn't had stormy weather for years.