To wonder why anyone would want to live in America?

@user678435

The one thing I'd say is that unless you live in a western or southern state, good produce is more limited there than here, and it doesn't seem to travel as well from coast to coast as it does from Europe to the UK.

I think it depends a lot on where you shop. I'm in an area called the Hudson Highlands, in southern New York (about 50 miles north of NYC), and the produce selection here ranges from just okay to fabulous, depending on the store.

Two years ago, I was on a thread identical to this one, and a MNer moaned that she could never live in the U.S. because Americans don't eat fruits and vegetables, so there would be none for her to buy in the stores. So I posted a few pictures of the produce department at my regular Italian-themed supermarket. It was less dire than she was expecting.

You don't think people in the US are at higher risk of being the innocent victim of a gun shooting than in the UK ?

Hating Americans, like hating working class white English people is the last acceptable form of bigotry for middle class left leaning British people. It is embarrassingly stupid.
I just say "wow, would you say that about "Indians" or "Chinese"" and when they tell me how utterly different it is I get even more confused.
Or I wait for ages then say "my mums Amercian" (not even true!)
Makes me laugh anyway 😂

It's incredibly reductive thinking. As an American who has been resident in the UK for fifteen years, I can say, hand on heart, that both countries have their issues (and to the superior people who think 'it can't happen here', just look around you, all the signs are there), but the quality of the food one is laughable. The two countries are very similar in that, if you have money, you can eat very well. If your time and/or budget limits you to cheap or processed food, you won't.

It's true, there is some great cheese in Europe, but I'd put Humboldt Fog up against any of them. It might amuse posters here to know that I can get that plus Godminster Vintage Cheddar very easily in the small New England town where we spend our summers.

The one thing I'd say is that unless you live in a western or southern state, good produce is more limited there than here, and it doesn't seem to travel as well from coast to coast as it does from Europe to the UK. While I have seen shrink wrapped lettuce from Venezuela in the supermarket in the US in the dead of summer, I've seen some equally baffling dodgy produce swathed in numerous forms of plastic packaging in Waitrose.

https://www.cypressgrovecheese.com/usa/en/cheese/soft-ripened-cheeses/humboldt-fog

As an American who has been on MN for a decade or so, I find these threads about the U.S. both horifying and heartening. They used to be more frequent and goady, with subjects like "Why don't Americans cook properly?", and were clearly just an opportunity for British MNers to big themselves up by rubbishing the U.S. And, as you point out, those doing so had either never been there or never made any effort to try what was on offer beyond McDonald's. Can you get awful, cheap supermarket-branded cheese here? Of course you can. Can you get high-quality artisan cheese here? Of course you can.

So it's lovely to see more nuanced, fact-based, real-world experience-based views here when discussing the U.S. Thanks for that.

What, all the food in the whole country!! Honestly, the sheer ignorance of some posters on here is astounding.

Where on earth have you heard that and where did they go? Was it like a roadtrip eating exclusively from gas stations or something?

We had so many good places within walking distance ranging from your traditional local diner, historic bars, tons of just nice independent local neighbourhood brunch/lunch/quick dinner places, a 1 star Michelin and a 3 star Michelin, every variety of pizza, famous ribs etc. etc. I live in a pretty nice part of London now and I love the London food scene but it just cannot compete with what we had on our literal doorstep in Chicago.

The food was shite. I thought it was going to be great and it was all sugar loaded carbs.

I mean, if you order or buy sugar loaded carbs in any country, you're going to get... surprise, sugar loaded carbs.

I have been to SF twice (and other places) and the food has always been first class, especially the seafood and Italian restaurants.
The American restaurateurs take great pride in their establishments and quality of food and service. They are in every way at least as good as UK and European equivalents.
Anyone going to fast food ‘restaurants’ know what they are getting and shouldn’t complain.

People pissing on the US have mostly either never been there or are extrapolating bullshit they see on social media.
Is it perfect? No! Is anywhere perfect? No!

God bless America!!

I do support tourism to the US, but it’s Day 1 of the World Cup and I can’t MOVE for people. I live in a touristy city as it is, but this is another level of madness.

I thought I read that fans had been cancelling their trips, but I see no evidence of this??? DP and I tried to buy a ticket on a resale website and there was ONE ticket left in the whole stadium for the match we were interested in. Hoping for some last minute cancellations.

Everyone here for the World Cup seems to be enjoying it 🤷‍♀️

Yes, I've heard the quality of the food is appalling.

It’s outdated bollocks that Americans barely visit other states and never travel abroad. My State is very cosmopolitan and I have never, not once, met anyone who has never been abroad.

As for travelling around states, it’s very common to grow up in one state, go to college in another state, then grad school in another state, and have your career take you to a couple of other states. That’s without travelling around the states which many do at the drop of a hat. Very normal to do a weekend away in a neighbouring state, if not a bigger road trip further afield.

You've read too much "weird" stuff. You can walk anywhere except the "bad" parts of the big cities, just like the UK. Literally hundreds/thousands of miles of "nice" safe countryside, shore lines, etc. Gun crime, again, only a problem in the "bad" parts of the big cities. Yes, long drives if you want to go state to state, but at least roads are exceptionally good on the inter-states.

Have you ever been? If so, surely you saw the reality not the biased social media??

I've had numerous clients emigrate there, a few friends/relatives who've moved there, and literally none have come back - all seemingly happy there.

I've been on holiday a few times and would love to keep going back and exploring new states. Never felt particularly threatened most of the time. Though once we ended up in a KFC in a "bad" downtown area and didn't realise it. We'd gone in, ordered, picked up our food, sat down, before we looked around and noticed quite a few "dodgy" characters staring at us and then realised there were no other "holidaymakers" in there. Yes, for a short while we felt apprehensive, but we also noticed the staff behind the counter watching and a couple of the servers came over to "clean" the tables around where we sat, they didn't say anything, but I think they'd deliberately come over to look out for us had we been approached. Anyway we ate our meal, pretty quickly, and left. No harm done. No different to finding ourselves in the "wrong" part of town in other places abroad, such as Jamaica, Kenya, Egypt, and even in the "wrong" part of town in some UK cities.

The US is a huge place, many individual states bigger than the UK, so it's inevitable some places are nicer than others, just like any country, likewise a massive variation in people too, most of whom are a lot more happy, helpful and friendly than in some other countries.

Good music and great weather perhaps

DS is there. He earns twice what he'd earn in UK, plus top health insurance, with far better job prospects. Unusually for USA he's in a profession with lots of holiday so he isn't even a slave to their working hours culture. He'd rather be in UK (and I would rather he was, too) but the jobs just aren't there for twenty-something graduates. He's in a quiet, lovely town which he says is relatively untouched by the current political mania and unrest.

It's not ideal. But I;d rather he was there than back home with me, scrabbling for work, like all the poor young people in today's Guardian article.

This. My son didn’t have priviledge. Social housing tenant here. . He worked at school and afterwards to get where he is. 🙄

I live in the area and that's wholly different from my experience. Sounds like they work for an early stage startup or a company with Indian leadership lol (speaking as an Indian!). Generous PTO and proper time off is the norm here. And their kids are definitely not going to public school as the public schools start at 8:30 in most of the region -- certainly not before 8 anywhere in CA.

San Jose has a lot of suburbs but people are out and about in downtown SJ and Mountain View well into the night, all days of the week. It's perfectly safe walking around!

Where did you see that? Every source I can see says the average American visits about 12. About 75% travel abroad in our lifetimes as well, which is a much larger number than people seem to think.

I was amazed at how like the movies it was.

Newport beach in California, or Malibu. Las Vegas, NYC, the Hamptons, so much of what I enjoyed out there was what I’d grown up seeing in films.

And it was great.

Yes I am from the 80s, a bit older than 12 now and if i choose to live my life in American movies I can ok!😂

My company has unlimited PTO and I don’t don’t know anyone who takes as little as 10-15 days PTO (annual leave) so it must be industry dependent, yes. For one thing, the firm is closed for 2 weeks over Christmas / New Year, so that’s 10 days’ leave off the bat.

Most people take 5-6 weeks off a year, as standard. I take 8 weeks off because I can hit my metrics with this much time off. If you don’t see a future at your employer, nothing stops you taking a lot of time off in your last 6-12 months. I know someone who didn’t do any work whatsoever in his 2 months’ notice period (a mixture of annual leave, paid sick leave and generally checking out).

Overall it is definitely business friendly because the conscientious will take fewer than 25 days (this was the allowance before unlimited PTO came in) and the employer doesn’t have to pay out accrued PTO when you leave. But for the average worker, it’s a better deal than the fixed 5 weeks I was getting in London.

As for answering emails on leave - again, this is industry dependent. I was 100% doing this in my role in London, so no change there.

A US based relative has unlimited PTO, but is expected to check emails and answer any work calls. So its not what Id call annual leave. Taking more than 10 to 15 days per year raises questions about commitment to the firm.
Also they are tech land CA, near San Jose and working days are longer, commutes are longer (and WFH is increasingly limited). There is noone around after 8pm, as they are all in bed for a 6am departure for school or work. So walking alone at night doesn't feel safe. The local High School starts at 7am. Its a very different lifestyle.

I think the annual leave policy is industry specific. I work in tech sales and have had unlimited PTO for years now; it's common in my industry but very much not so in others. It's also misleading, as leave still needs to be taken judiciously and you cannot take too much/take a lot consecutively. There aren't official policies around it so it gets murky and people end up taking less than they would otherwise. Parental leave also varies from company to company and state to state. I saw someone post about getting 24 weeks; a close friend in Georgia had a baby recently and between her company's policy and her state FMLA, she only got 8 weeks, total.

Thank you for telling me