Things you never noticed til you moved back Stateside

 

I forget, where in PA are you?  I'm in Lancaster, and we have at least 4 Wawa's in our county. 

Harrisburg... wow, thats close, when I grew up never went to Lancaster didnt even know that there was anything but farms there. Now because I travel all around pa for work it amazes me, they have some good places to eat over there

Things I never noticed:

There aren't as many automatic doors in stores as I thought there were (useful when you have a double stroller).

Unlike the UK, the carts (trollies) at the stores do NOT accommodate 2 kids.

It's a LOT hotter and more humid than I remember!

People here can NOT drive.


I'm sure I'll think of more!!

Things I never noticed:

People here can NOT drive.

OMG!! I can't believe how bad people drive over here (east coast) since I have been back! It's like playing Russian Roulette on the beltway/highway....absolutely insane. Truly (not kidding), I can not drive on either anymore. Even on regular streets people are nuts and the running of red lights is the norm as well.  

As for Chinese food, I am loving being back home....great food and no MSG....love it!   Added bonus for DH, great Indian food for him.

Modified to say: Sitting on the deck and hearing the crickets now....its my 2nd summer back and I love to hear them again.  

The number of commercials during TV shows, and even more so the number of them that are for prescription drugs. It drives me nuts to watch TV in the US.

The number of commercials during TV shows, and even more so the number of them that are for prescription drugs. It drives me nuts to watch TV in the US.

I completely agree! I record everything via DVR and watch it later so I can fast forward through the commercials. The drug commercials are OTT. Every now and then I can't escape commercials because the FF isn't always accurate when I hit stop.

Anyway regarding the drug commercials, have you seen the one for older men that says if you have an "X" for more than four hours straight, call your doctor. That one, cracks me up!

Harrisburg... wow, thats close, when I grew up never went to Lancaster didnt even know that there was anything but farms there. Now because I travel all around pa for work it amazes me, they have some good places to eat over there

Yeah, Lancaster's more than just the Amish

What an interesting thread!

I definitely don't watch TV in the US, mainly because of the ads (yay for DVD box sets!) -- I stopped watching films on TV the day I was watching the Untouchables and they inserted an ad break IN THE MIDDLE of the tremendously tense Union Station steps sequence.

This is an odd one, that might be in my head. Limescale.... here my kettles are fine, taps are fine and it seems I just don't get such an apparent limescale problem as I did in London. Is that possible?

This is an odd one, that might be in my head. Limescale.... here my kettles are fine, taps are fine and it seems I just don't get such an apparent limescale problem as I did in London. Is that possible?

Absolutely it's possible. It's likely, actually. I honestly don't think anywhere I've lived prior to London (and that includes Cornwall) has as bad a limescale problem as my current flat in Wimbledon does.

You probably just live in an area with way softer water now.

I completely agree! I record everything via DVR and watch it later so I can fast forward through the commercials. The drug commercials are OTT. Every now and then I can't escape commercials because the FF isn't always accurate when I hit stop.

Anyway regarding the drug commercials, have you seen the one for older men that says if you have an "X" for more than four hours straight, call your doctor. That one, cracks me up!

Apparently my 10 year old nephew was half paying attention to that one once and asked my mom what it was for. My mom was like, 'Um...I have no idea! You can't tell what half of those drug commercials are for anyway!' I thought that was a good deflection!

Another thing I can't stand about watching TV here is how much they edit swear words out of movies. We were watching 'The Departed' one night and I just turned it off because it sounded so stupid when this gangster kept saying, 'I'm going to flippin' kill you! You flippin' hear me!?' 

This is an odd one, that might be in my head. Limescale.... here my kettles are fine, taps are fine and it seems I just don't get such an apparent limescale problem as I did in London. Is that possible?

Yes. There are regions of the US very prone to limescale. It's all about the geology.

Another thing I can't stand about watching TV here is how much they edit swear words out of movies. We were watching 'The Departed' one night and I just turned it off because it sounded so stupid when this gangster kept saying, 'I'm going to flippin' kill you! You flippin' hear me!?' 

AND they edit out the 'nudity'. We were watching a BBC show (Being Human). One of the guys is a werewolf. His clothes get ripped to shreds when he changes so when he's back to normal, he's - gasp! - naked! Now, this is a BBC prime time show. So no frontal nudity. But the US even had to blur out his bum. FFS. Wouldn't want to see that ever, now would we?!

AND they edit out the 'nudity'. We were watching a BBC show (Being Human). One of the guys is a werewolf. His clothes get ripped to shreds when he changes so when he's back to normal, he's - gasp! - naked! Now, this is a BBC prime time show. So no frontal nudity. But the US even had to blur out his bum. FFS. Wouldn't want to see that ever, now would we?!

That's almost identical to one of the first things I noticed on TV, the first time I visited the US back in the 1980s. I had seen the movie "American Werewolf in London" on UK TV sometime during the mid '80s. Didn't notice any blurring, not even during the man-to-wolf transformation scene where you see the guy's bare bottom (still as a human) as he crawls across the floor.

Cut to a couple years later when I'm visiting the US. Watching US tv, on comes the same movie. To my amusement, during the same scene, US tv blurred out his bare ass! I laughed mine off.....Wow, if butt cracks are something we can't be trusted witnessing, new legislation needs to be brought in regulating plumber's attire....

Oh, you guys must not remember (or were not around) for the absolute sh!tstorm that was raised over a flash of Andy Sipowitz's (sp?) wrinkly butt on NYPD Blue. From the way some people were talking, you'd think think the civilization was collapsing around our ears.

I'll save you the suspense: the clip aired and the civilization survived.

Oh, you guys must not remember (or were not around) for the absolute sh!tstorm that was raised over a flash of Andy Sipowitz's (sp?) wrinkly butt on NYPD Blue. From the way some people were talking, you'd think think the civilization was collapsing around our ears.

I'll save you the suspense: the clip aired and the civilization survived.

Yep, I remember that! And eww....always wondered why they couldn't have given us a hotter guy for TV's debut fully shown bare bum......although if it had been anyone in nicer shape than Dennis Franz, I guess there would have been even more of a moral outrage, hah.