@SumKindaMunster Yes - If you want to spend most of it at airports and on jets.

@ArishMell [@rocketdad] The German influence is much more pronounced in the northern Midwest urban areas, and to a lesser extent in the New Jersey/Delaware area. The latter was due to Alexander Hamilton's efforts to import the industrial revolution as Secretary of the Treasury in the early days. The former a later product of the early-1800's when the Western Expansion required industrial skills and the unsettling political situation in what became Germany drove a lot of young men to emigrate.

Including my Great-Grandfather. He was a skilled woodworker, was fleeing conscription into one or the other armies in the Franco-Prussian War. Baden was an open international city at the time, much like Casablanca in WWII, and the U.S. actually operated an Immigration Office there promoting immigration to the U.S. (don't tell the orange skinned guy; oh, that's right. They were white, so OK). He married my Great-Grandmother, both teenagers at the time, in Baden and then immediately left for the U.S. saying he would send for her. Talk about trust! But he settled in Chicago where there was a large German community in the furniture building industry serving the entire West, which was mostly territories rather than states at the time. And in a year, he did send for her!

They had a good life going in the German section of Chicago, but it got wiped out in the Great Chicago Fire. So they packed up what they were able to salvage, including my four-year-old grandmother, hopped on the new transcontinental railroad and took it to the end of the line at that time, which was Bakersfield, California. Where he inexplicably changed careers and opened a brewery/biergarten (what we Yanks would call a brewpub these days).

@dancingtongue Interesting family history!

Perhaps your great-grandfather saw better prospects in brewing. There may have already been plenty of furniture-makers in Bakersfield by the time he arrived. Or maybe he'd become bored with essentially making the same things every day - though I'd think brewing beer even more repetitive!

@dancingtongue good to know

@SW-User

Sad, your Mental Napoleonic complex gets in the way of everything in your existence.

You were done yesterday, Remember the racism? Who the fuck are you to talk shit about a former First Lady?
There isn’t free speech on privately owned servers.

yet here you are thinking that insulting me will change something .

Where did your hate come from?
What makes you think others won’t call you on your bullshit.

Sad, little racist clown.
Say something else smart, keyboard tough boy.
Grow up, adults don’t engage like you do in public.

Keep talking though

@SW-User love it - you're still crying 5 hours later. I OWN YOU twink boy!

Now go collect the fleas from Moochelle's tail butt boy. Make yourself useful

@Dlrannie Those of us with roots on the African continent certainly know better, but thanks to DNA testing, we can now put names to the countries of those ancestors. 😉

@SumKindaMunster Someone's pissed off, aren't they?

No goalposts are being moved here. Georgescu was not the rightful winner of the election. The only person moving goalposts is you.

@iamthe99 So basically you're admitting that you are using multiple profiles to get around blocks, so you can harass and manipulate people for your own childish amusement.

Only an amoral wretch thinks those behaviors are virtues.

You punch down because you are insecure and afraid.

You engage in deceptive behavior because nobody would pay attention otherwise. Furthermore, you've demonstrated you are not a genuine debater and aren't interested in discussing issues, you just want to put others down to pump up your own poor image and self esteem.

I'm reporting you. You are engaging in behavior that violates the TOS. You are using multiple accounts to spy on me and try to fool me.

@ViciDraco Not really...If that were true, one could say they were going to Europe, which could mean Russia, China, or even Africa.

@TexChik Not at all. China is in Asia. You can't go to Europe and be in China. You can go to Canada or Brazil and be in one of the Americas.

@TexChik Nope. Russia is in both Europe and Asia, but China is in Asia and Africa is Africa.

@bijouxbroussard And in alternate cycles, the red portions of Northern California want to secede and set up a separate state of Jefferson, or be annexed by Oregon. Contrary to our image nationally as a flaming liberal leftist socialist state, we are quite schizoid, aren't we?

@dancingtongue Yes. Just like there are liberals living in red states (my relatives, for example), we have enclaves of Trump supporters. Ironically, many of them lived in some of the hardest hit fire areas up North. So when Trump tried to play hardball with Gavin about AID, he didn’t realize the governor was asking on behalf of some of the few MAGAs here. 😳

@bijouxbroussard Another reminder that being divisive may work to get elected, but to govern -- and stay elected -- you have to govern for all, not just your own supporters.

@graphite Indeed!

Someone once told me his own neice found this when she travelled alone from England to visit relatives in California.

Her parents 'phoned her hosts to say she would arrive at New York at such-and-such a time, and asked if they could collect her there.

The answer was, "You are much closer to New York than we are!"

Bingo@ChipmunkErnie!

@TrashCat a North Atlantic Union sounds even better

At the very least the US and Canada need to merge

@SW-User ikr

@BlueVeins Well, they have in a sense. They have the EU and the Euro, but both are in decline.

@carpediem I’m sure there’s at least one American who cares. We’re not all a-holes.

@graphite Lol... I'm flying into Orlando in the morning - and, by tea time, I'm grilling my burgers in Slab City... 🤣🤣🤣

@RuyLopez And Europe again meets the criteria!
As do many non-Schengen countries.

@ElwoodBluesWell there you go. Ronald would be proud don’t you think?

@RuyLopez Yeah he'd be pretty proud. BTW, we've got 45 mcdonalds per million - we RULE!!!

@bert199 If someone tells me they are "going to Africa" my natural reaction would be to ask which country. Similarly if they had said America, I would ask where in America.

I don't know if the OP was responding to threads on SW that do suggest many Americans think "Europe" is one country rather than over two dozen with their own cultures, languages, political and legal systems, geographical characteristics, etc. There are many overlaps but also many huge differences.

The Euro is the currency of all those nations in the European Union but that is a political and economic bloc, not a nation itself (though it sometimes looks like one and does have its own federalists); and the nations outside of the EU retain their own currencies.

The countries though are too different for "Europe" to be thought of as a cohesive entity. Perhaps when tourists say they are "visiting Europe" they mean they are visiting several countries in one holiday.

@hartfire nice. It's impossible that the recent growth of fascism matters to anyone but me. Sorry, but okay, you have a right to be a monster. It's just a matter of taste for the monsters.

@hartfire Just wondering why some people are laughing at my comment, who they are, and what their experiences are.

All generalisations come with exceptions, which I believe is something one should simply accept for what it is - a norm that comes with a sprinkling of abnorms.
In this case the exceptions would be those North Americans who have studied, worked or travelled extensively in Europe, and those would be in the scores of thousands compared to the 331.9 million citizens, most of whom have never travelled outside the USA, and some of whom have rarely been out of their state.
Those who have travelled abroad would have witness how their compatriots behave, and would have heard how they are perceived.
Certainly the Americans I met while abroad - everywhere from Europe to South-East Asia - were constantly surprised at the differences in cultures.
When an American starts living overseas, they slowly begin to see America in a different light.

@Roundandroundwego I don't like fascism either - by which I mean far-right dictatorships of the ilk of Hitler and Mussolini.
Nor do I like it when politicians attempt to usurp the processes of democracy.
I'm not sure how you think fascism has any connection with my first comment in this thread. I be interested to know how you draw that conclusion from what I said.

@acpguy America is a republic. So it's the republicans fault that education is failing. After all the democrats are just weak pathetic baby eaters. It's the great right wing that runs everything.
- Our Lord in MAGA DJT.

@canusernamebemyusername You are suffering from a bad case of dumb fuck. I would guess you are not from the USA and have your head buried deeply up your socialist ass.

@acpguy About the same time they started giving awards for participation and said that math was racist.

@Tracos I was thinking the same thing. It’s an ironic question.

@Nelisme it's well worth it if you can get there...

@Convivial Would love to see London and Paris especially… actually many places. The world has a lot to offer - too bad all we seem to think about is the bad parts.

@Nelisme you'll get there if that's what you desire...

@SunshineGirl good point

@ArishMell Well there is you answer within your own response to me in your own words:
but an American PM correspondent on here did once tell me they are not taught much about the outside world, at school. Well, not in his school, at any rate.



But hey maybe you as an outside of the US person has some greater knowledge than this American. Dang it I answered you honestly.

@WillaKissing Welp... first off, the US is bigger than all of Europe. Driving from Belgium to Spain is like driving from New Hampshire to New York city.

@TrashCat I know that about the US I am an American.

What the original poster of this post was asking: "Why do Americans just group all of Europe together". What does that have to do with the size of the United States compared to Europe when the poster was asking why Americans think Europeans are all the same when they are not and unique to their specific regions and countries. Stick to the question asked please.

@TrashCat A good point, indeed many people in any country would probably have the same difficulty with any other country - or even their own.

That does not excuse making no effort to learn though, or to have never been taught it. Nor to learn how to find out.

Given a map showing only the borders of US states, French départements or Russian oblasts, I could not add the names - but I have atlases to show me.

For example, for much of the first few months of the war in Ukraine I kept it open at the relevant page; and with the aid of 'Google Earth'* knew of the Kersch Straits road and rail bridges long before they were mentioned in News reports. Similarly, as it shows sea-bed as well as terrestrial topography, my atlas occasionally helps me understand severe earthquakes or other natural disasters reported on the News.

Could,, though, every American, French or Russian person identify all of his or her own land's administrative boundaries by that test? Probably not - and I don't suppose I am the only Briton who could not correctly identify every county on a boundary-only map of the UK.

Nevertheless I do know every country and every part of very country has its individual characteristics; and it is not difficult to learn at least their basics, and to learn how to find them.

Sheer memory-knowledge is not so important as understanding where and how to find and use the facts reliably, and having the will to do so. After all, we'd expect a doctor to have up-to-date medical and pharmacological references to hand, or an engineer to use appropriate books of mathematical formulae and tables. (Printed books and reliable Internet references.)

=====

*Which service also revealed to me, something I have not heard or read reported anywhere else: Chinese settlements apparently still being developed, on a very remote, arid playa-lake bed in their annexed Tibet. These have no obvious purpose, but significantly, are directly below the mountain ridge carrying the short border with Afghanistan, plus those of Pakistan and a third (Tajikistan I think, from memory).

@ArishMell Memory knowledge is on the sharp decline because of the internet. Humans are no longer required to retain detailed info. We've inadvertently triggered an evolutionary reponse that has caused our brains to be rewired to data retrival mode from storage mode.

Tbh, there are a bunch of Americans who don't know where Nebraska is 😃

@TrashCat Well, the USA occupies at least half the area of the continent, but don''t they know how to read a map?

That's a worrying thought though, that we are becoming far too dependent on the Internet as a substitute for learning.

It happens even a small scale. One day my nephew reckoned you don't need learn much maths because "it's all your calculator". I pointed out that the calculator or computer is only an arithmetic machine: you still need understand the problem so you can give the instrument the right instructions.

@SW-User

Then why bother reading and commenting off you already have you small mind made up.

@pdockal did I hurt your feelz? 😭

@SW-User true, as a world traveler I'd say there are many countries alike, the UK, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and USA Canada are like Israel. One empire.

@Entwistle There was a Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food restaurant near Tower of London when I was there. Wonder if Henry VIII used to eat there?

@helenS

You know what happens to people who assume !

@pdockal I assume we are big winners?

@helenS

Ughhhhh
Bub bye

@HootyTheNightOwl London's not in Europe? I guess I stand corrected.

@graphite No... London is not the ENTIRITY of Europe. York is in Europe, too, but you don't call York "Europe" in the same way.

Europe looks a lot different from Paris, Brussels, Rome, Amsterdam, to name a few... Why do you have to call London "Europe"??? We're only going to ask for the city or country.

@StygianKohlrabi cool. In one trip? And how long was the trip?

@SW-User yes in one trip I traveled as far west as Portugal. I was in the Scandinavian countries, Baltic countries, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and on the Mediterranean. it took almost 3 months and I had a rail pass.

@StygianKohlrabi Now that's what I like to hear!

@calicuz LOL!

Ah, but by which European countries, principally?

I expect we East of the Atlantic have some strange ideas about USA life, but much of them are from a combination of News reporting that tends to focus on the successes of NASA, the political antics and social problems; and not least, the deluge of at least some sort of America thrown over us by the entertainments and fast-food trades!

@ArishMell

You've pretty much sumed up all that's left of American culture, if there's anything left. 🤣

@MrEagle On a steel horse I ride.