Why does everyone treat America as a joke?

@Gangstress To them America IS the world. But "It aint neccessarily so"😷

@Gangstress ain't it the truth

@whowasthatmaskedman I know. The Brits get a lot of bashing from that side of sw. Some brits even condone it.

@Gangstress But we do have the good fortune to number among our US Bretheren some of the least evolved examples of the species. They do make it easy by turning up to a battle of wits barely 50% armed.😷

@Gangstress [c=4C0073]If i've ever heard a hard truth, this is the hardest of all! 200000% accurate statement there![/c]

Going to Europe is always a culture shock for me

@DDonde yeh it will be. We are not all the same boyo

@Gangstress For sure

@DDonde i don't know why people think going abroad will automatically mean. Everyone's American.
I didnt go to America and assume everyone was like us over here. Or lived the way we do. Ya know.

@Gangstress I didn't assume it would be. I can travel hundreds of miles within the USA and I'm still comfortable, but when I go out of the country literally everything feels different. Maybe it's the jetlag.
Nothing I couldn't get used to though.

@DDonde i didnt mean you lol.

@Gangstress actually it would help if a majority actually did take some time outside of the USA. Especially to a totally different country.

I know my own "Welt anschauen" (world view comes closest) changed drastically when I visited Germany at 14.

Better yet it would do many good just to visit a neighboring country like Mexico and I don't mean just a border city.

Mexico is just as different from the USA as Mexico is from Germany.

i agree, its like some Brits I used to work with, no intention of going out the country, and I always thought why. I like to learn about the world, cultures, food. Even just daily activities, I may learn a thing or two.
Whilst Europe is large, each country in Europe is different.
We live in the city, go to the countryside, its different, feels difference. The world slows down. And this is key to life, we all get caught up in the daily, break the chain, break free, life is for living, or we are better off dead.

@DeWayfarer

@Gangstress some will have a "culture shock" though. That's to be expected. Yet the whole point is to experience that same "culture shock".

I had bad headaches since I really didn't understand german all that well, yet being around relatives even though they were distant helped some.

yes this is it, I always try and learn basic terms if we do travel so at least I can be a little armed :) but knowing someone is always useful, I learnt a lot of Spanish phrases from a work friend :)

but yeh that's it, there will always be a culture shock, with anything that you are not used to. @DeWayfarer

@Gangstress I had two years of grade school Spanish. It didn't prepare me enough for Mexico City! Not even Germany did enough to prepare me. 🤣

@DeWayfarer haha I had the same problem