Glad you had a good trip there, Zeek. I think as far as technology goes, the more urban you go and higher class areas are obviously going to show this kind of sophistication. New York sounds likely to have that, although I've never been there, myself.

However, much of America is just open, mostly unused space, with the occasional farmer or smaller community. In these more rural areas, things are likely more backwards than what you are accustomed to.

On obesity, I think it depends a lot on region too:

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/ ... s-by-state

Looks like Colorado and Utah are the skinniest and Mississippi is one of the fattest, literally 1/3 of people are fat there. Fascinating.

PS....

I can relate to not having a car and not being able to drive in America, it sucks.

WELCOME to America!

Interesting. I wouldn't have qualified America as being particularly open and unreserved. But at the same time I am pretty open and unreserved and am making conscious choices to close my big mouth. But you wouldn't know that seeing me out in public or barely meeting me.

Hey! My work has decent tea! Maybe we import it. I'll check next time. And you'd probably smack me if you saw me make it. I don't do it the proper British way: I make it in a big plastic cup (with no handle). With no crumpets.

I'll give you this. I visited Manhattan years ago. It struck me as very odd how _everyone_ had an iPod. I was all, well what. The. Fuck. This may be a Manhattan/New York thing. I myself have discovered ebooks and don't see myself buying a paper book again unless I had to.

I read "automated hygiene machines" and wondered if you visited future America. And then I read the rest of this thread and saw you meant electric hand driers. Dude, the Dyson Airblades are the BEST. As a mechanical engineer by training, yes, it makes me excited how well those things work. There's one in a local frozen yogurt shop around here that, yes, I show people.

But then I've been to Japan and overall, I don't think we compare in that department. They have robots.

Sadly, this is true. I'm trying to cut out fast food myself: let's see how that goes. I'm 5'9", 193 lbs.

Sadly, this is also true. My car is on my list of things I can't do without. I think the only place where you can really get away without a car is Manhattan.

I've been to the UK myself. To check out the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with a couple of college friends. I wasn't expecting London to be as green as it was. Even a lot of the pubs were draped in plants and flowers and stuff.

my sister will be getting married to an American next year, so i'll probably will be visiting the USA then, curious

I visited the United States two years ago, travelling by train from coast to coast... from east to west (via southern route) and back (via northern route). This was only 15 days, but nevertheless event packed and interesting.

.

From my two weeks' face to face experience of American people, and I sure got a lot of experience because on the trains you're constantly interacting with Americans and sitting with Americans at meals, and comparing it like for like to what a similar British odyssey would probably be like, I would feel much comfortable and happier among the British attitude. You're absolutely right about the openness, as people talk to each other and get to know each other on the trains. Helpfulness and goodwill - I'm not absolutely sure. I did meet many cool and nice people. But I wouldn't have thought I would also have had so many negative social experiences when meeting people, and openness doesn't help there, I'd prefer the insularity, coolness and reserve of the British any day. From a love-shy and male incel standpoint, America not good. I know many dateless, love-shy American guys criticise American women, but I can say I experienced at first hand an attitude that I wouldn't do here - or it was just more openly expressed.



Technology wasn't something that caught my attention, but infrastructure always does. It was good enough in the more developed, larger cities, but try visiting and travelling through the Deep South.



I must have been inured to the whole obesity thing. While knowing there was statistically more obesity in the US, it just didn't jump out at me. Maybe that's because, after all, I'm from Scotland which is second among the OECD countries for obesity, behind the US. It just didn't jump out at me that I was in a country with more obesity. You must know that people in Scotland often have a high fat content diet and often have less than healthy lifestyles.



All this is definitely true.



Also absolutely true, unless you are somewhere like New York City, San Francisco, or central Chicago, which is a very small minority of the US population.

Unless you're in one of those US places plus one or two suspected others (e.g. Boston), anywhere in the UK one will feel much more involved in and interactive with a town or city and its structure with or without a car.



I had a much better time when I was out and about in the cities, probably due to not having forced interaction, as they do on the trains at meal times. I liked New York City apart from the overcrowding. People in New York were generally polite to me.



How did you find Edinburgh as a place and how did you find the lifestyle and people? I live there.

Hey Dsea : ) I have some pictures, but mostly of odd things though - I enjoy taking pictures of strange signs or rundown buildings, so they are probably not very interesting.

Green card wise, you would be able to get a working visa at the very least?

Also, Yellowstone Park <3 I didn't go, but I would love to. Wolves!

That sounds like an amazing trip. I think I'd have to spend some time in the US to figure out which attitude I prefer. Like I said, my post was about very generalised impressions more than anything. The attitude of openness was a bit alien to me as well. I like people to consider what they say, and be open to listening to other people, but I do think British people can be too insular at times. But maybe that is just me.




I can well imagine. Where abouts did you visit in the Deep South, out of interest?



Mm, I've heard of that statistic...I've been to Scotland quite a lot though (lived in Perth for a short time as well) and it didn't jump out at me too much. It did jump out at me in the places I went to in America though, perhaps because I was just in a different country. But, I have a very skewed view of things like that, it's an unhealthy leftover (no pun intended) from having an eating disorder. It's a lot better not to notice those things at all.




That sounds nice. I'm glad you had a better time socially than I did there.

Wow, that's an interesting map. It seems obesity does not always automatically correlate to heavily industrialised areas, which is interesting.

Yeah, the sense of 'open, mostly unused space' was the real mindbender for me. I've never come across anything like it, in anywhere I've been too. It was almost that America felt like this vast, vast place that simply had a veneer of civilisation, spread here and there, but underneath it was wilderness and emptiness. It's a feeling I've never got from any European place I've been too. It was fascinating, slightly frightening and disconcerting, but mostly disorientating. In a good way.

Ack, I hope public transport is good where you live

How did you find Poland and Hungary? Those are next in my list for places to travel too. I've been to Serbia, Czech and very briefly Slovenia, so I guess it doesn't count. And yeah, the public technology in the cities of most of those places was not really on the same level as the public technology of the cities I visited in the US. In a European sense I would rank places like Germany, France, Spain and the UK as having the best public tecnology (e.g, in public bathrooms, internet cafes, and such) as better than most of the central/eastern European places I have visited.

Thank you! Can I come back?? It's raining here...



Ha. It's odd, I have a love/hate thing with tea, sometimes I hate it, sometimes I love it and need it. I had a massive craving for it all the time in the US. It's probably the caffeine But yeah, that is not how you make tea! *looks stern* You need a mug. Maybe with a picture of the Royal Family on. And a good brand (Bettys, Earl Grey). And crumpets. With butter. Please implement this ASAP.



Yeah? I was thinking of getting an e-book reader. Any suggestions? Which one do you use?



YES! Those are the crazy things. They were fascinating. I got a bit freaked out by how my hands looked when they were being dried, though :p

I'd love to go to Japan, someday. Mostly for the robots. And the sushi.



You have a pretty busy lifestyle, though, right? So it makes it all a lot more difficult. It's very easy just to grab something and go. And the take-out food over there is significantly cheaper. And tastier. But I genuinely found it difficult (after a few days of excess) to find healthy, easily accessible options. For example, I went to sit down in what was styled as a pub - a sort of Irish themed bar / restaurant - and I wanted to have something healthy, so I ordered a soup and salad. The salad was drenched in dressings, crackers, croutons, all kind of tasty things, and the soup came with a massive layer of cheese over the top - not just a sprinkling, a genuine cheese layer, like a pie lid. I've never had to take a knife and fork to a soup before and all of this was about four or five dollars, which is about £3 in my money and I couldn't even get a McDonalds for that over here. And it was completely delicious. I think I'm all for the cheese-pie-lid soup idea, now...but yes, healthy eating on the go was pretty difficult. Fast food in the US seems especially nefarious...

Also, I want to weep at the lack of bubble tea in the UK now

I don't know much about the visa and green card stuff. It seems to be a bit blurred and depends apparently from your level of education, work etc. If it's the case, I may have my chances as I have a master's degree and a quite sought after job in a developing industry. But if it's a lottery, well...

Poland was amazing: Krakaw is one of the most beautiful cities I visited. Like Praha or Budapest, I felt like in a fairytale city. Budapest is gorgeous, the architecture is a blend of orthodox, catholic, ottoman influences; I had a great time there. The Danube is at its best there and the food is awesome (and the wine! ) In Serbia I liked Novi Sad, surprisingly very pretty (I was there for a humanitarian convoy so I didn't really expect to be amazed at the beauty of the city), and the country is very green and hilly and people were awfully nice.

Edinbourgh is a... daunting city I was staying there a few days and I was, I don't know, impressed, intimidated by the huge tall and dark buildings. I had the feeling it was the perfect place for a thriller movie It has something fascinating though, but it was bloody expensive and it put a bit of a damper on my staying there.

Krakow is beautiful, there are places in Poland even more magical for example Torun, when Nikolaus Copernicus was born. Wroclaw is also very nice city. I don't really like Warsaw - it's too crowded for my liking.

Glad you liked Poland, Desea.

Zeek, if you ever visit Poland feel free to message me. I invite you for the coffee.

For me the most beautiful city in Europe is Barcelona. I've been there three months and enjoyed every minute of my stay.

I read a bit about Torun as I studied a Banville book about Copernicus... It seems gorgeous.
None of my Polish acquaintances like Warsaw either, funny. Maybe I'll go to Poland when I have some money cause from Ireland it's quite easy, as there are a lot of Polish people here. And I have very good memories of the food ^^ I had some zurek (not sure of the spelling) and kotlet schabowy, it was yummy. Pierogi also left quite an impression.

I never been to Barcelona, I don't know why Spain doesn't appeal to me much. I wanted to go to Asturias, visit San Sebastian and all the northern coast but that's all. I should go nonetheless, it would be good for my poor Spanish.

Fixed You won't even have to pay the travel costs, since you're a woman.

By the way, I'm definitely the biggest loser here when it comes to travelling. I'm almost 23 and have never been abroad, nor have I been to Warsaw or Cracow. It sounds pathetic as fuck but, to be honest, I don't have any propensity for travelling just for the sake of pleasure. I'm too poor to afford it while I can watch a movie or see some pics online. Yet I'll never tell it to a woman, it's almost equally humiliating as admitting virginity.

I'd like to visit the UK though, but mostly in order to brush up my speaking skills. If I find a summer job (I'm not picky at all), I'll go there this summer.

However, I like my surroundings very much, there are a lot of atmospheric places, whether they're verdant or desolate.

I didn't get the "don't have to pay the travel costs" stuff. I meant that flights are convenient from Ireland to Poland cause they are a lot of Polish people in Ireland so the flights companies made the most of it. So if you insinuate that I'd go to Poland with a Polish guy and have my ticket paid by him, you are weird.

Otherwise it's not pathetic not to have been abroad. Some people don't like it a lot, I have friends who don't understand what I'm doing in Ireland even though I could be living in Paris like them etc. Personnally I had the chance to go abroad so I took it.