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There are plenty of reasons to be proud of being an American, but there comes a time when you just have to admit that other countries do it better.
What, exactly, is it? Well, these 17 things are an awfully good start.
17. Seriously this should be a thing everywhere.
Price tags.
In European stores, the price you see on the sticker is the price you pay at the cash.
In America, you have to add tax to the price on the sticker.
Shopping is so much easier in Europe, especially if you’re on a budget.
16. No elaboration needed.
Public transportation.
Nobody REALLY needs a car, and that’s a good thing!
15. We are a nation of prudes.
Accepting nudity in art.
Americans are super-uptight when it comes to nudity of any kind.
I wasn’t allowed to take my niece to the museum because she might see naked statues.
14. Who has time for lifestyle changes?
Flip side of that is that (most) Europeans are a lot more prescription drug averse. I’m from the UK with family in North America and they literally rattle with all the pills they take. Any marginal rise in blood pressure, weight gain, muscle ache etc and they’ll be given something for it. Here your local GP is far less likely to hand out drugs for minor issues which could be solved with lifestyle changes.
Ties into what you said because I think here we’re expected to deal with minor ailments ourselves more. Whereas if you know you’re paying out a lot for a doctor’s appointment I imagine there’s more of an expectation that they’ll solve the issue on the spot. Plus there’s the rampant greed of the pharmaceutical industry.
13. Having fun.
Night life.
Have you seen what the capitals in European countries are like at clubs during weekends compared to the US?
12. Building restroom doors.
In one of our US offices the door gaps are not only about 18 inches off the ground, but the doors themselves are louvre and you can clearly see the person sitting behind them.
As a Brit this completely freaks me out. I
t’s a huge squillion dollar business with an enormous state-of-the-art office building and they thought the girls wanted to see each other pee and poop?
It’s just whack.
11. Cheese and bread.
I went back to Paris last summer. The bread was so good it actually made me angry.
The baguettes from any random corner shop and the croissants even from the shitty train station kiosk were so much better than anything I can buy in America, even at the most upscale bakeries!
WHY D:
10. This actually makes me want to cry.
Going to the hospital without also going into bankruptcy.
It’s still not a guarantee in the US.
Craziness.
9. You mean there’s more than one?
Languages.
They all know two or three.
Yeah.
8. I’ll need to taste test to confirm.
Making chocolate and other candy.
They do it so well!
7. Change starts at home and all that.
When I visited Ireland and Scotland, I talked to people in pubs and what struck me most was their passion for politics was local.
They cared more about town hall meetings than the national and international stuff.
Taking a “The government that governs closest governs best.” approach.
6. Down the hatch!
Public drinking.
It’s an art form over there.
5. I was repeatedly advised I was ordering too much food.
Portion control.
Basically, they don’t eat like hogs at a trough.
4. I mean they’re not wrong.
Colonizing.
They do it right.
Americans don’t.
3. Being less annoying.
English guy here who has lived in North America.
One thing I prefer (in general) about europeans is what I would call a pessimistic realism. Whilst the North American shiny happy attitude is at times a joy to be around, after a while it gets quite annoying.
A good example of this would be from my time spent in Canada, it felt as though people were terrified to offend, trying to live up to expectations of North Americans as warm and friendly people. This eagerness to please would often come across as disingenuous and make it hard to know exactly how they felt. Whereas English people in general would much more readily speak the truth of the situation as they see it, and this for me is a more pragmatic and useful approach to interaction.
struck me that a lot of Canadians were living to please but dying to offend.
2. Taking holidays seriously.
I work an industrial sales position in the US. But our company is Headquartered in Sweden.
We always DREAD July 15th-August 15th. The whole Swedish office and warehouse just stop production and go on ‘holiday’. This is on top of their normal PTO.
I have to explain to my clients in the US that we’re a Swedish company and they take their vacation VERY seriously. Our lead (delivery) time is usually 8 weeks. So if someone places an order on July 14th…they’re probably not getting it until November/December. Not a fun conversation to have.
It honestly blows my mind that they can just shutdown completely.
And I’m jealous.
1. Baby stuff.
and less infant mortality.
(and mother’s mortality)
plus prenatal care.
and PAID maternity leave and costs of all of this
Time to do some more traveling, right?
Do you think there’s anything that Europeans do better than Americans?
Share that in the comments!
