RE: The Paradise States of America!
LOL - I spent most of 1988 in Luxembourg, as research assistant to a German doctoral candidate, and fell completely in love with Europe while I was there; especially with Trier, the closest German city to us, which was founded in the 1st century by Caesar Augustus as his summer palace.
The wealth of Roman ruins in the area are completely amazing.
What cracked me up the most was that every time I had to present my passport, which was relatively frequent as we traveled around, the guys at the border would automatically start asking me about Miami Vice, as I lived at the time in Florida, and all passports from the Tampa Bay area are issued in Miami.
I actually developed a taste for fries with mayo, though to be honest I had stopped using catsup years before, and the street food there was outstanding - worlds above and beyond your average hot dog or breakfast burrito cart.
And I liked soccer before I got there. I used to go with my mom and sister to watch local games in L.A. before I moved to Florida. And my husband, being Polish, is a die hard fan of European football.
What I missed most of all was aloe gel, which was my face moisturizer of choice, and which was pretty much impossible to find anywhere I went. I could find creams containing some aloe, but no straight aloe, and I went through serious withdrawals! ;-)
But the funniest thing I found was that most of the people I met assumed that I was British. My accent is straight up West Coast, with a side of Southern, having lived in the South for about five years at the time, and pretty much zero dose of the British Isles, though that is my heritage.
I finally asked a Danish friend in my German class about it, and after thinking about it, she said "Well, you wear a lot of black, and you're very polite."
It still makes me laugh. ;-)
The British people are super polite and decent. What a great country! I could live in the UK no problem. Their accents are awesome! I loved Germany as It was so quiet at night and no gunshots. In the five months I lived there (just got back) I never heard any gunshots at night or any major (or minor) crime.
Just a couple days ago, 4 kids were killed in my city overnight. I keep warning foreigners to do their homework before moving to America. There are good spots and bad spots. For instance, if you had a choice between my city and anywhere in Vermont, head to Vermont.
Where does this Mayonnaise on French fries thing come from? They did the same thing to us in Kenya! A huge plate of fries with MOUNDS of Mayonnaise on it, that was also sent right back! lol
The lack of pepperoni pizza is what shocked me the most. In the US, it's the number 1 pizza topping. Didn't Germany invent the sausage? lol But the kindness of the German people was astounding, what a wonderful country to raise children. Germany was clean, quiet and safe.
I haven't made to the UK yet, though that's where most of my ancestors hailed from, but I've had a lot of British friends in the States and I agree, they default to politeness, which I've always valued.
I loved Luxembourg, and Germany, France, Belgium and Poland as well, and found like you that the cities were (mostly) clean, the people were lovely, and there was very little crime, and none that I witnessed.
Interestingly, after growing up in L.A., where most of the natives were naturally polite (the tourists were all over the spectrum), I moved to Tampa, Florida in my twenties, only to discover that it actually had a higher murder rate per capita than L.A. Oops.
And, truthfully, the number of gunshots I've heard in either place, I could count on one hand.
Unfortunately, one of those was aimed at me, or at least my car, and after having my car window shot out mere inches from my head, that was what convinced me to leave L.A. once and for all. I had a serious feeling that if I stayed, I would be a statistic, and that wasn't high on my list.
In Middle Tennessee, where I live now, most of the crime is drug related, and centered in the cities, which are a ways from where we live. There is remarkably little violent crime near us.
And people here tend to default to politeness as well, which is lovely, and much appreciated. Rarely have I had so many doors opened for me, and people will apologize if they don't notice, or don't get to it in time. And it's pretty much across the board . . . old, young, male, female, black white, Latino . . . doesn't matter. People around here are just nice. ;-)
We do hear gunshots on a far more frequent basis, but then we live almost directly across the river from a shooting range, and we live in an area where pretty much everyone hunts. Regularly.
But compared to the near-constant wail of sirens past my last home, in Largo, Florida, I'll take it. Most of the time around here, the primary sounds are the birds, the wind in the trees, the forest critters, and our and our neighbors' animals. It's a pretty bucolic lifestyle.