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What seemed weird when I visited your country
Skewbrow:
Ok- enough of my culture shock, thanks for the bits. For a change of beat here are a number of things that positively surprised me about the US. Again, this is all thru the eyes of an impecunious grad student, i.e. one who stayed longer than an accidental tourist, did a fair share of travelling, but never had to lead the life of a "normal" adult. Some of these have been covered earlier, but are worth repeating.
* [Homer Simpson voice]Mmm. Waffle House.[/Homer Simpson voice] Decent breakfast can be had anywhere on the British Isles as well, but Italy? or France?
* Motel 6. If you plan a roadtrip in these parts, it is kinda iffy. There are some motels, but they are too close to the price range of a hotel. And they don't form nationwide chains, so finding information about them is a lot harder. The network of motels in the US is very convenient.
* Interstate highway system. May be a German would be less impressed, but that really works (NYC is admittedly a bit of a problem). Start from Northern Indiana. Three turns and you are, well, wherever you wanted to be. A recollection: the series of "official" postcards titled "Picturesque Indiana" has one with a photo of cars driving on I-80.
* Price of gasoline. My first encounter with this was when I visited Texas with my Yugoslavian house mate. It's just... if you complain about it, don't expect sympathy from me :-)
* Rain checks. I had been so used to the special discount offers by grocery stores coming with a small print "max 2 per household, while supplies last" that I had stopped looking for it. What's more, in the US you don't have to ask whether all the discount price coffee is gone. A cashier girl will give you a rain check without asking.
Loki:
--- Quote from: Skewbrow on 18 Dec 2013, 10:58 ---
You could buy stationery, items of personal hygiene and candy at a pharmacy (aka a drug store)
--- End quote ---
That is also partially true for Germany. A well-sorted pharmacy (Apotheke) will usually carry drugs, the most basic items of hygiene (like soap), first aid stuff, pregnancy tests, sometimes herbal teas and cough drops and similar candy that is generally thought to be "more healthy", but probably isn't. Also sometimes measuring devices for blood pressure and the like.
Most pharmacies will also have bathroom scales which you can use for free (most people don't use them, but it's traditional to have them).
They also have condoms.
I have seen them carry sex toys "novelty personal massaging devices" in the Netherlands.
A drug store (Drogerie) on the other hand will carry everything of the above, minus the drugs, plus umbrellas, toothbrushes, a broad choice of shampoos, makeup, perfume, hair color etcpp. A sample can be seen here. You are unlikely to get any of these in a Apotheke.
Barmymoo:
--- Quote from: 94ssd on 18 Dec 2013, 15:44 ---
--- Quote from: Barmymoo on 18 Dec 2013, 14:22 ---Weird. Surely you can build up a good credit check by simply having a small overdraft though?
--- End quote ---
It's much cheaper for me to make credit card payments (since I limit what I pay for with it) than it is to pay overdraft fees at my bank, which are pretty steep.
--- End quote ---
Ah yes, I forgot to clarify I was talking about interest-free overdrafts. Mine is £500 but I could extend it to £2500 if I wanted. I do not want.
bainidhe_dub:
How does that work? Is it like the credit card Paul was describing? In the US I'm only familiar with 'overdraft' as a negative thing - you tried to charge for more than you have in your checking account, and the bank let the transaction go through but then you owe for the balance of the charge plus a penalty around $35. You can end up with multiple overdraft charges and a big negative balance in your checking account if you don't realize and do a couple transactions when you have insufficient funds. $40 Slurpees are the tastiest.
You can get 'overdraft protection' where it will pull the balance from your savings account instead, but banking regulations limit you to 6 withdrawals from a savings account each month. My credit union handles that by only letting you do 6. BofA converts your savings account into another checking account if you're considered to be treating it like one.
Barmymoo:
Basically, I have a current account (and a debit card - a pot of money which doesn't earn any interest that I use to pay my rent, regular payments to charities, buy things etc, all the day to day expenses, and it's where my income gets paid into as well) but if my balance hits £0 then I can spend a further £500 for free, and the next time I get some money paid in, it will repay that borrowed money first. It's kind of like credit, except that there's no time limit on when I have to pay it back and no interest is charged.
It's a typical arrangement for students, because student finance is paid rather weirdly and it's hard to juggle monthly outgoings against an income which arrives in three, non-evenly spaced dollops. Also because normally, being a student is the first time you have to pay your own bills and people are learning how to do that. I'm not looking forward to the point at which my interest-free overdraft dries up (two years away from now) because I'll have to keep a closer eye on my finances. I think it is possible to get an interest-free or very low interest overdraft on non-student accounts too but most people just use credit cards instead. I'm hoping I'll not need either but that's probably a little optimistic.
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