28 Aspects Of Life In The US That May Surprise People From Other Countries

“One hospital stay can bankrupt most Americans.”

I'm a New York City-based Staff Writer who enjoys covering lifestyle, relationships, and women's content.

"Things are/can be extremely different from state to state. Accents, slang/terms, culture, social norms, accessibility, diversity, schooling, public transit, if it exists. It's essentially like having 50 countries masquerading as one."

"I'm from Maryland. I am completely different from someone from the West Coast, the South, or the Midwest. No one American can speak to the American experience. I can speak to what it's like being a Marylander, part of the Mid-Atlantic region and the Capital region, but beyond that, I'm just part of a huge patchwork of different cultures under a national umbrella. I can't even speak to being from rural Maryland; they are completely different worlds (western panhandle and eastern shore) from mine in central MD."

"When we visited the US, we stopped to rest at a motel in a small Texan town. We saw that there was a restaurant just across the street, but there was no (legal?) way to get there, so the clerk told us to drive to the next intersection, make a U-turn, and drive back. This felt strange to us. Also, many places didn't seem to have any sidewalks along residential streets. No wonder everybody drives everywhere."

"That is always the first thing I tell my friends back home when they ask what's surprising about living here. I had read about that before moving here and understood on an intellectual level, but actually living it, it's so deeply pervasive. Granted, I moved from a very walkable city, but my first American apartment was a few blocks from a coffee shop that I couldn't walk to because there was no sidewalk. I had to get in my car to drive to the park if I wanted to take a walk. Even where I live now, we have sidewalks, but they're so poorly maintained that you can't safely use a stroller or wheelchair on them. We have to walk on the road if we go for a walk. The lifestyle around walking/driving was a massive adjustment."

"It's a mess. My favorite is the surprise bill you always get because something wasn't covered or the doctor did something different. And they can send it anytime. Four months after that procedure? Oh, there's a $900 bill in your mailbox. Grrrr."

"It's a bit dependent on where you live, but the food options. You can get cheap ultra-processed foods everywhere. Depending on where you live, you can also have bakeries with fresh bread that is on par with bakeries in Europe. You can have poor produce that doesn't taste good. You can go to the farmers market (or even buy something in season and local at the grocery store) and have the best-tasting produce of your life. You can have shitty cheese that tastes like plastic, and you can have Wisconsin cheese that is so good it knocks your socks off. The big trade-off is that good food is usually more expensive, though not always. I will also say international food companies tend to keep their products relatively consistent. And European companies do use improvers and the like in their bread."

"Seeing an American grocery store for the first time is overwhelming. Choice fatigue is real! I personally do not need an entire aisle dedicated just to cereal. I moved from Brussels, so it took my eyes a while to adjust. The scale of everything was also weird for me, as everything is bigger, even the lanes on the highway."

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