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[Crossposted to rec.travel.usa-canada and rec.travel.australia+nz
For 'reasons' you don't want to know/hear, this time we ended up in the US - well, actually California, not the real US, but you get my drift. I've been to the US on many business trips and worked in California for about ten weeks. As the rta+n audience is probably painfully aware of, we pestered the Aussies with not just one trip down-under, but seven of them. So I feel - probably totally unjustified - qualified to comment on the US/California from an Oz-traveller's perspective. So enjoy/suffer, or hit 'n(ext)' NOW. I won't comment on the 'immigration' disgrace. After all, it's not fair to judge a country and its people on their government/ 'administration', is it? OTOH, I probably *could* be persuaded to elaborate. In no particular order, mainly in order of occurance. 1. American rental car rates are a steal. We payed only 22 Euro - about 28 US$ - per day for a 'compact' car, including full insurance. Are you kidding me!? For that kind of money, why would you want to buy/own/maintain a car? 2. Contrary to urban legend, American cars actually *do* have a boot/trunk. The lady at Alamo/National tried to convince us that our two small suitcases would not fit in the boot/trunk/whatever and tried to prove that with silly graphics. She offered a quite expensive upgrade to a 'mid-size'. Being quite dead after the long flight from Munich (*Don't* ask!), we fell for it. At light the next morning, we saw that the mid-size didn't only fit our suitcases, but also those of the whole bloody motel. So we went back and got the booked compact. We could choose it ourselves and opted for a sporty two-door Chevy Cobalt. A very nice car, for an American one, that is. Sadly enough my wife didn't appreciate me, temporarily, exchanging her for a 20-year old, otherwise I would've looked even 'hotter' than I already did. 3. American cars have built-in invisible nice-ladies. When we picked up the car it was dark and we could not read the driving instructions to the motel, so I pulled over and (thought I) switched on the interior light. A nice lady said: "Are you in trouble? Can I help you?". I explained what I tried to accomplish. While she could not point me to the right switch, it was a nice but somewhat scary experience. The whole trip, we were *very* careful, not to push the 'nice_lady-button' again. 4. American petrol/gas stations charge what they bloody well like. While American petrol/gas prices are still ridiculously low compared to Oz/Europe, prices vary by upto a *factor* of two within a short distance, sometimes even a few miles or even less. I realize that there's hardly any tax part in the price, so it's mostly 'cost', but the real cost can't vary that much within such a small area. 5. Americans don't quite grasp what the 'G' in GSM stands for. They apparently think it means 'the whole world except us', so they use a different, incompatible frequency. Luckily our son has more mobile phones than underpants, so he gave us - no less than three - 'old' multi-band ones. Problem solved, at least we *thought* so. 6. Americans don't quite grasp that SIMs can be put in *other* phones. Having a multi-band phone, I went to buy a pre-paid SIM. No such thing in the US! You can only buy a SIM *and* phone. Duh! I already *have* a (compatible) phone, *three* of them! 7. Americans don't grasp that mobile phones are actually ... ummm ... *phones*. When I wanted/needed to register the pre-paid AT&T GoPhone mobile phone which I had to buy, AT&T insisted on having me use *another* phone to perform the registration procedure. Duh! What about using the bloody mobile phone itself, like is done in every other country!? 8. Americans don't realize that salt-lakes don't need mobile-phone coverage, but that towns *do*. When we found out that our (main) credit-card was blocked (In the *US*, with a blocked credit-card! The sheer horror!), we also found that there was no mobile-phone coverage in Lone Pine. Later I saw on the coverage maps, that by stunning engineering the network people managed to fully cover the big salt-lake to the south-east of the town, while completely evading the town itself. No mean feat! 9. Americans can't drive. They have the "Keep your lane" *theory*, which has its advantages and disadvantages, but they interpret it in *practice* as "Keep the left lane", which is the worst of all possible solutions, because now some of them find themselves behind a slower car in the right (pun unintented) lane, and have to merge into *faster* traffic, instead of into slower. On single-lane (per direction) roads, it's even worse. They don't know how to (not) overtake. Suddenly they find themselves behind another car, which is driving *less* than umpteen percent over the speed limit. Totally confused, they stay there, bumper to bumper, for several minutes. Then they apparently realize that that is not a particularly civil thing to do and back off. Next they stay *there* for many more minutes, waiting for the opportunity where they can't pass or/and it's not allowed to pass. *Then* they pass. Well, actually they don't. They do something and move to the left. When a front to front collision is imminent, their automatic gearbox apparently decides that the car actually *can* accelerate, and they miss their opponent by an inch, and are on their way to their next attempt to kill eachother. 10. Americans don't have coffee. Of course we were not stupid enough to just ask for "coffee". After all we've been to Oz and know that "coffee" is not for human consumption. So we check if they have 'speciality' coffees. Some of them have the audacity to claim that they have cappuccino, but that has everything *other* than (espresso) coffee and steamed milk in it, and is splattered with all kind of silly syrups which make your eyes pop. All in all, we had only four decent/good coffees, two of which in San Francisco. Rather pathetic. N.B. Of course the Americans also do not have beer, but that fact is so indisputable, I won't have to get into *that* one. 11. Americans don't realize that you don't *have* to 'deep' fry fish. Why do they insist on deep frying perfectly good fish, even in places which are directly on the coast, like Morro Bay and (Fisherman's Warf in) San Francisco? If they don't *like* fish, then why not just not order/eat it!? No sense in ruining it for others. Now some - somewhat - nice comments: 12. Americans know how to merge onto freeways. Because they're wimps, they merge onto freeways quite flawlessly and their opponents on the freeway let them get away with it! What's *wrong* with these people!? Don't they know that if you want to merge onto a freeway, you just switch on your indicator (if you're an idiot) and move to the left, tough sh*t on the other guy(s)! And the other guy(s) do everything in their power, like brake/ accelerate, to prevent them get away with it! *That* is how you/we do these things! 13. The American all-way stop system on road-crossings is nice. It takes a little get used to and is sometimes not very efficient, but it's safe and nice. 14. Americans actually stop for pedestrians. This one also takes getting used to, but also is quite nice and safe. Sometimes you're not even trying or wanting to cross the street and you see stopped cars all around, patiently waiting for you to make up your bloody mind. 15. Americans are mostly nice, friendly people. We mostly met and talked with nice, friendly people. That's of course because we're so bloody nice ourselves. Some noteable examples out of (very) many: The ranger at the Joshua Tree Visitor Centre, oops, Center was so nice and enthousiastic that we changed our plan/route according to his recommendations, and loved every minute of it. A car salesman with a good sense of humo[u]r: In Pahrump (Nevada) we walked from the motel to the 'restaurant'. We passed a car-sales outfit and the salesman said "Oh, people without a car, and they have to *walk*! How sad!". I said he could sell me a car if he would deliver it to my home for a thousand bucks, but he didn't fell for it. Good on him! (Yes, that's actually proper proper English!) To put things in perspective, they were even so nice to give us a reference point in a staff-member from hell in a Best Western motel somewhere. To set the tone, she was 'preceded' by two young, clueless, incompetent and inaudible others. She managed to treat us like dirt / non-existing for problems which the *motel* caused. Well, that's about it I think, at least for the moment. If anyone is interested in our actual trip - i.e. where we went, why, what we saw, etc. - then let me know. If anyone has any doubts, we *loved* our trip and would do something similar again in a flash, so you Seppos aren't all that bad! |
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You don't even mention their "bacon".
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On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:30:33 +0100, Frank Slootweg wrote:
[Crossposted to rec.travel.usa-canada and rec.travel.australia+nz 7. Americans don't grasp that mobile phones are actually ... ummm ... *phones*. When I wanted/needed to register the pre-paid AT&T GoPhone mobile phone which I had to buy, AT&T insisted on having me use *another* phone to perform the registration procedure. Duh! What about using the bloody mobile phone itself, like is done in every other country!? usually the procedure involves popping out the battery and reading back the ESN and also power cycling the phone. It's kind of difficult to remain on a call if your phone is powered down. 9. Americans can't drive. They have the "Keep your lane" *theory*, which has its advantages and disadvantages, but they interpret it in *practice* as "Keep the left lane", which is the worst of all possible solutions, because now some of them find themselves behind a slower car in the right (pun unintented) lane, and have to merge into *faster* traffic, instead of into slower. Absolutely no argument there. It varies by area with cities being the most aggressive, and rural areas being the most clueless. America is a society of "me first **** you" and instant gratification. Drivers don't plan ahead; when a lane change is necessary, the person expects to be able to simply shove their way between the two cars in the desired lane. They won't signal of course, because the other cars seeing the impending car about to slide into 1.001 carlengths will close the gap. I always signal. I always plan my lane changes so I have plenty of time. If you signal and are willing to wait a whole 10 seconds, traffic will almost always open a gap to let you in. America also has a love affair with the car with it being a status symbol. The usual rule of thumb is "the smaller the dick, the bigger the truck." I couldn't help laughing at the idiots with their gas guzzlers when gas tripled in price last summer. I've found some amusing tactics. For example, on my way to work, there were two exit lanes on the right of a blvd for a highway. The left lane could be used for east or westbound on the highway. The right lane was westbound only. I needed to go west bound on my trip to work, but everybody east and westbound was piled up in the right lane backing up at least 3 traffic light cycles. I'd be the first in the middle lane at a red light and need to merge to the right. Of course MFFY driver in the right couldn't permit me to get ahead of him. My tactic was simple. Floor it. Let the driver on the right do the same to cut me off. The slow down and get in the nice gap he opened up behind himself. The main trick is to let the uber agressive drivers get ahead of you. It's easier to see when they wreck and get out of their way if one is behind them. It is amazing that they never save time. Half the time I'll pass them later while they're stuck behind a truck or buss because they are incapable of looking down the road to plan ahead. As far as lane discpline and passing on the left, it varies by region. The midwest is the worst, the north east is the best. Driving around boston, I actually experienced drivers staying on the right, using the left to pass and then returning to the right. Imagine that! The standard california lane change is to put the signal on (optional) close one's eyes, and then slowly drift into the lane of choice. The other cars are expected to get out of the way. |
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On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:30:33 +0100, Frank Slootweg wrote:
1. American rental car rates are a steal. We payed only 22 Euro - about 28 US$ - per day for a 'compact' car, including full insurance. Are you kidding me!? For that kind of money, why would you want to buy/own/maintain a car? Because $28*365 = $10,000+ ? 3. American cars have built-in invisible nice-ladies.... Some American cities, like Las Vegas, are chock full of "nice-ladies" willing to hop into your car. 4. American petrol/gas stations charge what they bloody well like. While American petrol/gas prices are still ridiculously low compared to Oz/Europe, prices vary by upto a *factor* of two within a short distance, sometimes even a few miles or even less.... It doesn't, anywhere. You must have misread the signs (or been looking at rental car company top-off rates). 5. Americans don't quite grasp what the 'G' in GSM stands for. They apparently think it means 'the whole world except us', so they use a different, incompatible frequency.... And non-Americans don't generally realize that the US has two competing cell phone technologies. And that the non-GSM technology actually has significant advantages under some conditions, and offers generally better coverage in the US. It's not just the frequency that is different. 6. Americans don't quite grasp that SIMs can be put in *other* phones. That's because our GSM carriers are allowed to sell their phones "locked" to their system only. Sad. 8. Americans don't realize that salt-lakes don't need mobile-phone coverage, but that towns *do*. .... by stunning engineering the network people managed to fully cover the big salt-lake to the south-east of the town, while completely evading the town itself. No mean feat! This is probably not the fault of the network people. In the US, some towns have actually decided that they do not want cell phone coverage, and refuse to allow the installation of cell phone towers/antennae. 9. Americans can't drive. Agreed, in general. However, some of use thrive quite nicely on your autobahns/motorways. 10. Americans don't have coffee. We do; we just don't believe that real coffee is for just anyone. Hence we created these "Charbucks" places to service desperate foreigners. It's a "balance-of-payments" thing. N.B. Of course the Americans also do not have beer, but that fact is so indisputable, I won't have to get into *that* one. Good, because you're wrong. The US these days has a greater variety of outstanding beer -- including ales -- than any other nation on earth. OTOH, on my visits to A+NZ, I have never once encountered a beer with any character. I suspect that Fosters and the like are fronts for repackaged Budweiser. 11. Americans don't realize that you don't *have* to 'deep' fry fish. Americans do, however, realize that if you don't want fried fish, you shouldn't seek out resturants that sell only fried fish. 13. The American all-way stop system on road-crossings is nice. Not really. Most Americans are too dumb and poorly trained to execute the "yield to the right" theory behind all-way stops. If anyone has any doubts, we *loved* our trip and would do something similar again in a flash, so you Seppos aren't all that bad! Glad you enjoyed yourselves. Come again. 8 ![]() -- Larry |
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Frank Slootweg writes:
mostly true stuff 10. Americans don't have coffee. We do, but we don't tell the tourists where it is. Same is true for ales; lagers not so much. Eric |
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AZ Nomad wrote:
On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:30:33 +0100, Frank Slootweg wrote: [Crossposted to rec.travel.usa-canada and rec.travel.australia+nz 7. Americans don't grasp that mobile phones are actually ... ummm ... *phones*. When I wanted/needed to register the pre-paid AT&T GoPhone mobile phone which I had to buy, AT&T insisted on having me use *another* phone to perform the registration procedure. Duh! What about using the bloody mobile phone itself, like is done in every other country!? usually the procedure involves popping out the battery and reading back the ESN and also power cycling the phone. It's kind of difficult to remain on a call if your phone is powered down. You need the ICCID of the SIM ('SmartChip TM') and the IMEI number. Both are on labels on the outside of the package in which the phone, etc. comes. So no need to power down. The "Start here to activate your GoPhone(R) Service" leaflet painstakingly explains all of that, also in Spanish :-), but even if you don't RTFM (*Moi*?), the nice computerized lady explains what to get where and even waits till you're done! I *love* nice computerized ladies! But more to the point, in other, albeit civilized :-), countries, mobile-phone SPs don't need all that mumbo-jumbo, the phones come working right out-of-the-box, including the phone number. You just can't call anybody *else*, before you've registered [1] the phone by using the very same phone. Makes kind of sense doesn't it!? [Other comments - thanks - deleted.] [1] I don't think I *had* to register my Dutch SIM. They just *wanted* you to register and gave you a bonus (free credit) if/when you did. I *did* have to register my Australian Vodafone and Telstra SIMs, and I had to (sort of) register myself when buying them. ("What's your address in Australia?". Duh! I'm a bloody furrin tourist, ain't I? |
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In b.home.nl Frank
Slootweg wrote: I don't think I *had* to register my Dutch SIM. They just *wanted* you to register and gave you a bonus (free credit) if/when you did. I *did* have to register my Australian Vodafone and Telstra SIMs, and I had to (sort of) register myself when buying them. ("What's your address in Australia?". Duh! I'm a bloody furrin tourist, ain't I? I travelled to Norway last year and for the first time decided to take a phone with me, so I borrowed an unlocked GSM phone from a friend. Thinking I was being clever, I bought a pre-paid Netcom Norway SIM card from an outfit I found on the Web, so I'd have a working phone as soon as I got to Bergen. When I turned on the phone, I almost immediately received a text message from Netcom telling me to reply with my name and birthday to register the phone. Of course, since I wasn't a Norwegian citizen, they couldn't find me in their database (the phone company has immediate access to such data?) and the registration failed. I was able to talk to Netcom customer service though, and was told I'd have to go to a retail outlet with my passport and register before they'd turn the phone on. The clerk there told me this was a relatively new (at the time) requirement, apparently based on anti-terrorism laws. -- Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN |
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In .home.nl Frank
Slootweg wrote: 5. Americans don't quite grasp what the 'G' in GSM stands for. They apparently think it means 'the whole world except us', so they use a different, incompatible frequency. Most likely due to regulatory issues or already-occupied spectrum. Nothing personal. Quad-band phones are easy to come by, but 3G adds a new incompatibility. -- Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN |
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In .home.nl Frank
Slootweg wrote: 6. Americans don't quite grasp that SIMs can be put in *other* phones. Having a multi-band phone, I went to buy a pre-paid SIM. No such thing in the US! You can only buy a SIM *and* phone. Duh! I already *have* a (compatible) phone, *three* of them! Both T-Mobile and AT&T sell naked SIM cards for their pre-paid services in their retail stores. Those stand-alone kiosks you find in shopping malls are often operated by independent contractors who might not know what you're talking about though. -- Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN |
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pltrgyst wrote:
On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:30:33 +0100, Frank Slootweg wrote: 1. American rental car rates are a steal. We payed only 22 Euro - about 28 US$ - per day for a 'compact' car, including full insurance. Are you kidding me!? For that kind of money, why would you want to buy/own/maintain a car? Because $28*365 = $10,000+ ? Believe it or not, but for (most of) Europe that's a *good* deal, for *such* a car, which is mostly *new* (*both* of ours had less than 4,000 miles on them). As a reference: I drive a Renault Clio, which is much, much smaller. It is 4 years old. I have *maximum* (70+%) discount on my insurance premium (because of no claims in a long time). *That* small 'old' car, under those rosy conditions, already costs me some US$ 270 per month, 3240 per year (of course without petrol/gas, i.e. apples-to-apples). [...] 4. American petrol/gas stations charge what they bloody well like. While American petrol/gas prices are still ridiculously low compared to Oz/Europe, prices vary by upto a *factor* of two within a short distance, sometimes even a few miles or even less.... It doesn't, anywhere. You must have misread the signs (or been looking at rental car company top-off rates). No, we didn't misread. Trust me, we are *very* careful reading fuel prices, especially considering we drove/drive 'around the world' in Oz a couple of times in very thirsty campervans. The extremes were on highway 395, probably somewhere between where 89 joins from the west and Bridgeport in the south. Next time I'll make pictures! :-) 5. Americans don't quite grasp what the 'G' in GSM stands for. They apparently think it means 'the whole world except us', so they use a different, incompatible frequency.... And non-Americans don't generally realize that the US has two competing cell phone technologies. And that the non-GSM technology actually has significant advantages under some conditions, and offers generally better coverage in the US. It's not just the frequency that is different. The US isn't at all special in that respect. Europe and Oz each also had and have competing cell phone technologies. 6. Americans don't quite grasp that SIMs can be put in *other* phones. That's because our GSM carriers are allowed to sell their phones "locked" to their system only. Sad. Again, no news there. Same story in Europe/Oz. But, as you say, the *phones* are locked, not the *SIMs*. So if you have an unlocked phone (which I had), you can put the American SIM in there and it will work just fine, and that's what I did and it did. I.e. there is no need for another phone if the customer has an unlocked phone. 8. Americans don't realize that salt-lakes don't need mobile-phone coverage, but that towns *do*. .... by stunning engineering the network people managed to fully cover the big salt-lake to the south-east of the town, while completely evading the town itself. No mean feat! This is probably not the fault of the network people. In the US, some towns have actually decided that they do not want cell phone coverage, and refuse to allow the installation of cell phone towers/antennae. I 'hear' you, but I don't think that's the case here. If I can be bothered, I'll try to re-find the actaul coverage map. It's *so* weird that *missing* antennas don't explain it. [...] 10. Americans don't have coffee. We do; we just don't believe that real coffee is for just anyone. Hence we created these "Charbucks" places to service desperate foreigners. It's a "balance-of-payments" thing. I think you confuse foreigners with people-without-taste. While there surely *is* an overlap, and probably a big one, they aren't the same set. N.B. Of course the Americans also do not have beer, but that fact is so indisputable, I won't have to get into *that* one. Good, because you're wrong. The US these days has a greater variety of outstanding beer -- including ales -- than any other nation on earth. OTOH, on my visits to A+NZ, I have never once encountered a beer with any character. I suspect that Fosters and the like are fronts for repackaged Budweiser. Same here. You can't mention Fosters or Budweiser when talking about beer, because they're not. (And no, Heineken isn't either.) Case in point: On the Lufthansa flight back, I asked the flight attendant for an American beer. She smiled with pity and gave me a Warsteiner. BTW, if you haven't "encountered a beer with any character" in Oz, then you didn't look very well, IMNSHO. 11. Americans don't realize that you don't *have* to 'deep' fry fish. Americans do, however, realize that if you don't want fried fish, you shouldn't seek out resturants that sell only fried fish. My point (which you snipped) was/is that there *are* no other restaurants (in those areas). So apparently many/most Americans *do* want/ tolerate such 'food'. [...] If anyone has any doubts, we *loved* our trip and would do something similar again in a flash, so you Seppos aren't all that bad! Glad you enjoyed yourselves. Come again. 8 ![]() Thanks. We will! |
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