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Ambiance

Lay of the Land

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Ambiance

The temperament of the people in the United States varies quite dramatically with the part of the country that you're in. In the South life is slow and the people are friendly. In the East, the pace can be frantic, worth is typically defined by professional accomplishments, and traditional thought prevails. In the West, liberal thinking is more accepted and quality of life concerns drive decisions. In the North where the weather tends to be more harsh, people are typically more unassuming or down to earth and they treasure the stark natural beauty of the outdoors.

The greatest thing about the US is that there is a great deal of organization, convenience, and economy built into everything. As a result, many things are quite inexpensive. Everything has a schedule that you can usually depend on. There is a convenience store on almost every corner where you can buy stuff. Basic food is available all over the place for cheap and good food isn't very expensive. The police force is relatively uncorrupt. Stores are open all day (no siestas) and some are even open all night. Probably the nicest thing for a traveler in the US is that service is a profession, so every time you're buying something, someone is usually there to help you.

The typical line of thinking in the US is that bigger is better… for almost everything. Whether it's cars, portions of food, houses, hotels, roads, vocal cords, bank accounts, televisions, cities, grocery stores, muscles, or even breasts… the bigger, the better. You could easily fit two or three European micro-mini cars in the same parking space as a nineteen foot long Fold Excursion. When you buy a soda at the corner store, the sizes are large, big gulp, super big gulp, and super-tanker. Houses are 4,000 square feet, televisions are five foot big screens, Vegas hotels have 5000 rooms, Costco (a grocery store) sells pretzels in five pound bags, when you order fast food they ask if you want it super-sized, it takes an hour to drive across Los Angeles, everybody goes to the gym in an effort to get "big", and even the fat people are enormous. Europeans find this particularly amusing. They even get a kick out of how big the distances are between towns.

The US is often perceived by foreign travelers as a dangerous place to travel because of all the violence portrayed in American media, particularly hand gun and gang related. While gun related deaths in the US are approaching staggering numbers, it is really only dangerous in certain concentrated sections of large cities. Many people in the US truly believe that they live in the safest country on earth. If you don't go looking for trouble, it usually won't find you. Nonetheless, it is wise to be cautious and aware in big cities that you're unfamiliar with.

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