Hey guys, welcome back to the Girl Gone London Channel.
If you're new here,
well then you won't know that it's been a minute since I've uploaded.
If you aren't new here, you will know it's been a couple of weeks
because I have been traveling around the US.
I'm not going to talk specifically about
my travels or where I've been on this channel, but if you do want to follow
along with that, you can check me out on Patreon.
So I'll put the link below.
I'm actually house sitting and dog sitting at the moment, which is why I'm like
perched awkwardly in a guest room somewhere in sunny California.
So I've been in the US for August.
Okay, over two months.
I've been in the US for over two months now, the longest that I've been in the US
since I moved to the UK almost ten years ago.
So it's been a wild ride.
And in this video I wanted to talk about
some more things that I've noticed about the US that are different than the UK or
just things that I forgot about the US since being gone.
So one of the first things has to do
with driving and I'm going to do a whole video on American versus UK driving
because it is so different and also it's different when you go state to state.
So I've never driven in or seen people
driving in California before, particularly like Southern California and Los Angeles.
Completely different world to suburban Florida driving.
But one of the things that I've noticed is
that as Americans, I feel like we need more space on the road.
We leave a lot more space than British people would.
So when my husband drives and passes
a cyclist or a car, he is pretty happy to pass, like
leaving enough room but not a ton of room to an American.
And to him, that's how you drive and that's how you
drive in the UK because everything is just so cramped.
They learn how to drive pretty well, going around barriers and whatever.
In America, my driving and the driving people I have noticed in America,
we like to give people like ourselves and others a wide amount of space.
So if I'm going around someone
on a bicycle, I am basically like, if I have the space,
I'm going to be in the opposite Lane if no one's coming towards me to give them as
much room as possible, not just for them, but for me.
So I don't hit them because I don't trust
myself not to if I'm passing someone too closely, like I just need room.
I feel like American drivers, we need room.
We drive in a way that is definitely not
the kind of like zipping around each other that the UK does.
Okay, the next thing I've noticed
and my husband has helped me notice is that in America we like our ice now.
I knew that in America it's much more
common to have ice in our drinks than it is in a lot of Europe.
But it's actually pretty funny because we have been staying at a couple of hotels
and he's like, why are there signs for the ice machine?
Why do Americans need an ice machine?
And I'm like, well, we need an ice machine
to put the ice in our coolers for our snacks and our drinks, obviously.
And that's just not something that you really find in the UK,
like signs in a hotel to the ice machine and ice buckets and things like that.
It definitely seems like more
of an American obsession with having ice, having our drinks cold,
just having ice in a hotel room, like in case you need it for some reason.
So the obsession with frozen water
definitely seems to be more of an American thing.
And one of the things that I didn't like, I don't notice a lot of this stuff
until he points it out or asks questions about it.
I'm like, why wouldn't you have an ice machine?
And he said, why do you need an ice machine?
I'm like, Just in case you need ice?
And he's like, ice for what?
And I'm like, I don't know, we just like our ice and being able
to easily access it and having it in our drinks.
Usually here they're not going to ask you if you want something with or without ice.
It's just going to be assumed that if it's
supposed to be a cold drink, you're going to have it with ice.
So along with that, the third thing I have
noticed and remembered about America since being here are free refills.
So this doesn't have to do with alcohol, but usually if you get like a soft drink
at a restaurant, something like Sprite or really any soft
drink you can think of, usually 95% of the time it's going to be free refills.
So you pay one time.
Even if it doesn't say this on the menu, you pay one time, you pay $3 or whatever
it is and you should expect that the waiter is going to keep topping
up your drink and it's not going to cost you anything.
Extra free refills also applies
to somewhere like a fast food place where you would serve yourself,
but you can just keep going and getting as much as you want.
And the same thing goes in a restaurant
for soft drinks, typically like something juice or something.
But if it's alcohol, then no,
you're going to have to pay for another cocktail or drink.
But when it comes to soft drinks,
free refills in America, do we need all those extra free refills?
Probably not.
Are they nice to have and is it fun to be able to continually have free refills?
Yes, it is.
And in the UK, obviously this is different
because you usually are going to be paying each time you have a drink.
So if you get
what would be a lemonade in the UK.
And you order another one, you're going to usually be charged
multiple times for how many drinks you had in the UK.
In the US, it would just be one fee.
You pay for the one time and you keep getting free refills.
And the next thing I've noticed, which I think I brought up in my last
video, but I'm just going to reiterate again, America is so loud.
We just accept being loud as a part
of life, whether it's like the world around us, being here in La is so loud,
unlike anything I've experienced in London.
London is another major city.
La is constantly loud.
People are loud, and we don't find a problem with that.
There's not a lot of instances where you're going to be shamed for being loud,
probably because everyone else is being loud, too.
We were in kind of a sports bar
restaurant, and a football game happened to be on and people it wasn't like
a sports bar specifically for watching the game, but the game happened to be on.
And so there was kind of a mix of sports
people and like regular people who were interested in the games.
Oh, my God, the people were cheering
and screaming and booing for their team or against the other team so loudly.
And I was just like, this would never happen in the UK.
Yes, people get loud over football.
English football.
So not we were watching American football,
and people do get loud when it comes to specifically cheering on your team.
But in everyday life,
we're in a restaurant where the sole purpose isn't just to watch the game.
People are going to rein it in ever so slightly.
Not so in America.
We are very loud. Okay.
Hi. Hello.
Welcome back.
So my other camera died, and I'm using a different one with a lens
that I don't even know how to use because it's one of my husband's vintage lenses.
Okay, whatever.
And so now I think we're having a little bit of like a fireside chat kind of vibe.
But anyway, on to the next one. Okay.
So the next thing I wrote down was baseball.
Americans love baseball, and it's one of the things that makes me
feel the most like at home or I have arrived in the US is passing
a recreational area or playground or whatever and seeing a baseball diamond.
They do have baseball in the UK.
No, sorry.
They do know what baseball is in the UK.
And I know that there are some
recreational leagues and places, but it's not a sport that is played
by most people or followed by the vast majority of people.
They do have a game called rounders,
which would be kind of played like by kids on the school grounds.
It's not exactly like baseball.
You do kind of like run around in kind of like a diamond shape and just swing
something to hit a ball, but it's not the same as baseball.
So, yeah, baseball is something very
American that you're definitely surrounded with when you're here.
Professional baseball is very popular in a lot of areas.
The Dodgers are an La baseball team that were doing pretty well.
I don't know how they're doing now, but a couple of days ago they were
winning and everybody was excited and had their Dodgers gear on.
And different States will support different sports differently.
So in Florida, like in Orlando, we don't necessarily have a ton of, like,
avid baseball fans that you necessarily see walking around, because I don't think
Orlando, we don't have like a professional baseball team that anyone cares about.
Maybe we have one, but if we do, no one cares about them.
But different cities and different States
will come together for their love of baseball.
And again, just seeing like,
baseball diamonds and the bases and the kind of like quintessential
baseball clay really makes me feel like I'm at home.
Okay. So the next thing that I've noticed about
America is that we are friends right away with strangers.
Now, is the friendship based on anything like, actually substantial?
No, of course not.
But we like to get close pretty quickly.
So, for example, I went to a wedding a couple of weeks ago
and my husband and I talked to a complete stranger at the beginning of the wedding,
and we only talked to her briefly during the ceremony.
I believe she was a family friend of the bride and we just had some basic chat.
We're sharing things about our lives or whatever.
At the end of the night, we found her when we were saying goodbye
and leaving and she was like, oh, my gosh, have a great time.
I love you guys.
And I was just like,
no one in the UK would profess their love for a stranger
unless you had drunk too much, which wasn't the case with this person.
She just genuinely wanted to express her love for us.
That would never happen in the UK.
We're just, as Americans, like,
instantly super friendly, instantly want to be best friends.
And again, it's not based on much. We didn't.
We couldn't possibly get that close or learn that much about her life or really
love each other in the span of one wedding.
But we definitely do.
We find it easy and natural, for the most part to get close pretty quickly.
Genuinely, I'm pretty sure if we had
stayed in that city longer, she would have invited us to dinner.
That's just not something that happens in the UK.
It's a much slower process of getting to know someone.
Whereas here in a lot of cities and a lot
of States, you meet someone in line at the grocery store and the next thing
you know, your best friend is going on vacation.
We just kind of assume that we're going to be friends with everyone.
You love everyone,
and I can hear my British audience being like, but it's not real.
Of course, you don't decide figure out for yourself what you think of that.
But as Americans, we are very instantly
like, we click with people and we want to be very friendly and open right away.
And the next thing I noticed, and actually the last thing that I have
on my list for this video about the differences between America and the UK
has to do with being a teenager in both countries.
And I want to do a whole video exploring this.
I cannot speak to being a teenager in the UK, but based on what my husband
has said, the concept of being a teenager is slightly different in both places.
I feel like in the US we really celebrate what it means to be a teen,
and we have a lot of milestones that they wouldn't have in the UK.
So things like the homecoming dance,
which I think I've talked about in another video, prom.
I know in the UK you do have school dances
and possibly prom, but not to the extent of like an American prom.
And because a lot of us drive earlier than we probably should be allowed on the roads
in the US, you have a lot of freedom as a teen.
And so there's a lot of things to do in terms of getting involved,
just hanging out with your friends.
And I'm not saying that in the UK they
don't hang out with their friends as a teen because of course they do.
But from my understanding and from what my husband has told me,
a lot of being a teenager in the UK is kind of just getting through it.
No one really likes you, you're a teenager.
And they do a lot of like hanging out in random parks that they've walked to or
taking the bus to from their house, possibly starting to experiment
with drinking because drinking age is 18 in the UK.
So people tend to drink when they're like 15 or 16 earlier.
And it just honestly sounds kind of bleak.
Being a teen in the UK sounds relatively bleak.
I don't know if that's exactly the case.
So we're going to do a whole video exploring this, people who are British.
Leave your comment below of what you think it's like to be a teenager in the UK.
But I do think there's something very American about
this whole culture behind being a teenager.
And we see it in like Hollywood movies and stuff.
I think we really idealized that time in a person's life.
And teens do have access to a lot
of different things and maybe a little bit more freedom than they would in the UK,
particularly because here we also don't have as much pressure.
We do have a ton of pressure on teenagers
to figure out like, where are you going to go to College?
Are you going to go to College?
But we also don't have the same pressure that they face in the UK of having
to declare things that they want to do their GCs season.
Like in the UK you kind of have to narrow down when you're pretty young.
I want to take these classes because this
is what I want to do in College University.
This is what I want to do with the rest of my life in America.
When you're 16, you're just 16, you're in high school.
Yes, it's pretty much stereotypically like the American high school in movies.
You're enjoying being a teen,
you'll figure out College when you're 1718 we don't necessarily have that intense
pressure on a teen to figure out their educational path at like 15 or 16.
Okay, so that brings me to the end of this video.
If you're a regular viewer, thank you very much for watching.
If you're a new viewer,
I hope you enjoyed some of these differences and definitely stick around
because I've got a lot more great content coming your way.
It might be like one video a week
for a while, but I will definitely try to keep bringing you guys some
of the stuff that you want to know about life in the UK as an American and life
in America as an American who lives in the UK trying to figure it all out
basically what feels like for the first time.
So thank you guys for watching and I'll see you next time.