Size is apparently what matters here. Everything is very big. Of course the obvious reason is the amount of space available. It’s like when you buy a bigger house and you don’t have enough furniture, but when you move to an even bigger house, your original house is full of stuff. That’s America. It just keeps expanding in every way to fill the available size. Here are some examples:
Houses are bigger. We are renting a house that has three garages. We don’t have three cars. The garage itself is as big as a modest UK house. We have three bedrooms (plus an upstairs living room), but a basement we could rent to a couple of families.
The garden is huge. The village, and I use that term loosely, of Long Grove has a rule that all houses must have at least an acre of land. We don’t use the football pitch behind our house, and no-one else seems to either. They just mow it. Or more correctly, they pay Mexicans to mow it. Americans have a fixation with neatness and germs, almost to Aryan proportions, which makes sense, given that most immigrants to this area were German or Irish. Interesting clash of cultures. But both beer swilling. Ironically, there are few bars here.
Cars are also massive. My theory on this is not that people actually need big cars (although there are some who could benefit from an appointment with the gym), but they need to be in proportion to their surroundings. The roads are wide, because there is no reason for them not to be. Trucks, sorry, lorries, are the size of sea-faring oil tankers. In order to protect themselves, drivers choose bigger and bigger cars.
A plate of food in a restaurant could feed a European family. People are big. They are taller, and wider. They have bigger teeth. They have bigger voices. Everything seems to be magnified. Groceries are actually quite expensive here, so it is a little surprising that people spend so much money on food, but I suppose once you have an appetite, and food manufacturers have you hooked into an addiction fuelled by fats and salt, you’re willing to pay for satisfaction. Food rules aren’t as strict here. There are more hormones. And when a concerned, and sensible group of people, tried to limit the amount of salt in food there was uproar. Apparently that’s against American human rights. It’s too much of an effort to lift the salt seller and add it yourself, so we all have to eat it. Thanks.
And then there is surprising stuff that’s large. Flowers. The hibiscus here is the size of a dinner plate.
Houses are bigger. We are renting a house that has three garages. We don’t have three cars. The garage itself is as big as a modest UK house. We have three bedrooms (plus an upstairs living room), but a basement we could rent to a couple of families.
The garden is huge. The village, and I use that term loosely, of Long Grove has a rule that all houses must have at least an acre of land. We don’t use the football pitch behind our house, and no-one else seems to either. They just mow it. Or more correctly, they pay Mexicans to mow it. Americans have a fixation with neatness and germs, almost to Aryan proportions, which makes sense, given that most immigrants to this area were German or Irish. Interesting clash of cultures. But both beer swilling. Ironically, there are few bars here.
Cars are also massive. My theory on this is not that people actually need big cars (although there are some who could benefit from an appointment with the gym), but they need to be in proportion to their surroundings. The roads are wide, because there is no reason for them not to be. Trucks, sorry, lorries, are the size of sea-faring oil tankers. In order to protect themselves, drivers choose bigger and bigger cars.
A plate of food in a restaurant could feed a European family. People are big. They are taller, and wider. They have bigger teeth. They have bigger voices. Everything seems to be magnified. Groceries are actually quite expensive here, so it is a little surprising that people spend so much money on food, but I suppose once you have an appetite, and food manufacturers have you hooked into an addiction fuelled by fats and salt, you’re willing to pay for satisfaction. Food rules aren’t as strict here. There are more hormones. And when a concerned, and sensible group of people, tried to limit the amount of salt in food there was uproar. Apparently that’s against American human rights. It’s too much of an effort to lift the salt seller and add it yourself, so we all have to eat it. Thanks.
And then there is surprising stuff that’s large. Flowers. The hibiscus here is the size of a dinner plate.
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