This week, a viral Reddit thread asked Europeans to share all the things they've noticed while visiting America that made them go, "What the fuck?!"
Here are some of the funniest, darkest, and most eye-opening responses:
1. "Flags everywhere. Not just in front of people's homes, but in front of everything. I even saw a US flag in front of a supermarket. WTF."
2. "Tax not included in the price tag. It's...weird!"
3. "Perfect strangers asking me how I am doing."
4. "Free refills, my friend. Free refills."
5. "The ads in between TV shows felt unnecessarily long, and also repeated the same info over and over, just worded differently."
6. "The political ads where they just SMEAR the fuck out of the opposition."
7. "Ads for prescription medicines. Like what the actual fuck."
8. "Free water in any restaurant. FREEEE."
9. "Portion sizes, vehicle sizes, road sizes, house sizes."
10. "Tipping being obligatory, whether it was good service or not."
11. "Tipping. What? You're going to log my card details and then when I leave I'm supposed to trust that you'll charge the amount I wrote down on a piece of paper? And I'm supposed to be fine with that?"
—P_OS
12. "The amount of homeless people. People straight-up walking past an elderly woman living on the streets to get to the 7-Eleven."
13. "I thought the gap in bathroom stall doors was a myth until I visited the US. Didn’t get privacy for my five-day stay. How do you shit when someone can look you in the eye?!"
14. "Extreme air conditioning — like fridge temperature inside."
15. "The one thing I wasn’t expecting from the US is how polite 99% of the people I met were."
16. "Almost all food tastes sweet, including bread."
17. "The choices of cereal at the breakfast in the hotel all had at least 20% sugar."
18. "Movies set in New York prepare you for everything except the smell of shit."
19. "Years ago, it used be striking how much violence was allowed on TV, while anything even remotely resembling sex was censored."
20. "The general weirdness surrounding alcohol. Us Brits went for a drink at lunchtime once and our American friends were referring us to AA."
21. "Being carded to get into a bar when I was 29 years old. I'd been drinking in pubs in England for 13 years without having to show ID."
22. "There's a whole channel about the weather. It runs 24 hours a day and makes everything seem hyper-dramatic."
23. "The sheer size of the place is amazing. Each state is its own little country. I lived there for 7 years and visited some different places, and each time I crossed a state line it was like crossing a border in Europe — everything was different again."
And finally...
24. "The amount of salad dressing options. There were SOOO many to choose from. WTF is 'ranch' or 'Thousand Island'???"
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.