What’s best in America?
My first impression was the new smells; the taste of ginger ale and seafood I never had before. There is a myriad of restaurants from all over the world. More notable is the Mexican, Chinese, Japanese cuisine, then the fast food places, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pollo Loco, seafood places like Red Lobster; German, Hungarian, Italian family restaurants like Old Vienna, Hortobágy just to mention a few. If you fancy beef, you can go to Black Angus or … And the food is cheap and the service is above expectations! Some say their main concern is the service, that’s how they select the restaurants they go to. (Obviously the food is good everywhere.)
The ability to buy or rent anything any time you want, (even on weekends and holidays) cars, TVs, apartments, houses, clothes, etc., you can hardly imagine anything that you’ve never seen or heard of that wasn’t available; you can find it somewhere. If you have a computer you will find it on the web for sure.
You can return almost any merchandise if you don’t like it, just state the reason: “I don’t like it”… As a matter of fact, half the stuff I bought I returned for exchange or refund... I even returned two a pairs of shoes years later when they got defective… We have a nice brass door handle that had a broken spring in it. I bought it eight years before, so I called the vendor I found on the Web and asked if they carry the spring so I can buy it. He said, give me your name and address, I’ll send you a replacement. I had the whole assembly in three days, no charge! Same thing happened with my motorcycle head set; I just wanted to buy the same set I bought six years before. He said: “send it to me; I’ll have it repaired in the factory.” I got it back in five days, no charge! Only in America!
The selection of produce year around is fantastic! You go to the food market and you can pick your apples, oranges, bananas, vegetables, tomatoes by hand. You don’t see the nice produce in the front and lesser, defective even rotten stuff behind the pile!
They take your word for it: with a few exceptions for official business, like Social Security, Passports, etc., you state your name and address and you can get a motel room, rent a car or a big truck(!) with a regular driver’s license and a credit card. They trust your word; make sure you say “just kidding!” if you don’t mean what you say.
The most amazing thing I found was that Americans don’t complain. You ask them: “How you doin’?” They say “fine”. Even if they just had their house burned down, or lost a limb or suffered any kind of loss or ailment. They’re tough! They don’t talk much about themselves or their parents or relatives, most of them are scattered around the country anyway, but come Thanksgiving or Christmas, the families gather in large numbers and celebrate. They travel long distances by car or plane to meet their loved ones.
When disaster hits they go out of their way to give help and volunteer to rebuild, give shelter, food, clothes, money. This is the American way. Maybe that’s the reason why the government is kind of slow in response, like during Katrina…
Health services, emergency rooms, hospitals provide the best available equipment, service, privacy, amenities imaginable. They treat you like you are a family member; I even got a teddy-bear when I was admitted just for one day!
They are fast builders. Hi-rises, roads, homes, even communities in suburbs appear in amazingly short time out of nowhere. Interestingly, there are few people at construction sites; often you wonder who are doing the work? Some may criticize the building materials being “cheap”, meaning that houses are built with wood instead of bricks, for instance, but many people wouldn’t have homes otherwise!
American music is something I admire also. It has many facets, styles; Rock and Roll, Jazz, Country Western, Bluegrass, Cajun, and Pop, just to mention the most obvious. Where do all the talents come from? Where do they study before they become amazing artists? I don’t know of any major schools of music that I can point my finger at where this unbelievable array of lyrics, harmony and rhythm comes from. Obviously these had a great impact on world music also.
I traveled across the country by car and plane, went as far south as Texas and Arkansas, as far north as Iowa and Illinois and found the people friendly; they tend to call you a friend even after a short acquaintance and are unassuming. They don’t take the advantage of you, no matter what accent you have and foremost they don’t laugh at you if you pronounce a word wrong; they may simply correct you…
During our trips we observed the geography and we were often overwhelmed by the beauty of this land. From the lush Ohio Valley to the Mississippi, through the vast plains of Texas, the Arizona, Utah, Nevada deserts, the Rocky Mountains, Colorado and the Grand Canyon were giving an everlasting impression.
This is the America I love! And these are the things that should be imitated around the world as much as possible! This is my home!
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