CraZy Things Americans Do Europeans Find Weird

August 17, 2016 by California Globetrotter 29 Comments

Picture from Flickr

When you still live at home, surrounded by other fellow Americans and you see someone put Ranch on their pizza, apologize too many times or go for a long road trip, you think nothing of it. These are just some of the natural things we do in America. It’s part of our culture.

But when you leave the States?

Everyone else just thinks we’re weird! Then they start calling us Crazy Americans because they can’t possibly imagine how good peanut butter and jelly go together and why we need two parking spots for our massive, fuel guzzling trucks.

Here is what I’ve learned that Germans, and the rest of Europe find weird about Americans:

• All Americans are crazy health fanatics
• Or love EVERYTHING fried
• We apologize toooo much because we’re too nice that people think we’re being fake
• We’re too sarcastic too often
• People put Ranch on EVERYTHING – pizza, fries, sandwiches, meats, salads… (Guilty as charged!)
• We eat breakfast for dinner
• Strange combinations – peanut putter & jelly, bacon & syrup, chocolate & peanut butter, ice cream & soda…
• Everyone sues everyone for everything
• With alll that plastic surgery, all boobs must be fake
• We have strange coffee flavors – raspberry, coconut, cinnamon…
• Americans must be lazy, they have drive-thru everything
• We always drink our liquor from brown paper bags
• Call each other by our first names instead of last names
• Go on road trips longer than 3 hours in one direction in a single day
• Drive EVERYWHERE
• Everything is open 24 hours. Those poor people who work night shift.
• We find sex, nudity & language offensive, but violence and gore are acceptable.
• We have a PUMPKIN FLAVORED EVERYTHING season
• We have American flags everywhere… we even wear it!
• We ask “How are you?” as a greeting and NOT as an actual question.
• We like ice cubes in all of our drinks
• Buildings are super cold during the summer with all that air conditioning. How do we manage not to get sick all the time?
• We have a plethora of options for EVERYTHING
• Our drinking age is one of the highest in the world
• We say “Awesome” like every 5 minutes
• Our food portions are MASSIVE!
• We have hundreds of prescription ads on TV, warning us against the 50 different deadly side effects.
• We have an obsession with white teeth (Seriously! My German dentist always wonders why I want to come twice a year!)
• Cars in America are GARGANTUAN
• The internal rivalry between In-N-Out and Five Guys
• We put pickles on the side of our meals
• What is it with chicken and waffles?
• We’re LOUD alllll the time!
• We have an unhealthy addiction to coffee and we take it everywhere with us!
• What’s with all that water in the toilet bowl??
• Everything is always ON SALE! Especially on Black Friday!
• We’re willing to trample people for a new iPad.
• We’re all workaholics who don’t use our vacation time
• Thinks everyone has a gun & don’t understand why
• Why are college tuition fees so damn expensive?
• Carrying our dogs in our bags
• Or we put them in doggie wagons (again…GUILTY as charged!)
• Treating our humans like pets by putting children on a leash
• We don’t get excited about other international sports like hockey, rugby, cricket
• But we have a World Series game that is almost completely American
• Sing the National Anthem allll the time
• We have our own measuring system the whole rest of the world doesn’t use
• We CONSTANTLY over tip & it’s confusing
• People from California must not work with all that sunshine!
• Americans have 2-4 dogs or cats, or both.
• We answer the phone with “Hello”, “Ya”, “Hey”, “What Up?”
• We build our houses out of wood
• Therefore, they’re easily destroyed during natural disasters
• We take Engagement pictures
• You can buy ANYTHING at a Wal-Mart
• Put BBQ’s on the back of our trucks
• Raise our trucks so high you need a ladder to get in or our cars so low they scrap the ground
• The price you see on a price tag is NOT what you pay. Tax is included AFTERWARDS!
• We dress up our animals
• Celebrate our birthdays before or after our birthdays and we don’t get cursed
• We BBQ ALL.YEAR.ROUND. Rain, Snow or Shine!
• We dress up young girls as Cheerleaders and put them in skirts to dance around at sporting events
• Prom is a BIG DEAL
• Donald Trump.
• We play Football with our hands and Soccer with our feet…
• We banned chocolate Kinder Eggs with small toys inside, but can’t ban guns??
• We have an unhealthy addiction to BACON ON EVERYTHING!!
• Go crAAAZy putting Christmas lights all over our house (Sorry for the bad quality!)
• Wearing fanny packs and calling them fanny packs without realize the meaning of fanny
• Cheese…. in a can.
• We treat college football players like celebrities when other countries think of it as an extra curricular activity
• Fortune Cookies after eating at a Chinese restaurant even though this isn’t common in China or anywhere else in the world
• Girls wear shorts in the winter and turn on the heater, or they wear sweatpants in the summer and turn on the air conditioning

…. stay tuned for more!

Other related posts:

Making Comparisons: Germany vs the US

Life in Germany vs. the US

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