9. MOOzikmktr
I’m American, but a visiting Italian friend was very puzzled at Americans’ use of the phrase, “Oh, really?” in group conversations. Somehow he took that as a person challenging his opinion, when in reality, it’s just some habit a lot of us have that basically means, “Interesting. Can you elaborate?” The guy was red in the face after an hour because he literally thought everyone in our group was challenging every single thing he said.
10. kevmo
I know I’m 6,000 comments too late, but I had a co-worker once who came to the US from India in the 70’s around Halloween time. He thought everybody was fucking nuts because everywhere he went all he saw was skeletons.
11. davokenobi
Guns.
Went to this sport shop to buy goggles. In Texas. At one end of the store the biggest collections of rifles, guns, machetes and army gadget I’ve ever seen. So I decide to snap a picture to send home and the shop assistant comes and say “Sir, I’m so sorry” “Oh, I can’t take a picture?” “No, go ahead, I’m sorry we don’t have ammos anymore”. (It was a couple of weeks after the school shooting – Sandy Hook).
When I then told this to my Texan friends I realised all of them (even at the wedding I was invited to) had at least one gun, if not several. When they told me it was for self-defense and I told them we don’t have that many guns in Europe they asked me what would I do to defend myself and they laughed their ass of when I replied “well, I run!”
12. eifos
Holy shit American bread is awful. We stopped eating burgers and sandwiches after a couple of days cos, I swear, all the bread was full of sugar. Towards the end of or trip we ate at a lovely Italian restaurant that had beautiful bread. Never knew we were so passionate about food until that trip, but damn we missed good bread!
13. springi
People ordering a large soda even though there is a free refill