Non-Americans Are Sharing The Things They Actually Admire About America, And I Just Wiped A Single Tear From My Eye
1."The Smithsonian Museums. Very cool and very fun to walk around and see. And they're free."
Win McNamee / Getty Images, Kirkikis / Getty Images
—u/GullibleIdiots
"The Smithsonians are a treasure. I remember being astonished when I moved to another city and realized most museums require you to pay to go inside."
—u/optsynsejo
2."National Parks."
Francesco Riccardo Iacomino / Getty Images, Brian Evans / Getty Images/iStockphoto
—u/Premier_Poutine
"This.
I've traveled the world pretty extensively; the National Park system is the most amazing undertaking I've ever seen.
America has innumerable flaws, but preserving the most amazing places in the world was something the country got unquestionably right."
—u/nutella-is-for-jerks
Related:
3."Your wildlife. Lots of beasties on that continent."
—u/TheLairdStewart98
4."If you guys want, you can go to pretty much any climate without a passport. You have tropical, desert, oceanside, lakeside, and mountain climates."
Rebecca Harding / Getty Images, Alexandra Simone / Getty Images/Cavan Images RF
—u/deleted
5."Drinking fountains everywhere. Nearly all public toilets are free."
—u/bounded_operator
6."The amount of nature. Mountains, forests, valleys, deserts, waterfalls, etc. Where I live, we've got a few hills and there's no place anywhere in the country that is completely untouched or so far from civilization that you can't hear traffic."
—u/BombBombBombBombBomb
7."Verbal communication skills. When people are interviewed on TV, they can really explain in detail what happened, and it is easily understood. It's like everyone has a communication major."
"In Australia, we generally are really bad at this. For example, interviewing eye witnesses to a shark attack in Australia: 'Yeah, nah it was pretty bad!'"
—u/Alpacamum
8."The scale and grandeur. I'm used to nature being small, but everything in America is bigger: bigger storms, bigger mountains, bigger horizons. Even the sky seems...more. People in America are casually dealing with everything from alligators to bears, pitching tents on the sides of cliffs, and walking their dogs through literal wilderness; I genuinely feel like a hobbit watching Aragorn saunter through Middle Earth like it's nothing while I've never been beyond the end of Farmer Maggot's farm before. I love it."
Jeff Manes / Getty Images/iStockphoto, New Line Cinema / Via youtube.com
—u/coffee_up
"Funny you should mention the sky, I live on the Colorado Front Range, which is about 1,610 meters above sea level. On an unpolluted day, you can see every friggin detail of the cumulus clouds in bright white. It looks like a hyper-realistic painting."
—u/Leucipuus1
Related:
9."It's so big. Like, to be real, if you wanna do a road trip that's like two weeks. Maybe more."
—u/no_sarcasim
"A friend of mine had some guests from the UK. They wanted to drive to Disneyland for the day. From Maryland.
That is 4,400 km (2,734 miles) each way."
—u/substantial-freud
10."Cornbread."
Fox / Via giphy.com
—u/Jdawgred
11."The arts. Jazz, rhythm and blues, and the early rock and roll that inspired the British Invasion. The authors. The films."
Paramount Pictures / Via youtube.com, Bettmann / Bettmann Archive
—u/LoudTsu
12."King's Hawaiian sweet rolls."
—u/rhonda1973
"I use those to make my compound-butter garlic bread after years of using baguettes. GAME CHANGER."
—u/dramboxf
Related:
13."NASA is America's best PR. Sure, they could really use triple the budget to seriously get things done, but what they do is admired globally."
—u/alltherobots
14."Southern cuisine, from BBQ all the way to Creole type stuff...you guys know how to eat down there."
—u/I_hate_traveling
15."Films and TV shows."
Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images, Universal History Archive / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
—u/LaptopGeek92
16."I always hear complaints about the portion sizes, which is fair, they're big. But we gotta give America credit for how socially acceptable it is to take the leftover food home. As a frugal Dutch person, this mesmerizes me, and I'm very sad this is not as acceptable here."
—u/MarieLoew
17."How madly diverse it is. Admittedly, I've only seen it on TV, but the fact that the Bronx and Texas are in the same country is mind-boggling."
—u/cdbman
18."I love how spread the infrastructure is across the country. Literally, massive multinational companies are headquartered in so many smaller cities. Manufacturing can occur in even more towns. Here in Australia, our population is so concentrated in our three biggest cities, it's difficult for big businesses to survive elsewhere, so they move to the big cities and perpetuate the problem. Half our population is in those three cities."
—u/stupidperson810
19."I'm from Portugal and living in the US right now. One thing that really impressed me when I got here was how green the US is, and how many trees they have."
—u/jpereira73
Related:
20."How the national identity is so culturally mixed. It seems like if you move to France, you don't become French; you just become a foreigner. But everyone who lives in America at all is American."
—u/ITheReader
21."Fruity pebbles."
—u/Z00TH0RNZ
22."I like how open-minded the people are and how much they seem to enjoy varied interests. I've found in my country, we tend to be pretty judgmental of anything we aren't used to seeing, and most people have basically the same hobbies."
—u/purple-nomad
23."Americans always know how to get a conversation going! 'Hey, where are you from?' and then they are genuinely interested in hearing the answer, even if perhaps they've never heard of that place. They are great at small talk, and friendly (doesn't matter if it's 'fake' sometimes, e.g., the server in a restaurant, it is still a skill to be that friendly and welcoming, in my opinion). They make people feel like a million bucks."
—u/BaileysBaileys
"I waited tables for 20 years, and I loved talking to people visiting from other countries. Chances are I'm never going to be able to visit where you're from, and I was genuinely interested in what your lives are like there. I also wanted to make sure you were enjoying your time in our country and recommending amazing must-see places in our area. We genuinely want you to enjoy yourselves."
—u/dorkmagnet123
24."Some of the best roller coasters on Earth."
—u/Dr_Skeleton
25.And finally: "New York City. Hot Dogs. Your friendliness. Hollywood. Yellowstone. Baseball. Ford GT. Road trips. Coca-Cola. NASA. Southern BBQ. Burgers. Yosemite. Your infectious love of the outrageous. Jaws. Your love of English accents ;). Harrison Ford. Rock and fuckin' roll. Nike. Magic Mountain. Pamela Anderson. Red Vines. The video game and animation industries. Dr Pepper. Maine lobster rolls. Skateboarding. Ralph Lauren. The Sopranos. Jack FM. Baskin-Robbins. Car park cookouts. Wakeboarding. Ruby's Diner. Long Island (Iced Tea). Eddie Murphy. Technological innovation. Soul. Southern California. Star Wars. Ford Broncos. Key lime pie."
Icon Sportswire / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images, PhotoQuest / Getty Images, Anthony Neste / Getty Images
—u/liam_crean
It's kinda nice hearing all these positives, IMO. What do you think? Tell me about it in the comments!
Note: some comments have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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