Yippee, leave of absence to travel...

I've eaten amazing food in America. Drunk fantastic beer and people are
variable everywhere. They do a lot of great wine too.

The "ordinary" and fast food in France is shite after all.

 

Whaa? Plenty of US microbrewery beer is very drinkable.

and this is different to the rest of the world how?

 

AOL Kemo Sabi

This is rather nice too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_(beer)

 

Fast food, sure, it's pretty much the same everywhere, but ordinary
stuff? No, I'm afraid you're just wrong here - an ordinary steak and
chips, for example, is going to be much better in France than the US
(in general). I'll only be half the size[1], for a start, and it won't
come with fucking coleslaw, bits of stupid lettuce, and chips coated
in all sorts of seasonings.

[1] If that. And yes, smaller _is_ better.

 

Add to that the shit that they call "cheese" and the level of general
religious fuckwittery. There are other places that I find more enticing.
But yes, the scenery is good and some of the people are fine.

 

Err, yes?

No. Some of it verges on the OK, but in general it's not a patch on
decent European lagers or proper English ales.

 

Oh god, yes. Although I did taste some pretty decent stuff at the
farmer's market in SF recently. But 99% of it is just tasteless platic
shite.

Oh ****, I'm agreeing with CRN!

I guess it had to happen eventually.

 

I've eaten plenty of very good food in the US. Okay, so avoiding fast
food and most of the chains is a given, but even so, it's not difficult
to find decent food, and that's before you take into account the
service.

I hope you are using the word 'lager' to suggest any light coloured
beer, as opposed to shit like Stella and 1664.

Well yes, that's a given, but only people like Carmichael's neighbours
complain about not being able to buy English beer and bacon when living
in rural foreign.

and before anyone gets smart - yes, I stocked up when I had the
opportunity, but I don't (seriously) whine about it, even if I
occasionally joke about it.

 

And the awful sweet stuff they pass off as bread.

 

It would be nice if it came with chips at all. What's the US obsession
with steak with mash?! That's just weird.

 

Oh yuss.

Urgh, don't remind me.

Sweet and full of fat and about 3lbs per loaf and probably not far of
£3 either. Mined ewe, most of the UK baked off site bread isn't far
behind in those stakes these days.

In the US I was very glad to live not very far from a reasonable bakery
(predominantly a bagel place, but with assorted breadstuffs and cakes
too) to get fresh bread.

Here - two of the three local supermarkets don't sell the factory
backed pre-packaged sliced bread (the Kingsmill, Tesco Value, type
stuff I mean) at all - everything is fresh, soft and given it only
lasts 2-3 days, isn't full of fat and sugar.

 

There is a very good one in Anchorage,
http://glacierbrewhouse.com/beers2.htm . The amber, stout, porter and
wheat beers are all very very good. Their bread pudding is nice too. It
doesn't show on the web site now, but I am sure that they did do
"spotted dick and custard". I could have stayed in there all week, ok so
I may have got a bit fat, but well worth the effort.

 

Chips?
You fat ****. You will be T2 soon, mark my words.

 

and the sweetened butter, yeuk.

 

Take UKRM as an example

 

yes it is.

They don't *but* the US imigration will not start the counting again
unless you leave the continent.

Ok, I'll believe you

Got one now, so happy.

As it turned out we were there 94 days

Its not worth taking the chance.

There was a cuple caught up in visa issues at Washington last year, they
then made it worse by trying to cross again at another point less than 48
hours later.

 

They start counting from the moment they stamp your passport. They stop
counting when your I94 is turned in and you leave the country. The
process re-starts when you get your passport stamped again. Twice,
(without a decent gap outside) and they will turn a blind eye, third
time you may get some strong glances, fourth time, you're an idiot.

Personally, I couldn't give a **** whether you do or don't - I know
what I was advised to do, what I did do and have the visa/stamps in my
passport to remind me in case I should forget.

I didn't suggest otherwise. You'd have to be a supermong to
deliberately become out of status in any country, let alone the US
while on a visa waiver.

The world is full of TC's.

 

I can't be arsed to look at a map to check but Mt Elbrus is generally
accepted as being the highest mountain in Europe whereas Mt Blanc is
the highest in *Western* Europe.

I felt cheated after I'd walked up Mt Blanc only to be told it wasn't
the highest in Europe. Note the use of the word walked as opposed to
flew up.

 

A couple of years living in San Francisco persuaded me that I really am a
European, temperamentally as well as just by birth. But I would always
recommend Europeans, and especially Brits, to go and see what the US is
like. Especially Brits because the common language allows you to see in
amazing detail just how bizarrely different people are.

There is some great food, too, and even some great beer. Admittedly
mostly on the edges, and there's an awful lot of middle.

I find it's a good plan to assume that people are lovely everywhere. It
generally turns out to be true.

 

On a recent visit to DC I noticed the little packets of salt at breakfast
contained salt and SUGAR. Wtf? I mean, WT fucking F?! What do you put in
stuff when you've made it too salty, eh? So their little packets of salt
had stuff to make it less salty? Was that so you put more of it on, so
they sold more? It's a wonder they're not just all dead already.