Get a passport. Travel. See the real world.

[Atman]

Then come back and tell me how American is so cool.

I can't get from Hartford to NYC on Amtrak in two hours, but TURKEY has bullet trains.

Explain to me again how we are #1...with an orange shitgibbon as president.

[Rollo]

1. Oh, but like Mussolini, Trump will make the trains run on time...

Of course it was all a big act for Benito. News media were forbidden to report anything negative about train service, and only the touristy lines achieved anything near punctuality. The trains the Italians took were just as awful as before.

[Xipe Totec]

25. He'll bring bak the stage coach industry. nt

[Thomas Hurt]

2. you, you left out the "money" part in between getting the passport and traveling....

[gratuitous]

10. True enough

There are lots of reasons for the wealthy to bleed the lower economic classes white, and one of them is to keep people from getting too worldly. With all our labor-saving devices and information on demand at our fingertips, it seems people have less and less time to travel or read or just sit quietly and think. That works to the decided advantage of the wealthy, who like nothing more than to keep our lives nasty, brutish, and short.

[Atman]

11. It's expensive to leave. But cheap to stay gone

Yeah, the plane ticket out is steep. A visa might require $2000 in cash to stay for six months. But take inventory of your priorities. Once you're there, you're there. And you're not here, under the lord of the Orange Shitgibbon.

[loyalsister]

55. And job opportunities?

Especially for folks with only a HS diploma.

[Atman]

57. Part (much) of the reason I don't live in Thailand.

To be fair, the main reason is that our children and two young grandchildren are here. We can't be half a world away from them. But from a more practical standpoint, my wife can't get a job in her career field in Thailand. They won't grant work visas for health care professionals, because it would take jobs from Thai nationals. That's fair enough. Ironically, as a graphic artist, I could get a work visa. But you still need to prove you have enough cash on hand to sustain yourself.

No, it's not as easy as people say; "You don't like it here? Leave!" It just isn't that easy. My sister now owns a very popular business on one of the tourist islands in the Bay of Thailand. She's been featured in the in-flight magazines, is a five-star on Trip Advisor. We have a place to stay if we visit, but you have to travel to Myanmar every six months to renew your visa. They don't make it easy. But it is absolute paradise, and dirt cheap to live there. I'd move without hesitation if it weren't for the family in the states.

[NCTraveler]

3. Our good can be really good.

Our bad can be really bad. We have it all. Hundreds of millions of people attempting to squeeze into a two party system.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Yep, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness...", to quote

Mark Twain.


Full quote here
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1716-travel-is-fatal-to-prejudice-bigotry-and-narrow-mindedness-and-many

[loyalsister]

56. And this line of thinking facilitates elitism

and bigotry towards people who don't have the means. As long as people who believe themselves to be superior in their opposition to bigotry continue to link it to worldliness and education they will continue to thwart all efforts in that direction.

[sinkingfeeling]

64. Then what steps are you taking to thwart bigotry? Education is

the only answer and if I'm elitist for meeting people in different countries, too bad. If you sit on your duff in Hicksville your entire life, you are an elitist for thinking there is no place in the world better and that leads to thinking you are superior to others.

Money is not an inhibitor to travel. Many, many young people travel the world, taking positions to earn money when they need it.

[loyalsister]

67. "Money is not an inhibitor to travel"

Only to economically secure individuals. When you have no car and aren't sure if you will still have a home at the end of the month, yeah poverty is an economic inhibitor. Not only to travel, to safety, housing, eating, and life itself. It is elitist to believe that travel is within the reach of everyone when there are people whose jobs require them to walk miles (yes, even in the US).

I am working on systemic changes through formal and informal outlets. I'm actually doing anti-racist work to promote equity.

[geek tragedy]

5. our convenience stores have easily the widest selection of beverages. USA! nt

[NightWatcher]

8. I went into a store in Rotterdam and I didn't know what half the shit there was.

I know one thing is for sure, I like their (Holland's) ethnic foods that you can get on the street far better than what's available here (Southeast US). Damn now I want a street gyro

[geek tragedy]

9. you guys have BBQ and corn bread and sweet potatoes

I think people appreciate what they can't get on a daily basis

I grew up in a culinary black hole in the great plains--fancy cooking meant something like a hotdish.

[mnhtnbb]

13. My husband and I once went out to dinner in what was considered the "best" restaurant

in town. This was a medium sized town in MO north of Kansas City in the early 1990's.

The woman at the table next to us ordered a tuna sandwich with potato chips. For dinner.

My pasta arrived so over flavored with onions, I couldn't eat it.

Guess what? This town had one of the few newspapers in the country that endorsed Trump. I'll bet they'd
cook him a well done steak with ketchup.

[geek tragedy]

14. the best food is rarely in the "best restaurant" in town nt

[pangaia]

29. LOL.

[spooky3]

12. I hosted a large group of French students and

asked them what they had liked best about their travels so far. They said "American breakfasts!" This, from students from a culture where food is amazing. But they loved the pancakes, scrambled eggs, etc. Made me smile.

[geek tragedy]

15. that's not uncommon--they appreciate the robustness of American breakfasts nt

[spooky3]

17. The ones that provide an entire day's worth of calories :-)

That is. 🙂

[IronLionZion]

54. Everything is bigger in America

especially the people!

[Atman]

59. Watch "The Triplettes of Belleville."

Great movie all around. It's French, but there is no real dialogue in the entire movie, so you don't have to read subtitles. The story focuses on a bike race (Tour D' France) and a trip to the mythical Belleville, which is a thinly disguised New York City. It's at once funny and sad to see how the French artists depict America. Everyone is massive, big fat blobs. But it's true. It's a very accurate depiction. And a wonderful movie.

[OriginalGeek]

68. That is a great movie

and I love the soundtrack too.

[eppur_se_muova]

16. Ethnic food is *much* more varied in metro areas; the American South is a desert, comparitively.

I was born and raised in AL and live here now. I've lived in Cambridge (MA), Baltimore, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, and Toledo, so I've gotten to sample quite a few different types of food. There was *one* Mexican restaurant in town when I was in elementary school. Indian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Middle Eastern are all here now, but progress has been slow. BBQ and big national franchises predominate, but the good stuff is in little Mom and Pop restaurants that unfortunately don't always last very long, and tend to charge more, at least partly because specialized ingredients are harder to come by here. Of course, a lot of it's due to the South's reputation for xenophobia which scares off exactly the people who would run ethnic restaurants, as well as much of their potential clientele.

[pangaia]

31. I'm going to Huntsville thurs to visit my ex who is CHinese now married to an aeronautical engineer.

DUH!

She hates it.. but. he works for Boeing...

Only been to Alabama once decades ago,, but lived a bit in Memphis,, and been to quite a few cities in the South...

Should be interesting..

[Daddio7]

34. Hot, hot, hot

When did "hot" become a flavor? Find the hottest pepper you can find, mix it in and there you go, ethnic food. Of course I enjoyed Navy food, seemed like home cooking to me.

[crazycatlady]

39. THe American South has their own set of food

It is called BBQ and it is delicious. Look for a restaurant who's logo includes a pig and fire.

(Most of the ethnic foods I've had in the South are not very good.)

[IronLionZion]

52. Do you like to cook?

No matter where you live, there's always the option to look at youtube recipes and try cooking things yourself with what ingredients you have on hand. I have great fancy trendy restaurants where I live but I don't like to waste too much money on that if I can make it at home some times.

Also the south has it's own cuisine and southern restaurants exist in many northern cities: collard greens, hush puppies, hoe cakes, monkey bread, BBQ, ribs, friend chicken, biscuits, turnip greens, roasted onion, po boys, shrimp and grits.

If you're in Alabama, you should be able to get fresh gulf coast seafood like a Vancleave special po boy. There are places in DC that have similar options, but they ship the bread and the crab from the gulf coast.

People often want what they can't get easily. I bet your housing costs are way cheaper than mine.

[smirkymonkey]

37. I love the Indonesian food in The Netherlands!

I don't think I have ever seen an Indonesian restaurant in this country - even in NYC. I'm sure there must be some, but I don't recall ever seeing any and I have lived in SF, NYC and Boston. Lots of other ethnic food though.

[IronLionZion]

53. We have them in DC and there are Indonesian food trucks

selling roti canai, sambal, satay, nasi goreng, right on the street for a decent lunch sized price.


NYC probably has them. The Boston area and Northern California have sizable Indonesian immigrant communities and should have some options available.

[GulfCoast66]

38. Dude(or Dudette)

Do not sell your self short. To me your food is ethnic and world class. Green Chilies and chiliquilies. Hatch peppers and dried beef. And so much more including the best burger in the world...green chili burger!

Ironically I am from Louisiana and food I eat on a daily basis is considered 'ethnic' by many.

Now if you are from the rural Midwest like my wife. Then you have my sympathy.

Have a nice evening.

[pangaia]

28. No they don't. The bottles are just bigger..

[geek tragedy]

36. Depends on the country.

In Europe the selections are pretty sad. Most of Latin America too with the exception, of all places, El Salvador.

[Nevernose]

30. I damn near can't tell the difference between 7-11s

In Beijing and in the US. Depending upon what neighborhood I'm in, even the language doesn't necessarily give it away. Especially because mainland China seemed to go apeshit over the NBA and plaster pictures of 7' tall Americans all over their products.

[Sugar Smack]

6. This is before the de-funding of Amtrak, too.

We still haven't hit the bottom of the rabbit hole.

"Explain to me again how we are #1...with an orange shitgibbon as president."

Am going to have to borrow this line.

[JI7]

7. need time and money. also living is different than travel

You are not there for work And if you go to many poorer places you are privileged and your experience isn't like the typical citizen.

But we can easily be do much better with high speed rail bEing one of the things if we didn't have backward assholes dragging down the country.

[miyazaki]

18. I always feel culture shock coming back from extended stays in Asia.

And you usually don't have to wait long once you're faced with an immigration or customs agent from the USA.

[pangaia]

32. My 'returning life" became YUGELY easier once I got GLOBAL ENTRY.

I almost feel guilty going past the hundreds of others...well...... no I don't..

[IronLionZion]

60. Global Entry is totally worth it

and includes TSA pre-check

It was fairly simple to get

[pangaia]

61. It cost, what $250 maybe? I forget..less?....I filled out forms on line.

Then drove to Niagara Falls, NY for an interview and finger prints.. I think an iris scan also...

Off to St Petersburg (and maybe Moscow) Thurs am..

Ironic, is it not..

[IronLionZion]

63. $100, I enrolled in Baltimore, electronic finger prints, no iris scan

It was fairly easy and fast process. I was impressed.

[sinkingfeeling]

65. Not if you live in Arkansas. Would love to.have it, but must travel to do the interview.

[IronLionZion]

66. They tend to be in large international airports or big cities

Memphis has it

[Initech]

19. I live in Southern California. I go to Vegas all the time.

I would love to be able to have a third option for travelling between Orange County and Vegas and the Reno / Tahoe area by high speed rail. Right now we only have two options - drive and take the Cajon Pass which is fucking scary to drive on. Or we have to fly, and flying on the weekends to Vegas is expensive. Having a high speed rail option would be a huge boost to both California and Nevada, and would increase competition between airlines and rail companies. But no, the Fox pundits call it "Disneyland to Vegas" like it's an insult.

[onethatcares]

21. hammer.......meet nail.

bullet trains, light rail, all the things that make life enjoyable. Damn the subsidies.

My wife and I traveled to North Carolina from Florida and I often thought it would be sooooooooo nice to
load the bags, get in a berth and head for the bar car for the trip.

Tampa to J'ville,, to any where on the eastern seaboard without getting off the train. But, alas, we ain't go that in our future.

[Initech]

22. I go to Phoenix a lot too.

Having a train that could get you to Phoenix in 2 hours or less would be so nice! But the republicans just don't get it.

[crazycatlady]

20. Truth be told

I'm scared to travel internationally (which I've never done as an adult) while Shitgibbon is president. THe thought of Customs going through my phone scares me.

My career has allowed me to work in 9 states since 2010. That is the extent of my travels. And yes I do get to try all kinds of regional foods. From southern BBQ to a Maine lobster roll.

[ancianita]

23. I've been to four continents. America is cool. And America is not. Depends on what you value.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

24. American Exceptionalism: Only Burma and Liberia are as non-metric as the USA. . . nt

[WinkyDink]

33. Nature is not metric. It is why the number "12" looms large.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

47. Nature is a-metric. But nature is why the number 10 looms large.

Our number system is based on ten because we have 10 fingers.

12 would be a better base because it is divisible by 2 and 3. The base 60 was sometimes used because it is 5 times 12, thus incorporating the first three primes, but 60 is unwieldy.

Nature does not have a natural measuring system. You can't even use the Planck length, which is the smallest measurable distance, because that is fuzzy.

The non-metric system used in the USA is based on 2, 3, 3.281, 4, 5, 7.92, 8, 10, 12, 24, 25, 26, 27, 36, 112, 120, 640, 1728, 1760, 2000, 5280, 43560 to name a few. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units I got tired of listing them.

It's irrational. It's expensive. It cost the space program the loss of a 1 Billion dollar Mars probe.

So since we must impose a measuring system, it only makes sense to use it based on our number system and not based on some ancient king's foot.

If someone argues against using the metric system they are most likely American.

[Honeycombe8]

26. I can't afford it. But don't forget about Turkey's prisons & standard of living.

And the opportunities of women there.

[pangaia]

27. The ALLEGRO from Helsinki to St Petersburg.. lickety split...

Fast ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn...

NEX from Narita to Tokyo-- (Haneda is so close you can almost walk to Shinjuku.. well.. not quite...

Incheon Airport to Seoul Station? Express train just downstairs...Seoul station is a city of the future in itself.. So is Kyoto Station...

Lisbon? Train from airport to city.
On and on---

While --arriving at JFK? Living hell getting to Manhattan....drag your stuff to AirTran.. then off.. then hope to heaven your METRO card works at Jamaica Station....

LAX is .. well... LAX.....

Seattle is pretty good..

and on and on.....

[crazycatlady]

40. If you're looking for a train from an airport to NYC

Don't use JFK or LGA. Use Newark. 3 stops on NJ Transit from EWR to Penn Station.

[pangaia]

41. Newark is my go to place if schedules work out..

Last edited Tue Jun 6, 2017, 08:03 PM - Edit history (1)

Only bad part is leaving from Terminals 2 or 3.....ON EDIT: OOPPS Terminal A or B

If i arr international and have more than a couple hours connection to somewhere, I'll often hop the shuttle bus over to C. 😊

[crazycatlady]

69. That's the only airport I fly out of

Just easier to hop on the train than worry about a ride (haven't flown internationally though).

[pangaia]

70. Oopps I meant terminals A and B are bummers....

C has all the goodies.. :&gt ))) Plus AIR!!!

[IronLionZion]

35. Our country is much more than our idiotic president

bullet trains would be nice, but the countries that have them are not nearly as large or spread out as ours. We have a lot more land to cover.

There are reasons we are by a very large margin the number 1 destination for immigrants. Whenever I start whining like an entitled millennial about what feels like an unacceptable level of racism from hiring managers who think US Citizens are white, my parents remind my ungrateful brown ass that this is the land of opportunity for everyone and that back where my grandparents came from people die for many of the rights and privileges we take for granted. Their version of deplorables tell Christians to go to America because we're not wanted there. Being gay is still a crime there. I've retrained and changed my career like a good Asian liberal, which is not an option in some economic/education systems.

Life is more affordable here. I own my home. I couldn't do that in many countries. Land and food are cheaper depending on where someone lives. If things are too expensive, move out to rural areas that voted Trump. It's very cheap there. And we have lots of choices. If we want cheap stuff, we can get the made in China stuff. If we want to support union-made or American-made, we can purchase that if we have the money to pay higher prices. We have more choices in what we can purchase than most anywhere else. Places that only have high priced stuff are very difficult for lower income people to manage. It limits them. When I visit family overseas, I have to bring them suitcases full of stuff, even though it's made there. Some countries export everything and offer less for their domestic markets.

Even the stuff people like about other countries: health care, fresh organic produce, liberal policies, infrastructure, we can get them here eventually if we work for it. There are plenty of poor countries that may never get to to have these nice things.

If you're trying to make that point that we can strive to be better, that's great. We should invest in trains and public transit and universal health care. But come on, if we don't count our blessings and appreciate what we have, we just might lose it. Trump's people will destroy everything.

Every liberal always pines for Europe, but never Ethiopia, Venezuela, Indonesia, Russia, etc.

[melm00se]

46. Bravo

[Atman]

50. My point was simply that Americans need to expand their universe...

...if they have any hope of understanding our own world.

[IronLionZion]

51. Yes the world is bigger than America, and America is bigger than that orange blowhard

It's good to expand our universe and understand our world by thinking globally and acting locally.

But often times when the grass is greener somewhere there's an enormous amount of shit that lies just underneath. People tend to see the good stuff and miss the bad, which is why visiting a place and living there are very different experiences.

[Atman]

58. We experienced the "underneath" on our last trip to Thailand.

It was in April, Songkran, the Thai New Year, and also the time when the Red Shirt rebels tend to take to the streets. We had to cut out our three days in Bangkok because the rebels were shooting it out in the streets with the military. Consulate advised no travel to Bangkok. Still, we managed one night in downtown, but never left the Millennial Hilton compound. Still haven't seen Bangkok, except for from a cab window, or from our 30th floor suite.

[melman]

43. So you're complaining that the train to NYC takes too long

At least CT *has* those trains. We have it better than a lot of the country when it comes to that.

[oberliner]

44. Emulating Turkey is not the way to go

In my opinion.

[Atman]

48. Where did I say we should emulate Turkey?

I pointed out that Turkey has bullet trains, the U.S. doesn't. That's hardly "emulating" Turkey.

[former9thward]

45. How come people come back if the US is so terrible?

I have been fortunate to travel in 41 countries. Many very beautiful but I would not want to live in any on a permanent basis. You gave the example of Turkey. Do you really want to live in a dictatorship just because it has bullet trains? I am not going to try to explain to you how "we are #1". My mind does not work in that weird way. Maybe you should travel and report back who is #1 if you are obsessed by that.

[Atman]

49. I didn't say I wanted to live in Turkey.

I said Turkey has bullet trains.

[Ghost of Tom Joad]

62. Just back from Barcelona

great food, nice beach and I could take my dog on the metro. How cool is that?

[404usernamenotfound]

71. Yeah, but the infrastructure problems we have..

...were not created since Drumpf was elected. This is a 30+ year problem that I have been trying to tell people about but no one wants to hear it. Infrastructure is not sexy, so elected officials don't want to pin their term on it.

And if you think travel infrastructure in the US is in bad shape, wait until you live in a district that has serious water/sewer infrastructure problems..AKA...Flint, MI. Seriously though, I'm sure in Flint a lot of tax dollars were spent on projects that people could touch, see and get their name on, but infrastructure is the lifeblood of a community...but elected officials don't get the same media bump for the new sewer line, or water treatment facility, or road project.

[hunter]

72. I saw plenty of the "real world" as a kid. My parents liked to travel...

... often without adequate funds or preparation, crossing borders and oceans, sleeping in parks, train stations, airports, the homes of crazy old ladies, etc..

I'm a bit that way myself, and so are all my siblings. Our more rational, responsible, spouses all prefer to be a little more prepared.

It took me the longest time to accept that one could make "reservations" and be assured of transportation or a comfortable room. My parents NEVER made reservations for hotels or transportation or anything else. I have some really amusing stories about traveling in France, Spain, Ireland, Mexico... with my parents when I was a kid, and later by myself as lunatic young adult.

Fear of the unknown, of the "other," must be beaten into children. Bless my parents, I never experienced that.