Jump to content
HAPPY NEW YEAR, TO ALL OUR HARMONY CENTRAL FORUMITES AND GUESTS!! ×

Glad I live in the USA


picker13

Recommended Posts

  • Members
Posted

Just back from Southern Belize, C.A. We were chartering a sailboat and had the opportunity to do some provisioning. I was shocked at the selection and quality of food available at the local "supermarkets." If you wanted a hot dog, it had to be a chicken hot dog. If you wanted meat other than chicken, you had to settle for some scarry looking stuff. Produce was hit and miss-- if you wanted lettuce, you bought half-wilted crapola, but the local fruits were good. And if you wanted something imported, get ready to pay the big bucks. A regular sized packeage of oreos was almost $6.00 US.

 

Sometimes it takes a trip to the other side to let you know how good you have it at home.

  • Members
Posted

Oh well, oh well, I feel so good today,

We touched ground on an international runway

Jet propelled back home, from overseas to the USA

 

New York, Los Angeles, oh, how I yearned for you

Detroit, Chicago, Chattanooga, Baton Rouge

Let alone just to be at my home back in ol' St. Lou.

 

Did I miss the skyscrapers, did I miss the long freeway?

From the coast of California to the shores of Delaware Bay

You can bet your life I did, till I got back to the USA

 

Looking hard for a drive-in, searching for a corner cafe

Where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day

Yeah, and a juke-box jumping with records like in the USA

 

Well, I'm so glad I'm livin' in the USA

Yes, I'm so glad I'm livin' in the USA

Anything you want, we got right here in the USA

  • Members
Posted

Thats how it was when I was in St Lucia too. The meat looked nasty in the local grocery store. Beef was greenish in color and the chicken looked like it would make you sick even if fully cooked. The grocery store on Aruba on the other hand was just as nice as ones we have here. I guess thats the difference in being Dutch owned vs. an independent Caribbean island.

  • Members
Posted

 

Go to a butcher instead of the supermarket. Hell, they might kill your purchase right there in front of you.

 

 

+1. We stayed in a tiny backwater town in Costa Rica, on the Osa Peninsula. The nicest shop in town was the butcher shop.

I still would have had my meat cooked well done, but it wasn't nasty.

C7

  • Members
Posted

I totally agree, sometimes we forget what we have. Best country in the world.
:thu:

 

 

 

Prove it :p

In all fairness, it's great you love your country, but to say it's the best without living a couple of years in a few others don't hold water.

 

It's a common idea here in Sweden that we live in the best country in the world. I don't know, but it shure is convinient that most people speak my language :D

  • Members
Posted

Prove it
:p
In all fairness, it's great you love your country, but to say it's the best without living a couple of years in a few others don't hold water.


It's a common idea here in Sweden that we live in the best country in the world. I don't know, but it shure is convinient that most people speak my language
:D

 

We saved everyone from having to learn German or Japanese. Case closed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I kid....I KID!

  • Members
Posted
Prove it
:p
In all fairness, it's great you love your country, but to say it's the best without living a couple of years in a few others don't hold water.

It is probably impossible to do so. Still, patriotism will cause most people to say their own country is the greatest, and they may be correct as long as they are not a "3rd would country." On the other hand, EVERY country has some things wrong with it. But when you visit a developing country, you sure are glad to get back home -- I was.

  • Members
Posted

I think you get used to what you're used to. If you lived there, you'd eat the fruits (properly bleached and scrubbed if necessary), not the lettuce. When in Rome, and all that...

 

Sometimes I've thought to myself: if you were an immigrant today, how would you cope? You know? In my local supermarket, there is one side of an entire aisle that is solely stocked with breakfast cereals. An entire aisle. If you just got off the boat from - I don't know, central Asia, say - how on Earth would you choose one? It's an absolutely bewildering, staggering array of choices. And that's just breakfast cereals.

 

I wonder what that's like.

 

Land of plenty, indeed.

 

I'm always happy to come home, but I like walking other paths too.

  • Members
Posted

 

It is probably impossible to do so. Still, patriotism will cause most people to say their own country is the greatest, and they may be correct as long as they are not a "3rd would country." On the other hand, EVERY country has some things wrong with it. But when you visit a developing country, you sure are glad to get back home -- I was.

 

 

 

I agree on all points! I'm too used to modern comforts.

  • Members
Posted

Prove it
:p
In all fairness, it's great you love your country, but to say it's the best without living a couple of years in a few others don't hold water.


It's a common idea here in Sweden that we live in the best country in the world. I don't know, but it shure is convinient that most people speak my language
:D

 

I was being facetious. Ive lived in Germany and I loved it. Personally I would love to live in europe. Each place has its pros and cons.

  • Members
Posted

 

Sometimes I've thought to myself: if you were an immigrant today, how would you cope? You know? In my local supermarket, there is one side of an entire aisle that is solely stocked with breakfast cereals. An entire aisle. If you just got off the boat from - I don't know, central Asia, say - how on Earth would you choose one? It's an absolutely bewildering, staggering array of choices. And that's just breakfast cereals.

 

 

 

When my brother was in Thailand, teaching English to Thai army cadets, two of his former students were sent to Washington, D.C., for training. While they were here, they visited my parents. One day while my Mom was showing them around, she stopped at a grocery store. While they were impressed by the sheer size of the store and the variety of food and other products, what REALLY knocked them out was when my Mom stopped at the end of an aisle and told them, "This whole aisle is food for dogs, cats, and other pets." They couldn't believe that Americans actually bought special food for their dogs and cats.

  • Members
Posted

In most countries outside of western Europe and N-America, supermarkets aren't the norm. If you want good food you go to local farmers markets or smaller shops (butchers, bakeries etc.) to buy what you need. Also you will just have to use whatever fruits and vegetables that are in season.

  • Members
Posted

We saved everyone from having to learn German or Japanese. Case closed.

 

Oh yeah ? Where were you when I had to read Bertold Brecht for my highschool exams ? :mad:

  • Members
Posted

Wants versus needs.

 

I've been living in Guatemala for the past 2 years. Belize & Honduras is a daysail from where I'm docked. Southern Belize (Placencia?) is just like any remote/rural area anywhere. You should know provisioning in such places is clearly not as easy/cheap as if you did so in a large city (ala San Pedro/Belize City where the size of and resupply of merchants is much more efficient).

 

True, shopping locally is sometimes hit or miss (if you run across something good, buy it... it may not be available later) but always supplied my needs. And frankly, more often than not at a higher quality than what I experienced in the states (e.g. more natural, organic foodstuffs).

 

But I haven't yet been unable to satisfy my wants as well. True, if I'm jonesing for say, Heinz 57 steak sauce or Grandmas Molasses I'd have to go to Guatemala City (or other large city). Still, there are KFC's/Popeyes/Churches/etc., Pizza Huts/Dominos/etc, and MickyD's/Wendy's all over the place here. And now Wal-Mart seems to be buying up C.A.

 

As Gaui pointed out the shopping experience is different (anywhere?) outside the US. The main difference is it's not all under one roof. You go to the bakery for bread, butcher for meat, the local market for veggies, etc.. The first 'culture shock' one has to overcome is the apples & oranges aren't all stacked up in a nice pretty pyramid & exactly the same size & color. True, the meat isn't dyed pink or wrapped up nice & tidy in shrink wrap but I don't have to pay $12/lb for 'Free Range Chicken' either. And I can go in my 'back yard' and pick bananas/avocodos/mangos/star fruit/melons right off the vine (although I have to be diligent and not let the monkeys get there first :)

 

Expensive? Some things are but overall the cost of living here is 1/2 - 2/3rd's what it is in the US. I delivered a boat to the states last Fall and COULD NOT BELIEVE how much everything costs back there these days. I don't know how low to middle class folks can afford to live there.

 

p.s. $12 Belize for Oreos? you got ripped... I just bought a bag 'o Oreos in my lil ol local village for about $3 US (21Q).

  • Members
Posted

Yeah. People in India are pretty annoyed Wal-Mart is moving in, they like living off small local stores, it's just what they're used to and like...

 

It's the typical thing one expects American tourists in Europe to say, 'everything's so small/different/confusing/blah/blah/blah over here why can't it be like America, it's so much better there' well that's because it's not America, it's somewhere totally different with a different history and culture. If the people who live thre are happy, that's what matters :)

  • Members
Posted

The #1 reason I always love getting back home from a trip outside the states is that the standards here are WAY higher than each of the countries I've visited. I'm talking about the roads, buildings, hotels, the towns and cities, facilities etc. If you look at just the caribean and central america it's night and day. A five star hotel in those countries/islands would net maybe two here on an equivalent scale. Crimes against tourists are MUCH more of a problem and require a lot of pre-planning, if not a hired local guide the entire time. I've been to a few cities in europe and found the same things. Of course the entire social system and culture is different, but the infrastructure is light years behind what we take for granted and are used to. This is one of the perks of being such a young nation, we are not locked into centuries old planning and building. I kind of like the whole local market idea over the mega huge supermarket, but I am used to higher standards of living that what seems to be the case in a lot of other countries. Now don't any non-US forumites take this like I'm putting countries down, there are differences and these are what I'm used to and observe on my travels.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...