- I'm a 35-year-old American mom living in the UK.
- I took my three kids to the US for the first time in eight years and they were surprised by things.
It has been nearly eight years since my three Welsh children have visited my family in the United States. Even though I would have loved to make the eight-hour plane trip with them more often, logistics, the pandemic, and cost have kept us away.
For months, we prepared for our monthlong trip, with the kids getting increasingly excited about the food and fun they would have with their grandparents in a foreign land. Even though you'd imagine the two countries to be very similar as they speak English, there are multitudes of differences.
From my adult perspective, I know that healthcare, education, salaries, and culture widely vary, but I was excited to see what differences they, as children, would notice.
Bigger cars and bigger roads
After landing in Washington, DC, and retrieving our bags, we entered the parking lot. The two older kids quickly observed that the cars weren't like the ones in the UK. There were Chevrolets, GMCs, Lincolns, and endless pickup trucks.
They were also much bigger. In the UK, it's twice as expensive to fill a car with gas, roads are much narrower and windier, and there is less parking, so smaller cars are often preferable.
My kids immediately noticed that, along with cars, the roads in the US are much bigger than in the UK.
In DC, they tried to figure out how overpasses worked, roads overlapping each other in a complicated shape. In the UK, motorways, equivalent to highways, converge at roundabouts.
Even though they had expected it, they found it funny Americans drive on the opposite side of the road.
They were surprised by AC
The UK rarely gets very hot. At most, there are four to six weeks of the year when the temperature rises above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. When it does, we just open all the windows, strip down to our select few summer clothes, and keep the curtains shut because very few homes have air conditioning. Those weeks are boiling hot, but we grit our teeth and bear it because they don't last long.
When we got to our hotel the night we landed, they asked me what the metal box contraption making noise was in the corner of our room. It was the air conditioning unit, which pushes cool air through vents.
Since we've been here, they have relished in the ability to cool off inside after playing in the heat.
They think the portions are too big and there's always too much ice in drinks
We have been out to eat, and when my parents get the kids drinks in the house, ample ice is in every glass of water, juice, or soda.
The kids both love and hate it. They enjoy sucking on the ice as a novelty, but they've been complaining that the freezing cold temperature of the drink hurts their teeth.
You might have a few cubes of ice in a restaurant in the UK, but I have never once been served a drink in someone's home with ice in it.
They also feel like the portions are way too big. Our first meal in the US was at Bob Evans. The kids each ordered a kid's meal with a side of pancakes to share. The food was served to us over several trips.
"Look how many pancakes there are," one of the kids said when the plate of four enormous pancakes with syrup and jam was put down in front of us.
At the gas station, they were amazed by the size of the chip bags, chocolate bars, and drink cups. "All the food is big," one of them whispered to me as he gazed at the shelves of food.