“A/C Won’t Kill You”: 39 Things Americans Take For Granted That Europeans Should Learn From

Well, they do have better healthcare than we do.

I see some smokers around my country, but by no means 'everywhere' or all the time.

depends, in southern Europe this does seem to still be the case, but in the UK, and as far as I've seen in parts of Northern Europe like Finland and Estonia, vapes are literally everywhere. clouds of cherry lemon birthday cake scented smog everywhere. :') (and in the uk the disposable ones are littered everywhere too e_e )

Smoking is becoming less common in the UK. Cigarettes cost between £15-£20 a pack here, and smoking in public places was made illegal in 2007.

Now were smoking weed in public too in Germany

Europe has much older buildings, and many of them are under protections and can't be greatly modified or demolished, (like in the UK we have "listed buildings") which is nice to preserve our much older architecture, but not so great because it means that not everywhere has as reliable access, but it is getting better as more modern businesses own these buildings and apply for permissions to add access ramps etc.

Correction: Disabled access. Anyone can access a disability, it's getting into buildings once you have a disability that's the issue.

Disability access is an issue in most countries

I am sure that in the USA a man in a motorized wheelchair can get on a public bus by himself, as I saw yesterday in Madrid.

There's no way that America has better disabled access than Britain. Maybe some parts of Europe.

Bugs love ACs. No AC, no bugs. Just kidding. Sometimes a bug gets into the house. Just pick it up and throw it out. No bug in my house if it does not pay rent.

Because, apparently, we're not fazed by the occasional bug or fly.

Google how flies eat and you will no longer find them acceptable in your house

We have a screen on our backdoor but not on the windows but we don't get many bugs come in through the window.

When I moved to the USA as a kid, I didn't understand screens. I walked through a couple of them, because I didn't see them/they didn't register. My mom did a crossstitch on the screens so I could them and that helped because I stopped walking into/through them.

Come to the Balkans if you want a real proper BBQ

Yeah, have to give you that one, Americans do a good job with barbecue.

Every country I know has some form of BBQ. OP may like it or not, but the locals sure enjoy it. It's kind of like pizza for me. Almost anything sold as Pizza in the USA is a pale imitation of the real thing. Yet I know Americans that were disappointed by italian pizza and preferred the bread like crust you get in the USA. At first, I wanted to denounce them to the pizza police, but then I realized that that's what they grew up with, just like I grew up with Italian pizza.

Are you serious? Spain? Portugal? italy? Greece? That's real BBQ food, not stuff smothered in colouring and artificial flavouring

When I listen to American's talk about BBQ, it sounds like so much effort. One of the things I love about BBQ is how bloody simple it is - put a burger on the grill, flip it, stick it in a bap with some HP sauce. Voila.

what country is EU ???

That differs from country to country. This list compares one country to many. But yes, public toilets are sparse. You might have more luck in the Netherlands than in Germany.

That's mostly true, depending on what country. Especially free public toilets. If you're in a city during daytime, a bigger department store will do the trick though.

True.

Nods, very hard.

As a German I have to admit, that we have a new germination of racism here. But we are still better in reprocessing our past than most other countries.

We are definitely racists in Europe, and our racism counts as racism. I think, though, that it is completely different from racism in the US, because it comes from different roots and it "works" in a different way. Things are slowly changing (luckily), but Europe is not as ethnically diverse as the US: for example I grew up without a single person of Asian or African origin at school in the 80s-90s (it was definitely not a rich area). Things also vary in the different European countries (France does not have the same racism problems than Greece, for example). I believe we should be honest and critical about this issue, on all levels, study the problem from an European perspective, and study possible solutions that work for us. Easier said than done, as always...

I'm afraid that if you say that as an American, many Europeans will point out that your segregation laws were in existence up until 1964. Of course that doesn't mean that there is no racism in Europe, but it does mean that we did not have that kind of institutionalised racism.

Agreed. Eastern Europeans are the most racist people I've encountered.

Movie called Stolen about the indigenous Sami in Sweden. Bigotry against white people in a white country. The plotline was about a killer, but the bigotry was subtext and true story.

No thanks. I'll take the honest European 'unfriendliness' over the fake US ear-to-ear-colgate smile avery day.