A European's Guide to North America, Part 1

These people build their cities in grids of roads. Sometimes the grids are aligned with geographical features like rivers, but mostly they are aligned to magnetic north. If you do see a traffic circle, it will probably be for traffic calming.

They have spaced things much further apart. Roads are very wide. There are dual carriageways cutting right through neighbourhoods! And houses and buildings have space between them - only on the most central streets do you see shops and businesses next to each other and sharing walls. There's space between the sidewalk and building fronts also. And the houses don't have gates in front! You can just walk right onto someone's front yard.

They also build some houses and structures here that are only one storey tall! Bigger than sheds even!

They build small rooms in their houses just for clothes. They're called closets.

Many buildings have an exterior of wood! And the wood is painted. Old buildings will have flaking paint! Can you imagine?

They have this mad vehicle called a pickup truck. It has two seats in front and space for a payload in back, but the payload is open to the elements. Whenever you see one, it will be empty in back. And sometimes you'll hear this throaty growl from a vehicle that's unlike anything you've heard before. It might come from a pickup truck, or from a car with a big engine called a muscle car. The cars in general are bigger. Just about everything is bigger than it needs to be, really.

And if I remember what it's like to be a European much longer, I may have more to write on the subject.