After being gone for a really long time living in another country

Abundant and cheap gas stations.
Movie theaters.
Things being open 24/7.
Americanized foreign food....don't get me wrong Italian food is delicious, but sometimes you're just in the mood for Dominos or something

10/29/2010 10:25:42 AM

I missed

- cheap beer
- cheap food
- cheap gas
- cheap clothing

Land of the Cheap! Wooooooooooooo!

I also missed having variety in food, people, culture, etc.

10/29/2010 10:28:08 AM

I miss being number 1 in the world.

10/29/2010 10:28:24 AM

Quote :

"Things being open 24/7."

Hell, that's barely even a foreign issue... I miss 24/7 stuff whenever I leave the city.

10/29/2010 10:29:42 AM

Quote :

"I miss being number 1 in the world."

10/29/2010 10:48:56 AM

^ i live in the US and i miss this.

10/29/2010 10:57:37 AM

Terrorist supporter ^

10/29/2010 10:59:14 AM

I have never traveled outside the US.

America.

Fuck yeah.

10/29/2010 11:09:16 AM

It's been quite a while since I came back, but the memories of what I missed while I was gone are still fresh:

Air conditioning
A consistent and reliable electricity service
A consistent and reliable water service
Carpet / walking barefoot indoors
Refrigerators - if the electricity service sucks you really can't own one
Food you would normally need to refrigerate like cheese, ketchup, mustard, etc. not including loads of vinegar as a preservative.
Pizza. Sorry, but replacing pizza sauce with a ketchup doesn't cut it. To complicate matters toss in the aforementioned problem with vinegar flavored cheese


Things I miss about where I was:
Food (other than what's mentioned above) / fruits were especially good. Fruits in grocery stores here are very, very bland.
The average person wasn't a jerk
Perpetual summer, but not with oppressive humidity like NC
Stuff was really, really cheap, life was affordable in general.
Better include a shout out for street vendor hot dogs. Some of the best hot dogs I ever had.

[Edited on October 29, 2010 at 11:24 AM. Reason : -]

10/29/2010 11:13:06 AM

Oh yeah and I missed pizza. Asian pizza is an abomination



^ Yeah, not having air conditioning sucked too.

[Edited on October 29, 2010 at 11:15 AM. Reason : a]

10/29/2010 11:14:01 AM

Bulgogi pizza was surprisingly delicious.

10/29/2010 11:18:37 AM

I could see that being good. It's just bbq beef. Unlike the bullshit tuna, canned corn, mayo, potato pizzas my friends would order

10/29/2010 11:20:26 AM

It's not hard to make your own pizza.

10/29/2010 11:24:37 AM

It is when you don't own an oven.

11/1/2010 10:36:03 AM

Quote :

"Yeah, not having air conditioning sucked too."

You were in Japan. How in the hell didn't you have AC? Then make a care that lastes 20 years and has AC, but they can't put it in an apartment?

I was in a college dorm in China and I had AC. It wasn't nice central AC, but the box could get my room down to a nice 18 C.

11/1/2010 10:52:09 AM

i found a pizza hut in europe once. it def helped me survive.

11/1/2010 10:54:20 AM

^^ My workplace had no a/c and the box unit in my apartment barely worked

11/1/2010 11:03:28 AM

^ I would have been and been like "THIS IS JAPAN. THIS IS FUCKING UNACCEPTABLE, YOU DUMB, FUCKING, INDOCTRINATED TO STUPIDITY, REDNECK FUCKS!"

11/1/2010 11:07:07 AM

ahaha yeah that's pretty much how I felt every day of summer when at work. It's unacceptable to be covered in sweat when teaching in a first wold country

11/1/2010 11:09:07 AM

(in Australia)

biscuits (they are NOT cookies)
pepto bismol
mexican food
more than 4 kinds of beer and it not being $$$
baseball
football
customer service
ice in my drink
having a waiter actually come to my table
fast and cheap internet (using a cell phone as an internet connection is SLOW)
snow or cold weather at christmas
regular cheerios (not sweetened multigrain)
good pizza
cheese other than cheddar
real deli meat
any form of pork

11/1/2010 11:15:22 AM

They don't have pigs in Australia?

11/1/2010 11:17:08 AM

Instead of pigs they have lamb. The sausage may look like pork sausage, but it is lamb. No pork chops, just lamb chops.

I guess I could find pork if I really looked, but it's not common (even in restaurants).

11/1/2010 11:20:55 AM

I miss mexican food, target, all of my favorite clothing stores, 24/7 walmart (it closes at 5 pm on the weekends goddamnit), the smell of my favorite deodorant that isn't sold here, HOPS in the beer, not hearing people speak french all the time, barbeque, being able to own a car cheaply, politics i had the lifelong background to understand, friendly neighbors, warm weather, MEXICAN FOOD, and chick fil a

[Edited on November 1, 2010 at 11:22 AM. Reason : ^merguez is good though]

11/1/2010 11:21:36 AM

but... lamb is better than pork.

11/1/2010 11:23:25 AM

sometimes you feel like a big old greasy italian sausage though


they suck when made out of other meats

11/1/2010 11:24:31 AM

^^^ damn, I forgot about ANTI-PERSPIRANT, all they have is fucking deodorant

^^ lamb is great, doesn't mean I don't miss pork

[Edited on November 1, 2010 at 11:25 AM. Reason : ^]

11/1/2010 11:24:54 AM

Ahh yeah, I missed anti-perspirant as well. Also missed dentists that didn't suck.

11/1/2010 11:28:29 AM

FREE REFILLS

Why in God's name is the rest of the world satisfied with exactly one (typically tiny) drink with a meal? Especially a spicy or salty one?

Not having to constantly take precautions against petty theft. I don't leave my shit unattended here, but I don't have to chain it to my fucking chair, either.

Mexican food. I realized that South American cuisine is different from Mexican cuisine, which is in turn different from what we get here, but there was nothing even fucking close down there -- until I found, of all things, an Irish Pub with something that could reasonably be called "nachos."

Things costing what they cost. I do not enjoy haggling.

---

Things I miss about there:

The glorious cheapness of everything I needed. Big, good meals for $3. Half liters of good beer for $2.50.
Expatriates. Sure, foreigners live here, too, but it's different somehow. I miss being able to walk into a bar and easily end up drinking with a black Dutchman, an Australian, two Japanese and a British-educated half-Swiss Mexican UN worker (long story)
Cheap, abundant taxis and buses. Didn't mind not having a car at all, I could get anywhere in the city for a couple of bucks (though I had to haggle for it). Whereas I can need a cab in Raleigh to take me a relatively short distance and end up shelling out ten dollars.

11/1/2010 11:36:55 AM

oh yeah DOCTORS

you have to be on a waiting list like 3 or 4 months to see a specialist and there are few GPs. if you are sick or need a checkup or a referral, anything basically, you have to go to the hospital and sit there for around 4-6 hours and then see whichever doctor is there. I'm kinda shell shocked from the cultural difference and I've been having some problems with anxiety and not wanting to go out in public. The shitty system is a real barrier to getting some assistance

11/1/2010 12:22:15 PM

Quote :

"Not having to constantly take precautions against petty theft."

Where are you now?

I always get my shit stole in the US.

11/1/2010 12:23:28 PM

Quote :

"I'm kinda shell shocked from the cultural difference and I've been having some problems with anxiety and not wanting to go out in public. The shitty system is a real barrier to getting some assistance "

11/1/2010 12:26:09 PM