Americans

As mimiro says America is a huge country, so there's no such thing as a typical American. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever met an American.
I enjoyed Michael Portillo's series where he went round America by train, showed the variety.
We have friends who have a house in Florida where they spend the winter. He's a big heavy fellow, says he feels thin when there .

I would love to visit America as I am a huge country music fan and would give anything to visit Nashville just once in my life . Can’t see it ever happening in this life sadly.

I’ve not any negative posts to be honest but as others have said it is the Trump thing that upsets people. I’ve been to the USA and fou nd nothing but helpful kindness.
I have a few online American friends and they are mostly lovely I’ve seen their families grow up alongside mine and they aren’t that different. They do mention hunting, owning guns and God a lot but that’s their business I guess I’m sure there are things I say that they don’t approve of.

I have visited the USA a few times and can honestly say that they are the most friendly, courteous, up-beat and lovely people that I have ever met.
If there is one country that I would emigrate to, it would be America.

I’m so jealous Buffybee

I would LOVE to go. Have you been to Nashville by any chance?

I had a holiday romance once with an American serviceman that I met in Italy. He was a lovely Texan, but unfortunately we couldn't carry on the romance afterwards.
All other Americans that I've met have been lovely, generous, outgoing people. Their views wildly differed from mine in many respects, gun ownership being one, but apart from that, in the whole they were very nice people.

There are good, bad, and indifferent people in every country. Having been to America twice, and having an American pen pal for many years, I find them to be warm and welcoming and friendly. And they love Brits and show a real interest in our accents. I just love Americans.
(but I don't like Trump!)

The first thing that any Americans we or others have met recently overseas do is to apologise for Trump!

I even like the down to earth Aussies too.
EllanVannin

I’ve never been to the USA, but other people in my family have, and one lived there for a while - he was working at Yale. I’ve known a few Americans, and they have varied from the loud and vulgar to the quiet and intellectual.

I do admit to a dislike of American accents. I’m not sure why. It’s probably connected to my dislike of much American popular culture and its powerful influence in this country.

I worked with a charming, quiet and intellectual American many years ago, one of the loveliest men I ever met. Old enough to be my grandfather though (and married).

I've not been to Nashville gillybob but I would love to visit some more of the Southern States. It's just so lovely to be referred to a Ma'am by everyone. They are so polite and lovely. I would like to go to Memphis, Tennessee as I'm a big Elvis fan and also I would like to see Monument Valley on the Arizona-Utah border, probably because I watched too many cowboy films when I was young. ??
I'm a big fan of America and Americans and love our close relationship with our cousins in the West.

I have been to the USA and would like to go again to see some places I've never visited but under no circumstances would I go there while that ghastly Trump is President.

My son has been married to an American girl for 16 years and has lived there since 2002. On our frequent trips to see them, and also amongst the American friends we've made over the years as we ourselves have lived around the world, I've yet to meet an American I didn't like.

I only know one Trump supporter amongst them and even he's a nice bloke. I can't imagine why he thought a Trump vote was a good idea!

McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut etc haven't been great additions to any town once you are over the age of 14.

A FiveGuys cheeseburger and strawberry milkshake soothed my sore throat on Saturday so I'm sticking up for the etceteras ?. And where the FiveGuys place was in Dundee was definitely improved (aka a great addition) since I knew the town in the seventies.

I stick up for Aberdeen Angus burgers at BurgerKing too. And there's nothing wrong with pizza. Pizzas are just fancy cheese sandwiches. What's not to like?

As for actual Americans, all the ones I know are nice people just as all the Brits I know are nice people.

I don’t know any Americans but my parents ( who visited many times when my mum was alive) said they were lovely people .

I would love to visit Memphis Buffybee

Baggs I like pizza too, but not Pizza Hut variety, they are not very Italian. Pizza Express would be my go to chain, I love theirs.

When I worked up in London, friends and I would get Burger Kings from time to time. I thought they had the edge over McDonalds, my enduring memory, lovely burgers, until an hour afterwards when they left me feeling queasy. I haven't touched one for years. A piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken though, yum! definitely my guilty secret.

My first impression of eating out in America, based on the fact that they are a melting pot of many nationalities is that their food chains take the "old country" cuisines and ruin them to appeal to the mass market. I had some of the worst pasta ever in a chain in America called "The Olive Garden" and some of the best in a family run restaurant in Little Italy, NY.

I would big up Dennys though, great breakfasts and I love all that multi egg choice, over easy, sunny side up rigmarole.

America is a great place in spite of Trump and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

I've never had any KFC. It was beginning to be sold in Thailand when I worked there but I never felt tempted as Thai fried chicken was fresh, home-grown and generally ace.

It's good to hear positive comments. I can confirm that from time there have been sweeping generalisations about Americans which have not been positive.

Some of us may have difficulty understanding some of the language sodapop

Thanks everyone for writing. I feel better. It’s a tough time to be an American, with all the division in our country. The “Ugly American” stereotype has been around for a while. I have just picked up on some digs in some threads, regarding language and spelling, table manners, baby showers, proms,loud obnoxious Americans, etc. Thanks to all who don’t generalize and are willing to give people a chance, one to one. ?

Well I for one would be over there like a shot if I won the lottery Marylou77

Went to the USA around the time of our 30th wedding anniversary (20yrs ago). We were on our own the first few days in Chicago and were treated well wherever ate or visited. Met up with family in Kansas who treated us royally - loved the people but hated their way of life. They never walked anywhere, pressed buttons for everything, no windows open in their houses, etc. Family members then drove us down to Florida so we really experienced the American way of life and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Everyone was so kind and welcoming but I really don't think I would like to live there. One reason would be the amount of food around. Huge plates of food and, for us, enormous "doggy bags"! Have been back since on a two week holiday, again staying with relatives, and still loved it and the people.

I have an American second cousin I found through Ancestry, we went over to visit her, and she is lovely. Not quite so keen on one of her college friends, white supremacy still rears its head sometimes sadly. Also visited New Orleans, took a dinner cruise down the Mississippi in a paddle steamer during a crazy thunderstorm, everyone lovely except our room chambermaid who glowered at us and made it plain she resented us.

We did go to Memphis, Graceland is incredible, so worthwhile, but also the museum in the hotel where Martin Luther King was shot is a real heart breaker, so dreadful what slavery did, and to see the bus Rosa Parkes sat in.....
Nashville, the Grand Ole Opry, and downtown where I got chatted up, and my husband got his bottom pinched!
On to New York, where we went to see Les Miserables on Broadway, the 9/11 monument and museum, and shopping of course. Would go back in a flash if it wasn't for the cost of the medical insurance!

Their history is so different from ours. At one time I read a lot of travel books eg
www.amazon.co.uk/Ladys-Life-Rocky-Mountains/dp/1483977153?tag=gransnetforum-21
And most of Mark Twain's, especially
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roughing_It
Their history must have shaped their attitudes.