2. Run for your life thunderstorms!
3. Security guards carrying guns in museums, libraries, office blocks, shopping malls...anywhere really. It's freaky!
4. Big cars with grids on their bumpers - seriously, do any of those drivers think are are going to encounter a deer, moose, or other overly large sized animal in down town Washington DC (unless something has escaped from the zoo and I don't know about it)?!
5. The fact that if you don't actually have a car you can't really get anywhere, especially the suburbs of Washington which seem to be oddly lacking in pavements/ sidewalks, so that if you want to walk to the nearest local shops you must risk your life walking along the main road. And where there are pedestrian crossings, the cars don't seem to give a sh** and just keep driving - now maybe that's why they all have those grids on their cars!
6. That everyone thinks you are crazy for wanting to walk anywhere in the first place!
7. The lack of pubs and pub culture. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I spend THAT much time in pubs back at home, but there's nothing quite like strolling down to your local pub for a pint with your pals after a long day. Then again, no one stolls anywhere here, they drive - maybe that's why they don't go to pubs?!
8. But really, they've never even heard of pub quizzes!
9. And it's no fun anyway if you have to show your ID every time you order a drink if you look a day under 35. Like there can actually be that much alcohol in American beer. Light beer? I rest my case.
10. The phrase "land of the free" - if freedom means that you have the right to picket the funeral of a boy who was killed for being gay, because you think homosexuality is immoral, without regards to the feelings of the poor parents, and then post a website announcing the number of days he has been burning in hell.
