Americans and the English, same same but different?

After over a month of living and breathing the cleanest air in all of America (supposedly),  I feel I am well tuned into to some of the cultural and lifestyle differences between the overly polite English, like myself, and those obnoxiously loud Americans. 

One place where I really feel like the UK and the US is on different planets is on the road.  You guys have so much space your freeways are six lanes wide!  Six lanes! In the UK 3 is the norm,  4 if you're lucky (not including the hard shoulder). I don't think a one way street exists here either, which must be nice , as driving in a new city in England tends to result a series of frustrating battles; where your destination is in sight but the turning says no entry, so you have to encircle the neighbouring streets a few times until you get to that same street but facing the opposite direction.  Oh the frustration.  I wonder if the simplicity of US roads reduces the prevalence of road rage.

EDIT, CORRECTION :   Arizona does have one way streets they are just 4 cars wide and in a grid system, so its not that complicated. 

When the federal government builds freeways they pretty much blow up anything in their path in order to create the shortest route to connect two destinations, by my understanding. This means travelling for 2 or 3 hours in the US gets you much further than in England, with our winding roads encircling this or that. Yes we may be a tiny island but we are densely populated, there is a lot going on. Arizona has vastly empty desert plains all over the place and then they stick some suburban housing complex in the middle of it. 

Here in Tempe, there are empty lots of land,  that are in a prime location for the retail industry, but for some reason the people here would rather scatter far and wide and increase their commute and transit time, just because they have the space.    

I've never owned a car back in England, so I'm used to walking everywhere or relying on buses or trains to get me places.   I swear outside of the university campus there are only a couple of hundred people who walk anywhere in this city.  Cars are king.  Now its starting to heat up, temperature wise, I think I am starting to understand why.  Air Conditioning is the only way to survive out here! The heat is unrelentingly dry, and the skies are so free of clouds it looks like someone placed a giant paint sample card in front of your lens.  Its shorts weather from now on until November!

 I got the bus to Phoenix Zoo the other day,  there was literally me and 3 other people on there, all who got off at the next stop. All my bus journeys in the UK consisted of a predominant presence of the young and the elderly and then everyone else in between.     

Smart

Beastly

Speaking of cars being king.  Smart cars are considered a joke here, next to four-wheel drives, pick up trucks and hummers they do look ridiculous. Back home and across Europe a Smart car seems like a viable, efficient and some might even say 'smart' way to actually find a parking space in a major city.   

Efficiency is clearly not on the mind of some Americans though,  taking a tank engine and riding it around your tarmacked freeways, seriously unnecessary. It's a good thing gasoline (petrol) is so cheap for you guys.

Next on the agenda is religion.  I 'm starting to really appreciate how secular England is. I find talking to people from different religions and trying to understand their different belief systems, really interesting.  My issue with religion is when, someone tries to push their beliefs on me or decides to actively insult me because I'm not a believer.

Last weekend me and Sharath attended an open mic event in downtown Phoenix, that was largely spoken word performers, with a few musicians thrown in to the mix. It was a fun evening, there were lots of passionate people sharing their thoughts with the room.  Towards the end the religious extremists seemed to take centre stage, and I found this pretty uncomfortable. Perhaps its a reflection of the music and arts communities in the UK, and their tendency towards the liberal left on the political spectrum, but I don't expect to be called selfish for being a 'heathen' in an evening of arts and entertainment.   It led to a pretty big discussion about the role of Christianity in the US.  Oh and the audience had this tendency to shout "speak it" and "tell it" at various moments in peoples performances, which is a new sign of appreciation to me. My inner polite Englishman found it a little irritating.
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This is how we do it in England

The US has discovered Cornish Pasties and made them into a gourmet food.  You heard me, those meat and potato filled pastry cases you buy at Greggs for (a little more than) a quid, when your short

My Gourmet Pastie

of cash and in need of something hot and filling to eat on the go, are marketed as an actual evening meal here.  Last night I sat at a proper sit down restaurant and ordered a "Cornish pasty"  filled with all kinds of fancy ingredients, chicken, pesto, artichokes, mozzarella.  It was really tasty, I have to say. Would giving pasties a face lift in England be a success or is it down to the novelty factor?  They also had English puddings on the menu, so I introduced a couple of Americans to the wonders of Sticky Toffee Pudding (mmm) , made with imported treacle. It seems strange not to have treacle as its just an unrefined version of syrup, but it obviously hasn't made it across the Atlantic yet.


I think that's enough snark filled analysis for this post. I'll be back soon, as my photos are telling me I've been to so many amazing places and I'm yet to talk about them.  Here's a sneak peak of things to come:

Devil's Bridge, Sedona, AZ