EVERYTHING IS BIGGER IN AMERICA

EVERYTHING IS BIGGER IN AMERICA

Let’s start off with the country itself. It’s mind bogglingly HUGE. There are 50 States that share the 3.79 million square miles of land and over 312 million people. Making it the fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest country by both land area and population in the world. If you’re interested the countries that are bigger, land mass wise, are Canada, India and China.

This is why everything is bigger here; most houses are only 1 story high and have a great sized garden, pavements and roads are wider, because they have the space. Simple.

If you don’t have access to a car in America you are up the creek without a paddle. We are lucky that we have some places within walking distance of home, but most neighbourhoods are just that. Houses, with not much, save maybe a 7/11 or CVS within walking distance. It is said that 90% of the US population lives within 5 miles of a major highway.

There are 13 million major highways in the USA, making it the longest highway system in the world. People definitely have an easier time driving them here than in Europe too. It’s nothing for someone to drive for an hour each way to go out to eat or 2 or 3 hours to see family, that’s considered close. We recently drove from Northern California to Seattle for Christmas, a 14 hour, 760 mile trip each way. In that time and distance you could drive from my hometown of Redditch through France to Switzerland.

Cars need to be bigger here in order to tackle these roads and long journeys. Every family seems to own a truck and I have not seen a car with a smaller engine than 1.8 litres. But that doesn’t matter; petrol is half the price it is in the U.K. On a side note, most of the cars in America are automatic, meaning I have seen people drive with their left leg underneath their bottom. This freaked me out a little when I first saw it, but not as much as when I realised I could drive using no feet at all. While driving one of the 13 million highways I discovered cruise control. You can set your car to constantly go at the same speed until you press the brake or accelerator.       

University sports in England are just something to do on a Wednesday afternoon when there are no lectures. Here they are BIG business. Played of a weekend and often televised, college sports often have more fans than professional leagues. Take American football for example, the largest stadium is Michigan Stadium (Pictured), the home of the Michigan Wolverines in Ann Arbor. It holds a maximum of 109,901 people and the smallest is William Price Stadium, home of the Norfolk State Spartans in Norfolk, Virginia. It holds a maximum of 30,000, just short of the unofficial average attendance for a Barclays Premier League game this season. The league, which is home to Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal, averages around 34,445 fans per game. I have even seen high school stadiums that seat thousands.

Only 37% of Americans own a passport. Why is this? I think it’s due to the fact that this country has everything! From the beaches in Miami and Hawaii to the big cities of New York and Los Angeles to the natural beauty of the 58 national parks, why would anyone need to leave?