What struck me about a lot of those responses was the fact that those folks obviously aren't living in the same US that I am. A good many of their places seem just as strange to me, and perhaps even more alien than the foreign countries I've visited.
Well, last I checked there was still quite a bit of difference between regions, even if it's the "same US". What are some of the things that seemed strange in their responses?
Expectations are sometimes a bit out of whack for visitors to the US as well, just because of how it is portrayed in the media of their local country. Here in Japan, we have occasional "interesting captured video from around the world" TV shows that come on now and then. If the video is a car chase, it's always from the US. Also, all the good videos capturing cars crashing through the front walls of restaurants and convenience stores are always from the US. I could easily imagine Japanese tourists getting an uneasy feeling when going into a US convenience store because they half expect a car to come crashing through the front windows at any moment.
LAX is a horrid experience and should be avoided at all costs. SFO is much, much nicer.
Portion sizes are definitely huge. After adjusting to meal sizes here, whenever I am back to visit the States and we go out to eat, my wife and I either share one entree or each get an appetizer and that's plenty. (If we stay for a couple weeks, though, my stomach seems to get stretched out to American size again, though.)
"Dependence on GPS" - really? Is that a thing? I find it difficult to believe, since generally US streets and highways are laid out so they are trivially easy to figure out. (Compared to, say, Tokyo.) Several years ago my family took a long vacation to the states and we did a roadtrip across a bit of the western states. My wife thought I was crazy for not renting a GPS unit with the rental car. She changed her mind by the time we reached our destination. "Everything is laid out so easy, all the streets are perpendicular, all the signs are clear. If you want to go to this city, you get onto this highway and drive straight for xx hours."
Well, to be fair, I was doing the driving and I'm reasonably used to US roads and driving, though I was out of recent practice.