It doesn’t matter where you live in the world, when you’re away from home for an extended time there are just certain things you have that nostalgic feeling for. Honestly, the more we travel and the more we see the more convinced we become that America is nowhere near as great as we thought it was and we have a long way to go and a lot to learn from the rest of the world.

For example, we love the way that people from Spain and Portugal look at work. They work hard but nowhere near as much as Americans. The idea of the 9-5 grind is replaced by a relaxed way of life with Siesta, large lunches and time off work regularly. In Portugal there is even a law that makes it illegal for your boss to contact you about work outside of business hours! In spite of good things like this there are just some things that America does better.

Ice:

Americans love ice and cold drinks. We have large ice cube trays and most fridges even have an ice maker.  Heck, we even sell portable countertop icemakers and you can buy a bag of ice at any gas station for one of the 15 coolers you have. In Europe this is a foreign concept. We haven’t seen a fridge with an icemaker yet and if they have a freezer it’s tiny and has at most 1 or 2 miniture little ice cube trays! Ugh! It literally got so bad using them that we started filling our glassware with some water and putting it in the freezer!

Water:

Whether it’s frozen or not doesn’t seem to matter. Again, water filters on fridges or large water containers from a company are unheard of. We stayed at one house which had a fancy fridge with a water dispenser. Only after it was empty did we realize it wasn’t filtered water… it was just a container in the fridge that you fill up with tap water.

Dogs:

America loves their pets and many people treat them as family. Not so here. We were appalled by how dogs were treated in Spain and it wasn’t much better in Portugal. There were hungry, mangy dogs just roaming free that had been abandoned and people yelled at them, kicked them and threw rocks at them. Even people who have dogs as pets seem not to like them. They drag them around on their leashes and pay no attention to them. We literally did not see one person “playing” with a dog in Spain. No throwing sticks or frisbees, no making up cute names and petting them, no snuggling with them at a nice grassy park. Very strange indeed.

Food:

They try…. you have to give them that. However, in our experience Europeans can cook their own food really well but their efforts at other cultures food is just dismal. Trying to find a good Mexican restaurant, a decent Pizza or anything close to a Cheeseburger in Spain or Portugal was a complete waste of time. The Pizza in Spain for example had Spanish cheese on it which stunk and tasted nothing like the delicious cheese blends on American pizza. It’s also covered with their version of ham (or course) which although fantastic, sucks on Pizza! Don’t even attempt to order a Hamburger no matter how good the locals tell you it is… it’s likely to have a literal piece of Ham on it (like eveything in Spain) or possibly an egg or a pile of melted cheese sauce poured over it.

And let’s talk Mexican food… everything in Spain is smoked parika and everything in Portugal and South Africa is Peri-Peri. Again, those things are great but they don’t make for very authentic Mexican food!

Even in the stores you would see American food like “Pringles” or “Lays” chips but they tasted completely different.

When we hit South Africa we had a week of rainy, cold weather which was perfect for a bowl of Chili! But try to find Chili Powder here… Ugh! We had to make do with a mixxture of Peri-Peri and Cumin. It was Godawful Chili!

America may not have a ton of great specific “American” culinary delights but we do everyone elses extremely well. You can find a delectable burder, a great bowl of Chili, a banging Pizza, fantastic Mexican food and a stellar Chinese take out in virtually every town in America!

Convenience:

Americans are the kings of “I want it and I want it now.” As a result, things are just easy. It’s not like that in our travels so far. No one is in a hurry to do anything in Spain or Portugal. If the internet goes out, no big deal, go sit in the square and have a Cuppa for an hour. Want to go grocery shopping? Plan an entire morning. You have to go to the Butcher, then the Cheese shop, then the bread shop, stop by the vegetable market and finally pick some fish up at the Pescataria on the way back.

Of course you’re going to need to stop off at several bars along the way for coffee or a Tinto Verrano and by the time you’re done it’s lunchtime and then Siesta! Although this is fun we do miss the convenience of just walking into a grocery store and walking out 30 minutes later with everything you need for a week.

Refrigeration:

They seem to have no need of it here… eggs sit out, food sits out, fridges are small and cooling food just doesn’t seem to be a priority. But the Fish Markets are the worst…. We were super excited to go get fresh fish off the boat at the local markets but for the first time since traveling I was grateful for my mask! The entire place stinks to high heaven and you lose your appetite for fish within minutes of entering one of these markets. Once you buy the fish and get it home to your fridge it’s fine but the markets are revolting because it’s literally just a bunch of dead, non refrigerated seafood sitting out.

Anna Maria Island:

Have I mentioned how much we miss our beach! The other day a friend on TikTok posted a video of Beer Can Island, one of my favorite places to go in Florida. I looked at Rachel and said, “I miss home.” Don’t get me wrong, the Beaches in Spain, Portugal and South Africa are all beautiful in their own right (Neerja was our favorite), but the water is cold and nothing like the warm, tropical, tourquise waters of Anna Maria Island!

Holidays:

We’ve spent Halloween and Thanksgiving here so far and frankly… it was hard being away from family and not having these traditions. We don’t particularly care about either of those holidays but they’ve just been something we’ve always celebrated and it’s always a comfortable time to do something special with your loved ones. It was strange to sit around on Thanksgiving and not have Turkey and the fixings with a backyard game of Football.

Football:

Speaking of Football… we miss it! We’re not huge sports fans but there’s nothing like sitting around with some buddies, fixing some great food and watching a Football game! It’s unheard of here and everything is either Soccer or Rugby… those are great too but we miss American Foootball along with some Nachos and Chicken Wings!

Clapper:

We love this app (think adult TikTok) but unfortunately its not available in certain countries and so we haven;t been able to connect with people the same way.  We miss our ClapperFam!

What do you think you would miss about America?