Alice's observations of America after 5 and a half months of traversing it.

1. It's the most humungous place you could possibly imagine.  It's huge.  To traverse all of the States would take me 2 years to do.
2. You can't consider Americans in the same breath.  They're all wildly different.
3. A South African township and an American township are two totally different things.  On explaining to Americans what a SA township is their faces go white and their teeth drop out.
4. You are defacing the neighbourhood if you put a fence around your property in most of the States that I visited. 
5. Consequently puppies live indoors and dog-walking is a big business.
6. You need headshots to be a waitress in LA.
7. Americans like eating red liquorice.  Yuck.
8. The quality of their clothes and shoes are waaaay better than ours.  We live in sacks compared to these people.
9. Most Americans seem to have the perception that it's cheaper to live on take-out than it is to buy food at the grocery store.  Thusly you can find a take-out place about every 3 feet, no matter where you are.
10. Burger King sucks even more than Mcd's.
11. The best burgers and milkshakes I had in the States was at "In and out" a burger chain only found in California.  Go there.  Have a vanilla milkshake.
12. Americans everywhere have an obsession with coffee and tea, and iced coffee and iced tea.  It's like a weird fashion statement if you walk around with your deluxe coffee grande skinny latte what-what.  This country runs on caffeine and the easiest way to overthrow them and take over would be to deprive them of their caffeine fix.
13. Although Americans speak English it might as well have been called by some other strange name.  Often words have different meanings and I had people laughing in my face and then calling their friends over and saying: "Ok, now say that again..."   An example of this would be the first time I enquired as to where I might find the loo.
14. Drawers are in a cupboard and are definitely not pants, the bill is only the cheque and nothing else, scones are biscuits and robots are lights.  A handbag is a pocket book and an sms is just plain a text.  Just the ones to jump to mind.
15. People in America generally obey the law.  They wait for the little green man to flicker before they cross the street (except in NY and Boston) and stick to the speed limit.
16. Americans drive a whole lot better than South Africans.  It's unfortunate that they do it on the wrong side of the road.
17. Most Americans that I met were completely fearless and for the most part blissfully ignorant about the rest of the world.  A wild generalisation, I know.
18. Most Americans are seekers.  They are looking for spiritual experiences and they're very open to hearing other people's point of view.
19. In all the towns I visited I was able to walk back to the hostel (located in the heart of the inner city) late at night, on my own, without being in danger.
20. The west coast of America is incredibly forward-thinking.  Everyone recycles, rides their bikes and worries deeply about the environment.
21. Having tattoos in the US in most States is common place.
22. I've never seen as many tattooed people as in Seattle.  Even the old ladies have chest pieces that they are still showing off.
23. Americans don't have many enemies and have therefor created some of their own.  Germs top the list.  They are totally obsessed with them.  You don't understand. OBSESSED.
24. Medical aid costs an absolute fortune and there is a huge ongoing debate about healthcare in the States.  In the meanwhile the healthcare industry is making a killing off inducing the fear into people.  It's like you're going to die if you don't go for that flu shot.
25. Thanksgiving is a more important holiday than Christmas.  It's the time of year that the whole family gets together, they eat turkey and open the house to whoever wants to come over.  Personally I think it's a damn fine idea, thanksgiving.
26. Out of all the cities I've visited I like Boston the most.  The last place I got to, the place I almost missed.  Heck.
27. They eat pizza slices like we eat pies.  The best pizza I tasted was in New York City.
28. There's no such thing as a tot measurement in the States.  If you ask for a tot of whiskey, expect to get a glass.  I love that about them.
29. If you're a woman living in California, it's generally considered uncool to look excited about anything, or to smile.
30. The most beautiful beach I've ever seen was in California. The widest, whitest beach you could possibly imagine.
31. A number of people warned me not to go into the water though.  It's toxic.
32. Texas looks like the Karoo.  The people who live there are just like the folk in Bloemfontein.
33. The largest concentration of South Africans living in the States live in San Diego because the climate is almost exactly the same.
34. There are alot of South Africans living in the US.  It felt surreal meeting so many of my country folk in another country, and although many of them are happy to be here, the majority of them, when pushed, admitted that they dreamt of someday going home and it made me sad to realise that to some extent, no matter how many years they had spent abroad, they were still foreigners in a foreign land.
35. If you visit a bar most people just take out a wad of cash and leave it on the bar.  The barman will take what he/she needs as the night goes on.  In the meanwhile you can go off to the toilet and have a dance and apparently your cash will still be there when you get back.
36. They have toilets that flush themselves and doors that open automatically but in most places you clean your own table and get your sugar and milk from a table in the corner.
37. There are over 100 different types of banking institutions in America.  They compete with each other and consequently they smile when you walk into the bank, give you bank cards even though you're a foreigner and generally deliver on their promises.  (Read: we get ripped off by banks in SA.)
38. Americans have a great culture of accountability that I wish we could adapt in SA.  There's a website called yelp.com where you can make comments on shops and services in any city in the US, and consequently it's easy to compare hairdressers/restaurants etc.
39. They have competitive advertising, meaning that the competing product will often be mentioned in ads, and it will be shown why the product is inferior to the one being advertised.
40. Politicians also make commercials that will highlight the corruption of their competitor, or will show that they didn't live up to the  promises that they made the public.
41. Ofcourse, the natural extension of the above mentioned is that Americans also love to sue each other. 
42. You get jewish neighbourhoods, chinese neighbourhoods, polish, korean, irish, russian, italian, south african, but there aren't alot of Indians who live in the States.  Maybe I just didn't see them.
43. Most American places and streets feature Native American names.  In actuality I saw 3 actual Native Americans. 
44. The Native Americans that managed to survive and get their land back have now opened casino's on it.  Most casino's in the US are run by Native Americans. 
45. Cancer is huge.  All kinds.  There's no doubt in my mind that it's because they live on friggin take-out.
46. Alot of Americans still smoke.  In NY there are people smoking cigars in the street.
47. Pharmaceutical companies can advertise their products and so you often find yourself watching commercials advertising anti-depressants etc. except that the list of side-effects that they have to mention by law on the ad takes longer than listing the pro's.  Completely surreal to watch.
48. Americans all come from different backgrounds but they all have one thing in common that brings them all together: they are all immigrants who have come here in search of freedom and a better life.

That's it in a nutshell.  I wish I could have seen more and stayed longer.  I probably learnt more about myself in the time that I was here that I learnt about America.

Hmmm.