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Comment by sspiff | Hacker News Reader

>Just everything in Europe is tiny. T i n y. And frankly, it's not that much cheaper over here either.

I would argue the other way, as a European, I've been to multiple places Asia and the Middle East and everything is either the same size or smaller than in Europe.

I haven't been to Africa or the Americas, but I'd say from my perspective, that things in the US are just extra large.

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There are many reasons behind this. It isn't just a fashion for bigger things. I chalk much of it up to differences in work culture. My European friends often talk about pickup up food on the way home from work, dropping in at a store to buy ingredients for dinner. I don't have time to shop like that. My food run is once a week. That means more food in a bigger fridge. They also go out to eat far more than we in North America. When work is busy I can easily go a month, sometimes months, without eating at sit-down restaurant. That is unheard of across much of Europe.

Last time I was in Europe at a friend's place they asked where I wanted to go for breakfast. Breakfast? I don't need to pay someone else to fry me an egg.

> Breakfast? I don't need to pay someone else to fry me an egg.

Yet in the US there are a lot of restaurants open for breakfast. Some of them are not open any other part of the day.

In short what is your personal culture and what is really US vs Europe? I think you are correct the in Europe people shop more often, but I'm not sure we eat out that much differently as a whole - people who eat out eat out a lot, while people who don't don't.

> When work is busy I can easily go a month, sometimes months, without eating at sit-down restaurant. That is unheard of across much of Europe.

It's absolutely not. Doing one grocery run per week is entirely possible, and fresh food often doesn't last long beyond that anyway.

> Last time I was in Europe at a friend's place they asked where I wanted to go for breakfast. Breakfast? I don't need to pay someone else to fry me an egg.

You're generalizing from one experience in Europe to an entire continent. Going out for breakfast is very unusual in the places in Europe I've lived in. I don't doubt that it's common elsewhere, though. Personally, I've been to breakfast restaurants in the US much more often than in Europe.

The subtext of your post points more toward food culture than work culture. I've noticed most Americans eat to fuel themselves. Europeans eat to enjoy food and as a reason to spend time with other people. Often, going to dinner with people in America and they're all done eating in 5 minutes... I've barely taken a few bites. Friends call me a "slow eater". Whereas in other countries, dinner can last a couple hours. It's not just about your work schedule, but about how you regard your free time and what your relationship is with food.

I've had some people use having children as an excuse for why they eat so fast, but I've seen people in Europe or Latin America take their young children to dinner and those kids behave and sit at the table and listen. Such a thing is almost unbelievable to American parents.

I blame puritanism for the lack of interest in food, sure; but the emphasis on excusing it with the pressing need to work is funny because it's like a defense of joylesssness.

plenty of people in america get take out, sounds like you’re just a workaholic

Take-out is so much cheaper in Europe than America. Not just Portugal, either. Take-out in Italy is dirty cheap and despite all of my hopes and dreams, I'll never cook something as good as what I can get for like 5 euros from a gas station in Italy.

Where in "Europe" was this? Certainly not in France where a bistro scratches this itch. At any point in the morning or evening you can find some place to sit to serve you food or snacks/coffee/tea/beer. And pâtisseries are made for 'breakfast'.

Europe's a big place. The UK has strict open and closing times for restaurants (don't ask me what they are, only that 12 noon is 12 noon and I couldn't step inside at 11:55a for lunch). And the culture thinks beans and white toast are breakfast. But people definitely eat out for breakfast and even brunch.

But even those examples contradict your friend. I'll give you one generalizations to take home: Europeans like to mess with Americans.

Once a week food runs are common in Europe as well, going out for breakfast is a fairly rare luxury.

The difference is maybe that often times you can supplement your weekly food run with small trips to the corner store during the week.

> I would argue the other way, as a European, I've been to multiple places Asia and the Middle East and everything is either the same size or smaller than in Europe.

The parent commenter moved from America to Europe, so the size difference is obvious.

I agree that many parts of Asia have similar size standards.

Things in America are just very large.

> Things in America are just very large.

Maybe harsh, but North Americans just love to consume consume consume planetary consequences be damned.

Per capita CO2 emissions (aka carbon footprint):

- 15.5 Canada (?!)

- 14.5 USA

- 8.5: China

- 3.3: Vietnam

- 15.5 Australia

- 3.7: Sweden

- 8.2: Germany

- 7.8: Netherlands

- 5.5: Italy

- 1.9: Morocco

- 6.8: South Africa

- 3.6: Mexico

- 2.2: Brazil

If you live at nearly x2 the CO2 footprint of West/Central Europeans, and above x4 for most of the planet, it gets a lot easier to live large.

Of course, North America having a lot of space geographically makes it easier to build big, and there is probably a ton of other factors as well. But it is an important thing to note.

Canada is high probably because of the sparse northern population that uses fossil fuels year-round to get heat, transport and electricity.

You missed Australia, at 15.25. Probably because they have all those coal reserves, and like houses as big as Americans.

Edited in, thanks!

I assume these are tonnes per year. Worth noting that the average vehicle driven the average distance per year in the US accounts for around 4000kg of CO2. Quite the contribution.

> I haven't been to Africa or the Americas, but I'd say from my perspective, that things in the US are just extra large.

That's probably it.

I've also been to New Zealand, and everything was smaller there too. Though still not as small as stuff in Europe.

Cars are where it holds the most true. I told my American friend we're thinking of getting a Mazda CX-5. His reaction was, "why so small?"

I told my Portuguese tutor I was considering the same car. He asked why we needed something so large.

When I (American) had an apartment in Wuhan, the fridge was not particularly small and our 3-bedroom apartment didn't feel cramped. The beds were hard, but normal size. The bathroom was a little weird — no separation of the shower — but not particularly small. There was a laundry machine but no oven.

Ya, same in Beijing. The bathroom was also wet room, which is probably just an economy. The laundry machine was in the bathroom, my wife had to buy an external oven because she liked baking.

But these were considered luxury by Chinese standards, older housing built before the 90s could get weird, like no hot water and instead you have a tank that needs to activated a half hour before your shower.

The "wet room" thing is in Korea too.

I've been told it's for easy cleaning. You just pull the sprayer off the shower and splash the whole room like you're at a car wash.

Having said that, the person who told me that was not Korean.

It’s true, cleaning is easy, although I imagine they don’t last that long since I can’t see the grout keeping up without a lot of maintenance. At least it’s not a shower over a squat toilet, those are the worst.

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