Although about traveling too can be read here.
In the ultimate truth do not apply, because there is always someone who says, "and I have not, it's all bullshit" - well, then write like you. We're sharing information and experience in the end.
Originally posted by ixez at features of American life and property
For 2 years of living in the USA I lived in the 9 apartments / houses (of which 5 - Airbnb) and has been in a variety of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. Accommodation I, of course, rented, so all obzervatsii applicable to the rental market.
Very interesting observations formed over the housing. For some reason I thought it was in the Soviet Union in all it was all the same, or almost the same - lamps, lamps, stoves, refrigerators, switches, sockets, and other household utensils. Now, in Russia - the full diversity of all, what you want, from China and produced locally. Each apartment has its own switches in humans - with lights, gold, just white, its outlet - from the floor in the middle of the wall, very prominent, square or with rounded corners, and its own unique set of home appliances.
In the US, on the contrary, everything is standardized, and that I was amazed.
There are two kinds of switches, such as:
Sockets are always at floor level (and not in the middle of the wall, as in the case of domestic flats). They are also two types (the second - most in the bathrooms)
Toilet is almost always such a construction, there is water:
The lens of the soul is built into the wall, from which alone sticking valve itself. Find shower in Russia with a hose and a combination of 3 to 1 (valves, valve, watering) is almost unreal:
Personally, I hose our design more like it - watering can screw up somehow high and generally more practical removable shower.
From home appliances is likely to be set by Frigidaire, Maytag or GE. Kitchen sink - with built-in grinder and a switch in the wall for him, things in the bathroom - from American Standard or Glacier Bay. Here, rather, it does not affect the patriotism, and the relative cheapness of all this junk that gives him all the way in Rented apartments and houses (and even in the hotel too).
About the washing machine I once wrote last year here.
And in American homes are not used ceiling lamp - except in the kitchen and in the dining area. The living room and bedroom, put their own lamps and fixtures. There is a chance to call in a darkened apartment, because 90% of the housing is rented completely empty - furniture, decorative objects and lighting employer brings with him. Furnished except kitchen and bathroom.
The curtains are not always and not everywhere. Widespread blinds. Personally, I have not decided what is best. yet somehow cozier curtains.
Central heating for 2 years, I have never seen. Each apartment or house has a gas stove and in every room - from the ceiling ducts. So it warms
About the installation of armored or double doors then you can forget how to forget and windows with window leaf (although with the advent of plastic windows in the Russian steel vents, alas, disappearing). As for the walls, the walls worthy of a US post in September. Let the houses walls crappy, but they have such footage, the average apartment or a house did not dream in Russia.
And finally: in apartment buildings the presence of underground parking or parking on the first floor - it's not out of the realm of fantasy, and the normal reality. As well as having a fitness center. And in the southern states (California, Arizona, Florida, Texas) - and the availability of the outdoor swimming pool will not surprise anybody. And all this even in the homes of 40-year-old.