One of the first things I noticed when I first went to England was the differences in size as compared to the United States. The following is a post I wrote about it last year.
First: the roads are a lot smaller than what I am used to; I actually have yet to see a double-lane road. The road leading to my accommodation, a main road, so I've been told, is one lane that handles multitudes of traffic and buses.
Second: people drive a lot closer than what we are used to in the U.S. In driving school, most of us are taught to give the other driver room to go about their business, to stay a certain amount of feet back, depending on how fast you're going, and to not make any sudden lane changes or to dart between cars.
It's different here. People drive fairly close to each other, and it can be quite alarming at first. They also don't waste time in changing lanes or moving past someone if they can. It seems precarious and dangerous, and it may just be, but it also may simply be because people here don't waste time waiting on the other person or assume that they will understand what they're doing and do not protest or freak out at their attempt to pass or move along.
In the U.K., a general small drink is about the size of the drink on McDonald's kids' menu. In general, portions with drinks and places to get a quick bit of food are vastly different than what you come to expect in the U.S.
A final note on size is the trash cans. Of course, my own experience with trash cans has been a bit iffy considering I stay in a dorm with about 15 other girls, so we have a pretty large trash can, but, at the hotel I stayed at with my parents before moving in, the trash can there was tiny.
And I know it could just be because hotels here are different and (to be discussed later), the service sector is viewed differently here than it is in America, but, if you've ever been to a hotel, I'm sure that the trash cans inside the room are at least moderately sized.
Here, however, the trashcan was barely enough to hold more than a few pieces of garbage. Same with the trash can I had to buy for my room (as nice as the trash can may be in my dorm, it is located in the kitchen). Although it is too soon to say, it can be seen as a comment on America and how wasteful we can be sometimes, or at least a comment on how much we throw away and how much we buy to consume in relation to how much we really consume in the end.
Conclusion: things are smaller in England. I could make assumptions and accusations over how wasteful Americans can be and how we really throw anything and everything away and really just waste food and what not, but I'm not. Not now anyway.
However, I will say that, unlike a good deal of America, people are far more "green" here. The outlets all have switches that you have to turn on first before you get electricity. A lot of institutions that I've walked in contain information on how to be more green and conserve energy (I'm not saying America doesn't have this, they just have less of it). Global Warming isn't a word here that would spark outraged arguments. My current university holds a new initiative each year to reduce some kind of waste or pollution, such as individuals' "carbon footprints."
Again, America does have these things. But not as much. And not all Americans are wasteful. But some can be. And that much is evident in the size proportions we have at fast food places.
Perhaps things aren't so bad in miniature.
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