This is an incredible, incredible country, people. I was standing next to my car in a parking lot, answering an email. A car slowed down and drove into the perking lot from the road. It stopped next to me and a window rolled down. An older lady looked out and told me that my skirt was beautiful and I looked amazing. And then she drove off. The woman drove out of her way with the sole purpose of saying something nice to a complete stranger.
This kind of thing happens all the time. Before I learned to drive and had to walk everywhere, people would always stop to offer rides. And in all the years I was a pedestrian, not a single driver made an effort to splash me with dirty rain water head to foot! Not a single one. To the contrary, drivers always slowed down to make sure they didn’t splash me.
I’m from a country where splashing pedestrians on purpose is a national pastime. Drivers go out of their way to ensure that pedestrians suffer the greatest damage possible. Just because they can.
Clarissa's Blog 
We definitely agree its a great country 🙂
One question, do you think some of your appreciation for this country is because you have seen how much worse it can be? i think one of the hard parts for americans (or hell mostt people anywhere) is they haven’t been to many other places, and certainly not immersed in other cultures. Definitely many deeper implications from this fact, but just wanted to throw out this perspective which hit me after reading the post
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Absolutely, you are right. I’ve lived in different places, traveled, and I can compare on that basis.
The sheer quantity of wonderful people one meets here all the time is amazing.
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100% agreed on the niceness of the people here. I have been complimented a few times on my clothes, but it’s always been people walking on the street or a store/coffee shop employee. Someone slowing down their car to compliment is on a whole other level, though!
Reminds me of something that happened a long time ago. It was like 2 am on a weekend night. I couldn’t sleep and decided I just had to have a mango. Drove to an all night Ralphs. A group of drunk kids (late teens most likely) came in right after I entered and started creating a racket. Whatever, it’s cool. I got my mangos and started to leave when the kids started following me into the parking lot. Fuck fuck fuck.
As I slowly contemplated my fate and breathed a sigh of relief at the thought I had health insurance, one of the kids came up to me and said ‘Nice bumper sticker, man’.
They had seen the sticker and really wanted to find out whose car was it.
This one, from my favorite movie:
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God, I love mangos. But it’s so rare to find a ripe one around here.
Hey, in Ukraine a person also might have stopped their car. To tell me how ugly and horrible I looked. Happened to me several times. I was nervous about going outside my whole life.
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God, I know that feeling. In my country (not FSU), it’s common that people greet each other with, “Hi, I haven’t seen you in ages. Look at you! You look so old/fat/tired/downtrodden/ill/like your hair needs a cut/highlights.” It’s never ever anything nice. And we also had that awful sport, where passing cars would make sure to completely soak the pedestrians.
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Yes, this rings so familiar! Here in the US is once sat next to a Russian woman at an engagement dinner, and she used that opportunity to explain to me what I needed to do to lose weight, change my wardrobe and do some plastic surgery to my face. This was a complete strangers, of course. The hosts had put me next to her because they thought all Russian speakers were desperate to talk to each other all the time.
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“once sat next to a Russian woman at an engagement dinner, and she used that opportunity to explain to me ”
And she was left thinking: “She didn’t tell me how terrible my clothes are or criticize my hygene or anything! Why doesn’t she like me?”
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“Hi, I haven’t seen you in ages. Look at you! You look so old/fat/tired/downtrodden/ill/like your hair needs a cut/highlights.”
In Poland that’s saved for later, greetings themselves are more likely to be:
“How’s it going?”
“Don’t ask, I have this pain on my right side (etc etc). How are things with you?”
“Things are bad, and they’re going to get worse (etc etc).
The splashing people on the sidewalks is something to watch out for though…
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If you ever move to Florida, you will once again get to experience the joys of others attempting to splash you, throw bottles at you, run you over or otherwise intimidate you if you are a pedestrian.
Lived there a long time. Had numerous bottles thrown at me, attempts to “scare” me by running me down, and a friend of mine was killed in a crosswalk.
But Florida is its own thing.
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“But Florida is its own thing”
It’s a lot of things and some parts are more friendly than others. But Cracker Florida (as it’s called where I’m from, not sure if that term is used in the Northern part of the state) is a hell of place, that’s for sure.
An early girlfriend of my brother’s once said she felt sorry for “smart people” (that’s how she put it) because they thought about things before doing them and so missed out on doing lots of fun things (many of which were dangerous not only to participants but for innocent people around them too).
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There is a famous saying in Russian, “Intelligence is misfortune.” And we all can see what life in Russia is like as a result.
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