… as seen from the ground. Reporting live, and in rough order of apparence, from the World’s #1:

• (to start somewhere). Customs officers (i.e. CBP) aren’t necessary unpleasant, just fast-talking and very forward. Of course, they have to process a thousand entrants a days: no time for chatter. I didn’t get probed in the airport.
• Many cars in town.
• Litter everywhere on the roads, though mostly on carriageways and onramps. Anywhere from the degree of a few bits and pieces lying around, to something giving you the impression that someone emptied a dumpster over the street. (DK: Litter many places as well, but mostly little and on onramps.)
• So many cars! Everything here in the US in clearly made for easy and direct automotive access. There are drive-ins everywhere at the eatery places.
• Food is clearly cheaper, both in absolute terms for the total price of a full dish plus beverage, but especially in the amount:price ratio.
• America asphalt-centric culture also means that the equipment of the road is very extensive: There are traffic lights everywhere, and many of the intersections has one for each lane. You can turn right on a red if it does not inconvenience drivers from the left. Not so in Denmark.
• Heavy precense of soda on the store shelves/fridges, but also larger containers.
• Gasoline is cheap: One Gallon is anywhere from two Dollar twenty to Three Dollar, depending on state. 1 U.S. Gallon is 3,79 litres. (1 USD = 6.5 USD, 1 USG = 3.79 L, this 1 $/G = 6.5/3.79 = 1.72 DKK/L, which is for 1 USD/Gal; current gas prices then mean 1.72 * 2.2 = 3.77 DKK/L, which is pretty fucking cheap. That’s around 40% that of Danish gas prices.)
• Flouridated water: The slight smell of something like swimming pool in the tap water, yet not quite.
• So many damn cars! Carriageways are both big: 3 lanes are the bare minimum, 4 ubiquituous in metro areas, 5 if the carpooling-driving lane is counted*.
• (*) Yes, America actually has something Denmark has not – the specific roadside incentive to share cars and not drive alone: HOV-lanes, that is High Occupancy Vehicle lanes. Would you believe it? You get properly fucked if you do drive solo in an HOV lane: 124$ in Washington state. 481$ in California. (Each child counts as an occupant, but pets, infants still in the womb, inflatable dolls or ghosts do not (we’ve heard ’em all.)
• Many homeless people living and begging on the streets i the US. I’m not surprised that the US has many homeless poor (as its reputation goes and well-deservedly so, although this is no “laurels” for the rest of the western world to congratulate itself from), but what is certain in any case is that they are very visible in the street. In San Francisco, you meet them on every block you walk. Many are seemingly mentally ill, as they constantly mutter to themselves, break out in verbal fits, and lunge for unseen opponents.
• Very attentive and approachable staff in stores, gas stations and restaurants. Oh, and some places, the storm “sevice station” has a meaning – that is, you get SERVICED at the pump. It’s not all self-service (which is why it was renamed ‘gas-station’)
• US: Barely any recycling standards society-wide. Some states has a return system / redemption value on soda bottles (mostly New England and The Left Coast tho, no great surprise that the Midwest and South aren’t partaking), but these are so small that there is barely any economic incentive in sorting the recyclable bottles and taking them back. 10 cents for bottles in CA and MI, 5 cents elsewere. It’s a joke, and it is why the streets are strewn with crushed bottles.
• Seen on Route 101 on the coast of Oregon and California: “Unmuffled engine breaking fine ”  … 400$. 520$. 750$. (!) 2000$ (!!!). Someone really has to dislike automobile engine noise.
• House numbers in up to 5 figures. 32000 Pacific Coast Highway.
• California: “Littering fine 1000$”. Fine by me….a eeeerrrrrr…