Also many of the European cities have such a different flavor than U.S. ones, how they're laid out for example, that going from Munich to Paris is a tremendously different experience. More than Atlanta to Minneapolis? Yeah I think so. But likewise Paris to Tokyo is even more of a difference than any other comparison above.

Umm, sort-of. I have relatives whose local dialect is almost incomprensible to me. (They can understand me because they can understand "TV American".)

> Compare that to Europe where there are, what ? 23 languages for 27 countries

How many of them have a significant number of people who are monolingual? To put it another way, how many languages do I need to know to talk to 95% of Europeans?

> the newspapers are the same,

No, they aren't.

> the political parties are the same.

Nope. They merely have the same names, and sometimes not even that. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Democratic%E2%80%93Fa... .)

Yes, there is a national Democrat party, but there are also 50 state parties and they don't take orders.

There are "national coalitions" that don't cover all states.

I don't disagree, but only if you generalize at a high level. It's absolutely amazing how much of the world you can cover with something not much more general than this -- all you need is a fluency in English, the BBC/Al Jazeera and a working knowledge of the basics of left/right politics.

I've personally managed to get by just fine in most of Europe, parts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa with these three. It takes about as much work to figure out, for example, the local politics in Paris, France as it does the local politics Angelina County, Texas and have a competent discussion with a local.

All that being said, growing up in a the more industrial and densely populated part of the U.S. I feel more at home Paris than I do in Angelina County.

Remember, only about 80% of Americans speak English as a native tongue, we have as many dialects and accents as the U.K. (and some are not mutually intelligible to outsiders). Some dialect of Spanish is the second most common. But it's as varied as dialects in Spain are.

In the more metropolitan areas, I suspect the percentage of native English is much lower. In the area I spent my childhood in (just outside of Washington D.C.) I was the only child under 18 who spoke English as my native language...and the parents of my friends spoke languages as diverse as Turkish to Korean -- often with little or no English. Only one of my university friends spoke native English, the rest were Persian, West African, Turkish, Arabic, Vietnamese, Korean and Indian.

I've gone weeks without eating "American" or Western European food without even it being an effort or something I noticed much later.

That flavor, that huge variety, is a hallmark of the area I identify with...and I can find an area that feels like that from D.C. to Toronto. Angelina County, TX doesn't feel like that. It also looks different. The ethnic groups are all different, all the place names are different. Politics changes and suddenly boarder control and water rights are major topics of discussion. Head over to San Antonio to get some urban flavor and it still doesn't feel like home.

London on the other hand feels more like where I grew up than Houston. Lots of the Television is the same, the politics at least sound familiar in some sense (lots of the same names show up), the ethnic breakdown feels similar, food variety is about right. Sure cars drive on the wrong side and the money looks funny. But it feels similar and the buildings kind of look similar.

Minneapolis? As out of place as I was in Paris.

I've digressed, but I think the original point still stands. The U.S. shouldn't be thought of as 1 country or 50 countries, but maybe about 5-8.

Here's one that's about as good as any other

http://sperglord.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/cultural-usa-ma...