My fiancées adventures in Merkin land....
My fiancée has lived and worked in the US of A (and not just the metropolitan east coast - she spent most of her time in the mid-west, and loves it there). She has many wonderful American friends whom we both respect - so please understand that the following Merkin bashing is based entirely on the gross stupidity of a sizeable minority, and in no way is meant to characterise an entire nation.

On to the mockery...

Several people she met in the US were appalled that British people do not celebrate Thanksgiving, despite its complete irrelevance to the UK, and the fact that in all likelihood 90% of us couldn't even tell you when Thanksgiving is. All attempts to point out that Americans don't celebrate Guy Fawkes night (as a comparable example of a purely domestic celebration) fell on deaf ears.

Related to the complete disbelief that we don't celebrate Thanksgiving, was the shock and horror experienced by her friends, when they discovered that we do not celebrate Independence Day. Again, the analogy that they don't celebrate, for example, the Queen's Birthday, Trafalgar Day, or St George's Day, was lost on them. At least no-one asked her if we have 4th of July in the UK (why yes we do, right between 3rd and 5th July without fail....)

Finally, on applying to Columbia University, the soon-to-be mrs lawofnations was informed that, as a foreigner, she would have to sit the TOEFL exam. That's the "Test of English as a FOREIGN Language" exam. My English-speaking, born in England, ENGLISH fiancée simply laughed in their faces.
(lawofnations, Sun 10 Jul 2005, 11:44, Reply)