In all honesty, I haven't found it that hard to adjust into life here, apart from the fact that I miss all my friends so so much but the transfer from working full time to studying has been pretty smooth, except for not being used to being a poor student!
But here's a few things I have noticed...
1) Cars. They are everywhere. So many people drive everywhere, especially where we are. I know if you go to Manhattan and have access to the subway, public transportation is better and even for me to get to school and to most places that I need to get to, I can take a train/bus, but it's just so much more convenient to drive! Plus trains are fairly expensive here. This amount of cars leads to the problem of finding parking though,it is such a pain! Whether I'm in our neighbourhood, or at school, or visiting people in different parts around the area, you always end up driving around looking for parking and have to add that few extra minutes to your schedule to find a spot for your car. Also, the amount of bumped up and scratched cars, and DIY fixtures on them, is ridiculous. Lot of cars and drivers= lot of accidents. It's not uncommon to see a car that has the trunk taped shut with duct tape or half a bumper missing.
2) Food. Everyone knows it, the US is not famous for their healthy eating habits and obesity is a big problem here. While everyone surely knows the importance of healthy eating, it is simply fairly expensive to buy healthy food compared to sugary treats or fatty fast food. There's fast food restaurants in every corner and you can't even count how many meters of shelve space the stores have full of soda and other sugary drinks, which are cheap. Fair enough, the supermarkets I have been to have pretty good selections of veges and fruit too, but they are quite pricey. I'm shocked on the price of avocados here compared to the UK! $5 for two avocados seems like a major rip off, when I used to get like four of them for couple of pounds from my local Tesco! Oh and big portion sizes are amazing, dinner tonight at a restaurant also turns into tomorrow's lunch at home!
3) Customer service. Okay, in this one I'm stereotyping quite badly but this is just my experience. Cashiers and other customer service employees in London are not famous of being chatty or especially friendly, with some exemptions obviously. Here, the whole culture is nicer(also, in general I mean. There are exemptions to this too!) Cashiers in stores and waiters in restaurants smile more, chat more, use their thank you's more and give you random compliments. Yes, some days you just cannot bother with your customers, I worked as a cashier too long long time ago and on a bad day, when a customer is cracking the same joke that you've heard at least a dozen times that week, you don't feel like smiling, but at the end of the day it is a part of your profession to be nice.
4) Fascination of Europe and foreign accents. All I really have to do is open my mouth and say two or three words wherever I go and I'm guaranteed to get a comment on my British accent(which FYI is not even that strong). Shops, restaurants, school, the motor vehicle office...the list goes on. The funniest one during last semester at school was in my public speaking class - I finished my speech in front of the class and one guy at the back of the class room said to me in a confused voice "That definitely is not an American accent!" "Ehm, nope?". As soon as you tell them where you are from, the questions start and the "ahh, I wanna go to Europe!" comments do not stop. Note to all Americans - you need to travel outside your country.
5) The lack of knowledge about anything located outside the US. While getting a exam permit from the Motor Vehicle office to exchange my license, I obviously had to show my passport and my current Finnish license. This led into two very confused looking faces and questions of Finland's location. One of the guys asked if "Finland was a suburb of some big city or what?" Okay okay, I am from a very small country somewhere at the back of Europe but come on! If you didn't learn any kind of basic geographic knowledge back in elementary school, it's kind of sad. I can at least tell if a place is a country or if it isn't. (Also, before any Americans come and challenge me to locate all the US States on the map I can tell that I'm able to place at least 40 of the 50 States correctly and the rest I will guess!) They also think that London is a country, not a city within a country.
6) Positive attitudes. This might be just down to the fact both countries where I've lived prior to this are pretty famous of their ability to complain. Both Finnish and British cultures live on complaining, moaning, deflating and being negative. Yes, some of the American happiness is purely fake and people do it out of politeness but in general people have more positive outlook(Well, let's see what happens now considering the current political situation in this nation, which I refuse to comment more on)
7) Gas stations. I don't know how many other States do this, but in NJ you don't have to pump your own gas while filling your car. There's a guy standing there, in rain or shine, hot or cold who you will hand your money or card and who will fill your petrol tank! I freaking love it! I don't have to get out of my car for it and risk my hair getting all flat in the rainy weather after carefully curling and back combing it for an hour. The Americans love things being very convenient and while everyone is familiar with drive in McDonald's and such, they also have drive in cash machines at banks, drive in pharmacy windows at Rite Aid and God knows whatever else. Also, many stores are open 24/7 or at least till very late in the evening. Not saying that in London they aren't but there are so many times that I missed out on food shopping when my local shop closed early on Sundays.
While these are only some of the things I've noticed, at the end of the day, the two places aren't THAT different. Yes, I've ignored all the major differences such as health care and the fact that a lot of landlords still want their rent payments in cheques or cash(It is the 21st century! Why can't I just make bank transfer to your account??) but so far most things are just positive. There are many things I miss from the life in London( and in Finland, gosh I still miss so many food items from Finland!) but I've become quite used to many things here already and starting to feel more and more homey all the time.
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