Back when I lived in Ireland, whenever I'd watch an American drama and see cops or spies staked out in a car watching somebody, it always struck me as ... odd. I just assumed it was a trope (I didn't know that word then) of American TV, something that happened only in TV, not in real life. It made no sense to me that two grown men could just sit in a car somewhere and not be noticed by everybody. walking. past. They would be so obvious, my inner logical voice would say. Still, I happily suspended disbelief for the sake of the show.
But then I moved to the US, and it turns out it wasn't fake, it wasn't unbelievable. In fact, it's totally believable that somebody could sit in a car and watch a building or whatever and not be noticed by anybody nearby. Totally plausible.
I think it's to do with the fact that cities in the US are for cars, not for people. Even the relatively car-hostile cities like Boston seem outrageously car-friendly to a European. And it's plausible that you could sit in your car and watch something here and not be noticed.
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