These are not frites

Today after work (in NY!) I walked past a food truck labelled "Frites and Meat."  Har har.  Despite the lame rhyme, though, I was suddenly struck with a desire for some nice Belgian style frites, so I ordered some fries with a side of spicy chili aioli.  I cannot describe the sheer disappointment when my fries came back not thick, hot, crispy and chunky, but think and crispy and slightly cooled (argh!).  Now, I will be the first to defend thing American-style fries, but sometimes you want the chunky ones, especially when that's what's been (subconsciously) advertised!  Fortunately they were tasty and the aioli was very nice, but I couldn't really get over the fact that I wanted something more, well, Belgian.  The Dutch photocopied news clippings that covered the cone holding the fries only made the disappointment more bitter.  A picture of the offending fries below:

I also observed today that I had stopped automatically letting women off of the lifts ahead of me.  I wonder why that is?  Certainly it seems expected here, but the English are polite, so I doubt something about the national culture rubbed off on me.  Perhaps it was just not expected in London (highly possible, if you see how people behave on the Tube) or at my company?