Usually old buildings in the US really are old because typically they're of the same structure, just with indoor plumbing. Many buildings have been restructured in Europe because obviously 2000 year old castles can't stand on their own after 2k years.
We could go on and on all day about how much older Europe is (duh), and sometimes it garners a snicker when we Americans talk about something that's "old" with Europeans, but I don't think it should be met with bitterness on either side. Granted, Anna's grandmother's house is older than the United States of America, LITERALLY, but ppl don't visit the US for history. It's a very young country and I think that both Europeans and Americans should just get over that fact. Americans shouldn't be so overly sensitive about EVERYTHING and Europeans shouldn't shove every one of the US's shortcomings in Americans' faces. Now that the US is kinda reaping what it has sown, it seems that the European community has been having a few laughs for the past 6 years...but let's not beat a dead horse.
It just reminds me of Italians who travel abroad and only eat Italian food, then bitch about how it's not as good as it is in Italy. Like it's fucking hard to boil water and put tomatoes in a pot and cook them. Yes, they do what they do very well, but it doesn't exactly take a lot of skill to boil pasta, AND they just happen to live in a region that is perfect for growing vegetables. The fact is, they don't know how to use spices, they don't know how to cook meat very well, and they don't know how to do anything besides what they're known for. "He works in lollipops factory and brags about eating lollipops!"...sound familiar?
The US is horrible at culture, horrible at history, and horrible at social issues...but are those things that its known for? Not really. But like Italy, people still come there in droves every year to visit, and why? Because the things they do well, they do VERY well. You can't compare apples to oranges.