*based on vacation, not unfortunate recent events.
I’ve been back in the states for a while now, but it’s admittedly taken a little bit of time to really get back into the swing of my usual routines. Between shitty weather, workload, and just plain lazy ambivalence, it’s more recently that I’ve been able to get the mental gears going to where I can try and pretend like I know what I’m going to write about when I sit down to write things.
Ultimately, it’s kind of a surreal feeling now that this European trip is now a thing in the past. For the longest time, it was the thing that the mythical girlfriend and I talked about as the thing to look forward to, the thing that was upcoming, and the thing to get excited about. Sure, I’m not really that excitable of a person to begin with, but I was certainly feeling the anticipation with the days leading up to my eventual first time trip overseas.
And in the end, it’s a no-brainer to say that I had a great time, and I did a lot of the things I wanted to do, which is mostly eat and drink, and then eat and drink some more, while seeing a bunch of things in between consuming consumables. However, I did spend a good bit of time thinking here and there, about in what ways Europe is really cool, and what things I was beginning to miss from America.
Probably the biggest thing that sat at the forefront of my thoughts is pointing out just how big smoking is in European countries. Like, it felt like 75% of the people seen in all four countries visited smoked, and smoked a lot.
I fucking hate smoking. I have never smoked, and I never will. Sure, it’s popularly said that it’s not good to judge people, but I’m not going to lie, I will judge smokers, regardless if I know you, if they are friends, family or anyone else. I think it’s a filthy habit, and I do not like it at all.
Needless to say, it was a very prevalent negative about just how much people smoke in Europe, and something I thought was a huge positive badge for the United States, for how much smoking control is attempted in America. I began thinking that somewhere on the timeline of humanity, America will prevail in the end if for anything at all, when the population of Europe mostly croaks on account of all the lung cancer developed from all the smoking in the continent.
And when America takes over the entire world afterward, hopefully they’ll force upon the rest of the world free water at restaurants, institute portions of coffee that are more than a thimble, and not make people have to pay to use public restrooms.*
*okay, I understand this one, and in some regards agree, but I’m not a homeless guy threatening to strip down and attempt to bathe in a public sink, I just want to take a piss sometimes without having to shell out a Euro
Also, restaurant service in European countries is slow as hell. I know like in France, servers are actually paid a living wage, which is cool, and I agree with the idea that they should be paid living wages, but at the same time, if it’s justification for them to inhibit customer turnover under the guise of “letting you relax and enjoy,” I’d kind of not like my limited time on vacation spent waiting for servers to actually check up on me.
No, this is not suddenly morphing into a patriotic, ‘MURICA IS #1 MOTHERFUCKER post, but seriously, we Americans really do a few little things, really, really right, compared to Europe. Especially smoking control.**
**ironically Berlin, the least tourist-friendly place I visited had the greatest degree of smoking rules; however, because 75% of people still smoked, that just meant at any given time, there would be a bajillion people outside smoking
Something I noticed that was really cool was that across all countries, the vast majority of cabs were of cars considered high-end luxury cars in America. Lord knows we had to take way more cabs than we really should have. But just about everywhere, most of the cabs were Mercedes Benzes, and in Amsterdam, one particular company had a fleet of Tesla cabs. Teslas, the brand that Americans can’t stop boasting about wanting to get their hands on, are fucking taxis in the Netherlands.
Subsequently, whenever the mythical girlfriend and I had to begrudgingly take a taxi, often times, they were Mercedes(es?), so at least if we were paying for cabs, at least we were riding like we looked somewhat dignified. Also, cab drivers in Europe are way better dressed, don’t perpetually smell like Ethiopian food, and actually look like a respectable occupation.
If smoking was the biggest thing I disliked about traveling in Europe, I would have to say the biggest thing I was amazed by, in every stop (except Berlin) was the sheer linguistic superiority. This isn’t just to say that I was impressed by how much English everyone was capable of speaking in every city not named Berlin, but the general ease and confidence in which the majority of people encountered can seamlessly switch between.
I’m admittedly envious of just how many people seem to have this capability; I can somewhat do it on my own between English and my elementary Korean, but being in Paris or Amsterdam, hearing people switch languages at the drop of a hat, and are capable of helping just about every single person who comes to them for service or assistance, was very impressive to me. Even on the EasyJet flights between European countries, the pre-flight safety presentations took four times the time as it would in the United States, because one senior flight attendant is repeating the instructions in four different languages as if they were Cypher from the X-Men.
It makes me wish I could speak more languages, and almost inspires me to want to try and learn them. Get some Rosetta Stones or something, and try and pick up another language or two, so that I could really be someone that could be just as useful in other countries or to visitors from other countries to America. I mean, I’d rather be Cypher and just have the ability to comprehend and communicate as a mutant power, but putting in some work to learn seems tempting too.
Ultimately, visiting Europe was at times an enthralling experience where I could bear witness and see how the world is outside of America, good or bad. It also helped give me some perspective to things that I thought were better than home, and other ways that home really isn’t as bad as people like to make the butt of jokes about. And in the end, that’s really what international travel is kind of about, in my opinion.
