Eye of the Green Beholder: Europe is Not America

Over the past two and a half years, I have had the amazing opportunity to go to four different European countries, with plans to visit another next spring. Throughout my travels, I have learned that I love visiting Europe.

Visiting.

There are lots of little differences between Europe and America, some so small you don’t notice them at first, but by the time a week rolls around, they sure do become noticeable. Things we take for granted in America, like free public toilets and free refills, become like the milk and honey of the Promised Land.

I absolutely love Europe and the experiences I’ve had there, but I’ve definitely noticed that wherever I go in Europe, Americans are asking these questions:

Why do I have to pay €0.50 to take a pee?

Where’s the ice?

Why won’t my [insert hair appliance name] work?

Why does McDonald’s taste so good here?

Why is that bacon soggy?

If you’ve been to Europe, you most likely know exactly what I’m talking about and probably asked one or more of those questions at one point yourself.

I figured, for comedic value, that I’ll take the time here to explain to you the circumstances behind these questions. Perhaps it’ll help you out in the future, you know, for when you find yourself strolling the streets of Europe (at which point I will be jealous of your current whereabouts).

1) Why do I have to pay €0.50 Euro Cents to take a pee?

Let me tell you about European public toilets. They’re not free, first off, and that stops us Americans in our tracks. “What?! I have to PAY to use the restroom?” The prices usually range from €0.30 to €0.80, but usually it’s €0.50. That’s about $0.68.

Sixty-eight cents to go empty your body of all of those bodily fluids.

The interesting part, however, is the state of these restrooms. From my observations, there are two things that Germans take great pride in: their cars and their restrooms. Most times, there were people whose only job was to collect your bathroom money. Some of them would go in after people and clean down the toilet and spray some air freshener.

I’m not going to lie, Germany has nice restrooms. In some rest stops, they have these bathrooms with “dancing” toilets. In reality, they’re just self-cleaning toilets, but it’s so much cooler to think they’re dancing.

This past summer when the Lion’s Band went to Germany, we took a day to drive from Hamburg to Munich. That’s a drive from the top of the country to the bottom. Needless to say, we saw lots of German bathrooms that day. We made a stop in the town of Rӧthenburg, which is this adorable little medieval looking town somewhere between Hamburg and Munich, obviously. Before we got there, our guide was telling the people on our bus how, yes, there were free public restrooms here. But he then said, “however, these aren’t as, what’s the word, nice as some of the other restrooms, since they are free,” almost apologetically. My first thought? “Oh! So they’re like American restrooms!”

But seriously though, part of the European culture shock that Americans have to overcome is the bathrooms. As strange as that may sound, ask anyone that’s been to Europe. It’s weird.

2) Where’s the ice?

So I sit down for a meal during my first trip to Europe, right? They bring us drinks (all waters), and there’s something missing: ice. In every restaurant, I find the same thing. There’s never any ice in our drinks. It’s almost like Europe is more affected by global warming than America. I can see the headlines:

“EUROPE STRICKEN BY GLOBAL WARMING: NO ICE TO BE FOUND.”

Seriously though, even when we would splurge and buy sodas (which are outrageously expensive, by the way. They’re on average €2.50 - €3.00, which comes out to around $4.00), still, no ice. At that point, I was just happy to have a carbonated beverage.

On my second trip to Europe, I noticed, once again, the overall lack of ice. The only ice I had in my drink for the entire trip was at a McDonald’s in Vienna. Even then, it was a sorry excuse for ice.

Seriously. That was about it.

3) Why won’t my [insert hair appliance name] work?

When packing for a trip to a foreign country, there is one thing that should always be on your packing list: a power outlet converter. For some reason that I am yet to understand, just about every continent and some countries feel like they need their own special power outlet. They’re all different, and it’s annoying. I would like to know who allowed this to happen. It seems like such an inconvenience to, like, everyone.

Because here’s the thing: none of my American appliances…my hair straightener, my curling iron, my phone charger, my camera charger…none of them can just be plugged right into a English or European power outlet (I say English or European, because England, as usual, wants to be different from the rest of its continent. Not only do they want their own currency, they want their own power outlet too. Good grief). The only way to make it work? 1) buy appliances while in Europe that will work in the outlets, but of course that is an extremely wasteful venture if you only plan on being on the continent for a few days. 2) buy a power converter.

Power converters and foreign outlets get along about as well as a children and naptime. This makes charging/using ANYTHING extremely difficult.

Because not only are the outlets shaped differently, they also spit out a different amount of power (is voltage the correct term?) as American outlets. If not dealt with properly, an American appliance in an European outlet can equal one fried American appliance.

For the Lion’s International Parade, the guard girls had to curl their hair. As we went down to breakfast that morning, we were bombarded with sob stories of girls who had plugged in their curling irons to find either a) it didn’t work, or even worse b) blew up while they were using it. For obvious reasons, that’s a very dangerous accident, plus it’s just inconvenient. I mean, they just lost both a curling iron AND a converter. They’re not cheap, and while on a trip, converters are about as sought after as gold.

It seemed like every day after that I would hear about some girls curling iron or straightener that was no longer functioning.

And then it happened in our room.

My friend was just a doing her hair, and then we hear this, “POP!” and I walk in the bathroom to find her power converter smoking. Smoking. In our room.

She reached to take it out of the outlet. “What are you doing?!” I said, “don’t touch it!!” In her defense, it made some sense to get it away from the outlet, but you know, there was the whole smoking situation. We left it for like thirty minutes before I took a towel and got it out with that. RIP power converter. RIP hair straightener.

And then my other friend lost her converter. We had called that converter Big Bertha, we believed surely it would survive. Nope. RIP Big Bertha.

I was the lucky one. Not one of my two converters died. There was this one time in Vienna when my friend was using my curling iron because hers had fallen to the disease, and I went to turn it on to find that it wouldn’t. “No no no no no no no! Don’t do this to me!” We both held our breath as I closed my eyes and said a short little prayer.

It worked.

That was such a great sigh of relief.

A lesson you should know: read all up, down, and around the instruction manual that comes with your converter. Seriously. Unless your goal is to get a fried converter, in which case, in the words of the infamous commercial, “plug it in, plug it in.”

4) Why does McDonald’s taste so good here?

A lot of people would argue that McDonald’s isn’t the best food. I’d agree with them to an extent.

But when all you’ve had for a week is European food, sometimes you just want to go to McDonald’s. And so we did during our free time in Vienna. And it was amazing.

It was food that resembled American food, good ole fried American food. I only wish that America would name their cokes too. The coke bottles also have names in Germany.

I can experience the culture all day long. Just let me have a meal where I know I’ll eat everything.

5) Why is that bacon soggy?

Day One in Europe a group of us were walking around Piccadilly Square in London looking for a good place to have lunch. As we were in London, we decided that a Pub would be a fun choice. We sat down, looked at the menu, and decided on what we wanted. “Ooh! Bacon!” my friend said, and so she ordered her burger with bacon on it, feeling quite satisfied. It had been a long plane ride, and bacon was sure to be a pleasant cheerer-upper.

It wasn’t bacon.

Or at least what true Southerners call bacon.

“What’s wrong with my bacon,” she said, with sadness and frustration in her voice.

My other friend’s mom answered, “that would be Canadian bacon.”

“This is not bacon."

Well, I mean, it was, but that was surely not what she or any of us expected.

That was our first traumatizing experience with European food.

The thing about me and my friends and family in Europe was this: the meals were all planned, so when we had a meal where we were free to choose what we wanted, we sure as everything picked something we knew we would enjoy. Because you never knew what would be on your plate at dinner. Sometimes we got lucky and got a nice dish of Japanese noodles. Other times we had to try cous cous, and that was an experience.

The peanut butter crackers I had packed in my suitcase were my saving grace. I’m just too picky.

And so I hope this has given you some insight to just what the European continent holds for American travelers. If you ever get the chance to go, take it. It will be an unforgettable experience. You’ll see things you never thought you would see and do things you never thought you would do. I’ve seen so many well-known things.

Big Ben, the London Eye, West Minister Abbey, Shakespeare’s Globe, the London Bridge, Stonehenge, the Palace of Versailles, the Eiffel Tower (eek!!), the Louvre, the Mona Lisa, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, Hitler’s Eagles Nest, the Hapsburgs’ Palace, the Alps, Salzburg (the city where Mozart lived), so many cool things where in my history or art classes, the teacher can show us one of them, and I get so excited. “I’ve been there,” I think. I know how tiny the Mona Lisa is, I know how massive the Alps are, I’ve walked where Mozart walked, I was in the same building as where William and Kate were married.

I’m so thankful for the opportunities that allowed me to board a plane to Europe. By next June, I will have been to Europe every year for three years straight. That is so cool, and I’m so blessed to be able to say so.

I’ve made such great memories with my family and my best friends, and I’ll always be able to look back at my pictures and relive those moments in my head.

I just love Europe.