similar but different

MUNICH, DEUTSCHLAND

-The Eisbach in Munich beats Boogie Bahn at Schlitterbahn if you like surfing. If you like watching innocent little lambs unsuspectingly get blasted into the air in front of a crowd, then the Boogie Bahn still takes all.

-Everyone dresses classy. Real classy. Even while riding their bikes (and smoking), it's fur, leather, whatever. The few homeless people that (I think) I've spotted had their shirts tucked in.

-Rogueish millionaires drive matte black cars, not hot red ones. Also, they live in palaces, not shitty oversized suburban McMansions that take up 9/10ths of their lot.

-Stores close at 8 PM and aren't open on Sundays. Except in the train stations. And there aren't bodegas really. This sucks if you happen to be accustomed to impulsive inexpensive drinking binges.

-No one jaywalks. H. saw someone get chewed out by an old lady for it. It's like it's illegal or something.

-Tap water contains more hard minerals. That shit stains your supposedly stainless steel pots and pans. WTF?

-Psychoanalytic kindergarten? Come on, let the kids love purple dinosaurs and Korean aliens with stomach-televisions in peace.

-It's illegal to pass on the right. I guess this isn't that big of a deal because the autobahn is only two or three lanes wide & people actually use the left lane as a passing lane.

-Strange things are American branded: toasters (American Sandwich Toaster), bread (McCennedy brand).

-Uh, there isn't a healthcare debate.

-Germans only have purebreed dogs. Yeah, sure, they've changed.

-Evidently minstrel-like black caricatures aren't passe.

-Socialist cowboys?

-Mustard comes in a heavy duty aluminum squeeze container that makes me hesitate at lunch as I contemplate the possibility that I've mistakenly topped my my salami sandwich with epoxy.

-QWERTZ, not QWERTY. No biggie.

-Lots of bikes have coaster brakes. Wusses.

-Lots of bikes have dynamo powered lights. Sweet.

-Lots of bikes have weird butterfly handlebars. I think this has to do with winter.

-Lots of bikes.

-Kids learn to ride bikes on little walking bikes. No training wheels, ever.



EUROPE in general:

-Instead of being confused or surprised by the number of people smoking, I smile because I've realized that the tradition of Americans profiting off of Europeans filling their lungs with carcinogens is both long and rich.

-Toilet's have an on/off switch. Press to flush, press again to shut it off early and save water. The Germans smartly passed on the whole small flush toilet thing. I'd suspect because, well, on a diet of meat, cheese, and beer, well, you want to be sure that your shit gets as far as possible as quickly as possible.

-You have to bag your own groceries, big deal.

-A4 paper ... whatever.

-McD's charges for ketchup for your fries. BUT you can buy beer. Also, delinquent teenager posses hang out smoking and talking shit in front McD's. Rebellious lil' consumers.

-Since there aren't one dollar or two dollar bills (only coins), strip clubs have their own paper bills for tipping strippers (thanks Konrad).

-Eggs come in packs of 10. Goddamn metric system.

-No growth hormones in dairy/poultry and no lab engineered food.* Evidently people think this stuff is dangerous enough to make it illegal. Hmm.

-In Lyon, France, they have this place that sells the 'Super American' sandwich which is sort of a runaway American dream in my opinion. It's a burger with fries. That is, the fries are on the burger.

-Also in France, the way too reasonably named 'Quick' fast-food chain sells a double patty burger with bacon, but the two patties come side-by-side on an elongated bun. It's called a long bacon burger. Check it.

-They've deified Obama here for sure, but they also really like to mention that he did cocaine.

-There is no such thing as DIY rock music or house parties

-As far as the internet is concerned, the Germans use it to buy things, the French use it to comment on what other people have said, and the Scandinavians use to it find out what the rest of the world is up to while they stay indoors during the long cold night they call winter.

-The French have quite possibly the most aggravating/intriguing form of slang. Verlan consists of flipping the syllables of a two syllable word. Some words are now double flipped. Real cool guys except when I can't understand half of your singsong words to begin with.

-Europeans think American don't know any other languages, always want more, and are generally rude, fat, and obnoxious. Now, while all that may be true, I should say that I've seen lots of fat people in Europe. Less so in the capital cities and they are not quite as often Walmart parking lot obese, sure, but yes, fat. The key thing is they seem proud and happy with their fat. Perhaps it has to do with the source of their fat?

-Turks, Eastern Europeans, and Russians are sort of like the Mexicans of Europe. Turks make really good lamb sandwiches called doner kebab. But they aren't so good that they make me forget how much I miss fajitas, Tejano music, and Fiesta.

-Russian women are evidently really aggressive because they don't want to go back to Mother Russia.

-Evangelism is spreading here. I saw a guy wearing a 'Jesus Inside' jacket the other day. You know, like Intel Inside? Two points for being both embarrassingly nerdy and annoyingly religious.

-New age-ism is intense here. Granted, I just worked a mineral trade show, so my view on this is a little skewed. But I saw a lot of Germans drinking emerald energized water, siphoning energy off of a crystal pyramid, and feeling the vibes of Tibetan bowl/gongs.

-I've heard the Right is making a comeback in Europe.

*completely tangential and pretentious side note: I'd argue that 'genetic engineering' is a bit of a misnomer in contemporary discourse because the most common form of genetic engineering is selective breeding.