Why Europe is no longer better than the United States

Growing up in the United States, you constantly hear how pathetic the US is compared to Europe in the areas of food, health care, public transportation, open-mindedness, and generally everything.  This makes one long to experience Europe, feeling always like you are missing out on a level of experience that could be richer and somehow more "real."

Now that I have spent a little time in Europe (Greece, Germany, Spain, England, Denmark, and Sweden) and have lived in the UAE, which is heavily influenced by European food and customs due to the number of Europeans who make up the expat culture here, I have formed the opinion that Europe is not better than the United States. In some ways perhaps it never was better, but in some ways the U.S. has recently changed to match Europe's quality in food and lifestyle.  Below are the ways in which the United States has come to match Europe

chocolate - I grew up hearing people complain that American chocolate is too sweet.  Now chocolate that has a high cocoa content is ubiquitous, and you can find dark, good quality chocolate as easily as you can find sweet or milk chocolate in any grocery store.

beer - You can buy good beer and brew your own even in Mississippi now, which had a law against beer above 5% until recently.  Massachusetts even has the U.S.'s first Trappist brewery.  There are other excellent breweries such as Fat Tire and Abita all across the country.

coffee - Thanks to Starbucks, Americans now know what espresso is.  We have even learned enough about good coffee to realize that Starbucks isn't.

bread/pastries - With good bakeries in Whole Foods and equivalent epicurean markets in big cities all over America, you can find just about any type of bread, croissant, and pastry that you could want.

public transportation - Public transportation in big European cities is excellent.  In rural European cities, not so much.  It's basically the same in the U.S. The only problem is that since we're so much bigger, we have a lot more rural areas; thus, we have more places that don't have reliable public transportation that those that do, unlike Europe, which has many metropolitan areas relatively close together.

open-mindedness - In the U.S. I felt like I was surrounded by people with a conservative world-view.  I always assumed that people in Europe were more open-minded.  By open-minded, I suppose I mean more accepting of all people and lifestyles.  However, this is not true.  In Greece we were virtually stared out of a restaurant by local fisherman by simply walking through the door.  In Munich the conversation turned uncomfortable when I mentioned that I was visiting my friend and his husband, and the stares we got in public were much more frequent and hostile than I ever experienced with the same friend in Mississippi (which is one of the more conservative states).

healthcare - Europe still triumphs in the area of subsidized healthcare.  If the Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. could learn to work together instead of against each other, I think America could be on the right track to (insert your preferred adjective here) subsidized/socialized/universal medicine.


The following are ways in which the U.S. is definitely hands-down, better than Europe, any day of the week:

beds - European mattresses are hard and thin.  It's just the way it is.  I have not slept on a comfortable mattress since we left the U.S.  Every home and hotel I've been in in any European country I've been in (including the Middle East) has had quite hard mattresses.

bathrooms - One can get spoiled by the size and lushness of American bathrooms.  In Europe they are small and minimalistic.  Most of the time, you're lucky to have a shower nozzle above the toilet, which leaves the floor wet for hours.

the legal use of marijuana -  Recently more and more states are legalizing and decriminalizing the use and possession of marijuana.  And Europe thinks it's so great because it has Amsterdam.

More importantly, the United States is young, optimistic, and full of potential.  We also have a plethora of wide-open spaces, clean air, and drinkable water.  Americans are lucky.  Visiting Europe has helped me realize that.

Bavaria

I just returned from a four-day trip to Munich, Germany.  I went to Munich for three reasons: 1.) to hike the Alps, 2.) to drink beer, and 3.) to buy yarn.

My trip started off a bit rocky Friday when I had trouble contacting the host I was staying with.  I had booked a room through Airbnb with a small family (a mother and her two teenagers).  I was jet-lagged and culture shocked, and I had trouble calling her to arrange to drop my bag off.  (FYI buying a local sim card in the airport was cheap and easy). I called for hours and couldn't reach her (turns out I had copied the number wrong).  My bag was awkward, and I couldn't really do any sightseeing with it.  After struggling with pulling it down the cobblestone seats in the city center, I finally decided to just show up on her doorstep.

Although I figured out the complicated metro system fairly quickly, the house was on the other end of Munich, and by the time I got there I was feeling pretty exasperated.  I channeled Ford from The Hitchiker's Guide and repeated "Don't Panic" every time I found myself in a situation I wasn't sure how to get out of.  Luckily, the host was there waiting for me.  All I wanted to do was retreat to my room and be still and quiet to process everything I had just done, but she wanted to talk and visit a bit.  We sat in her lovely garden and talked until I had to leave to meet my friends.

This is the calming view of her garden from my room:

Hugh, one of my dear friends from college in Mississippi has been living in Germany for six years, so he and his husband took the train down from near Hanover to spend the weekend in Munich.  We had planned to meet at Aumeister, a lovely and non-touristy biergarten in the north part of the English Garden.  It took me a while to get there,  especially since TWICE I got on a train that did not go far enough and stopped in the middle of the tunnel between two stops.  I sat there (twice!) and watched the conductor leave and sat alone in a hot, empty metro.  I finally figured out the right metro to take and made it to the beautiful biergarten in the Englischer Garten.  It is nestled in a green forest near a river and is relaxing and not crowded.

It was delightful to see Hugh.  He looked exactly the same, and I recognized him immediately.  He introduced me to Mario, his husband, a kind German man Hugh met in Atlanta nine years ago.  Not only is same sex marriage legal in Germany, but the law was recently changed so that the tax benefits are the same for all marriages.

Here's Hugh looking dapper on his birthday:

We caught up on the last 15 years of our lives.  They told me about their life and neighbors in the small town they live in, and I told them about life in Dubai and my family.  I drank a Helle beer that was fruity and delicious.  We decided to go downtown to get dinner.  We found a sushi place, and they educated me on some German customs, such as tipping, which I was doing wrong.  "Never leave money on the table," Mario told me.  He said the next customer would just take the money, and it turns out I was also leaving too much because waiters are salaried unlike they are in the US.

I was quickly learning that it was quite difficult to get around without German.  I had learned some basic phrases before coming, but with the jet lag and stress of culture shock, most of those phrases flew right out my head.  Of course I know that "nein" is "no," and "thank you" is "danka," but for some reason the words wouldn't come out when I needed them to.  It was pretty obvious that Germans found my lack of German rude, and I became painfully shy in social situations.  I remember learning about this in my Socio Linguistics course in grad school; there's even a name for it that I can't remember.

American Hugh has learned German so well that he could even translate the ingredients on the back of my vending machine gummy candy.  So well, in fact, that he forgot English to some extent.  Talking with Hugh was entertaining at times, like talking to someone with aphasia.  It had been so long since he had spoken English regularly that he forgot some words and use the wrong words in place of his intended words.  It was fun, like playing word association.

The next day we met at the Deutches Museum, which was interesting.  It is a technical museum that displays at things on micro levels.  I saw pumps and drills that I didn't know existed.  Especially riveting (actually it was), was the exhibit on weights and measures.

It was marvelous seeing Hugh.  He's one of those friends that you don't have to talk to or see very often to stay close.  We still finished each others sentences, and we fell into place just like we did when we were 19.  We reminisced about old teachers and friends and poems we wrote together.

After the museum we went shopping at a traditional Bavarian clothing store.  Hugh had been wanting a  janker, a traditional jacket that is often worn with liederhosen.  So he tried a few on before finding the one he wanted.  That was fun.  Then we had dinner before parting and saying our goodbyes.

The next day was Sunday, and that was my hiking tour day.  Please see this post for details about the hike.

Monday was my last day, but my flight didn't leave until 10 PM, so I had time to sightsee in the morning.  My day started with this beautiful breakfast:

This was my view while eating breakfast:

Unfortunately, the yarn store and the museums I wanted to see are closed on Mondays, and the guidebook had the timings wrong, so I walked far distances to each to discover this fact.  However, the Nueva Pinacoteca was open where I saw famous works by Picasso and Monet, among many others.  On the way to the museum I found the street sign with Hugh's family name.  He had wanted to see it while he was in Munich, but it was pretty far from where they were staying, so I don't know if he ever did.  However, fortunately, I did!

To Griffin's delight, I stumbled across a Tesla car dealership:

I saw guys surfing on the rushing river in the English Garden:

I took my last walk through Munich and saw the sights:

I finished my time by buying some candies and things at the Viktualienmarkt, and I stopped in the city center and bought pretzels and apple streudel to take back home to Woody and Griffin.

At the airport biergarten I had my last Bavarian meal of white sausages, a pretzel, mustard, and beer:

I thought this was an interesting item on the menu: tap water, roll, and one cigarette:

With my last hour I drank a can of beer in the airport lobby and chatted with Woody on FB.  I'm glad I saw Hugh and met Mario.  I'm glad I hiked the Alps.  However, I was very glad to get back to a place where I don't feel like an ass for speaking English, and I was even gladder to get back to my sweet little family.  Now I'm recovering (my quads are still sore!) and resting up for our trip to Denmark and Sweden for which we depart in just five days.  

My guided hike in the Bavarian Alps

My primary reason for going to Munich was to hike in the Alps.  Since I was traveling alone, I hired a guide, which turned out to be invaluable since it's so hard to get by without knowing German in Bavaria.

This hike was one of the highlights of my trip.  Chris Gretz, my guide, made it such and easy and enjoyable experience that it deserves its very own blog entry.

The hike was on Sunday, and I had been in the country since Friday and had found it challenging navigating the city not knowing German.  It had actually been a rather stressful trip for this reason among others.  I was looking forward to my hike on Sunday because someone else would be responsible for the navigating and planning.  As I was leaving the neighborhood of my host's house to meet my guide, I saw this rainbow, which I took as a sign that it would be a good day.

Chris met me at the metro stop near my host's house.  He made me feel comfortable right away.  We took the metro, then a bus, then a beautiful hour-long train ride through the countryside to Riederstein.  Coming from Dubai, the green open spaces, lakes, rivers, and trees were breath-taking.  I don't think I would have been able to figure out all of those connections without knowing German, so I was already feeling very grateful for hiring a guide.

On the train he told me that he had packed a picnic lunch for us.  He also explained that he loved cracking open a beer when he got to the peak, so he brought one for each of us.  Since beer was my #2 reason for coming to Munich, this was fabulous news.

He knew the mountain and the hike well.  I didn't know what to expect.  I was hoping it would be a good climb, but when Chris emailed me about it beforehand, he said it was an easy hike.  When I hear "easy hike" I picture basically open fields.  However, that misconception was banished as soon as we approached the mountain.  He warned me that we the first ten minutes would be steep hiking, and he was right.  The climbing started immediately.

At the half-way point we stopped at a lovely little restaurant.  Chris partook in his tradition of ordering a mug of buttermilk so thick there were actually chunks of butter floating in it.  He kindly offered me a sip, but I didn't think my dairy-sensitive stomach could handle it, so I declined.

Me in front of the Bavarian flag:

As we were sitting at the restaurant, he told me about a church that was built on top of a rock above where we were sitting. I couldn't really picture it, but when we left the restaurant, he pointed it out.  The church is so precariously sitting atop a jutting, oblong rock that it looks unnatural and almost magical.  It took my breath away.  It was beautiful and unexpected.  As we headed toward the peak of Riederstein mountain, that church was our next destination.

The climb was steady and challenging with good breaks of flattish trails.

We reached the church.  Come to think of it I don't even remember what the church looked like up close, but I do remember what the view from the church looked like.  It was stunning.

We left the church and hiked on through the beautiful forest.

The views started making appearances as we climbed higher:

Our next stop was the peak.  Naturally, the hike became steeper and more narrow. Often the path would diverge into two; one would be steep, and the other would be flat.   As soon as I thought, phew, a break (!), he would lead me toward the steeper of the two.  At one point we came to a path that was virtually 90 degrees.  There was another choice that was less steep; when I asked if we could take that one, he said it was no problem and that they both lead to the same place.

He frequently encouraged me to walk first so that I could set the pace.  This was especially helpful since I was wearing running shoes, and they were quite slick on the rock and uneven surfaces.  There were moments that were really challenging to me.  It was constant climbing for a while, and there were times when I wanted to sit down and give up.  However, I knew that a view and a beer awaited me at the top, so I stayed focused and headed upward as quickly as possible.

This is me trying to wipe the sweat out of my eyes near the top:

Just before the last leg I asked Chris the altitude - I don't know why I didn't ask how high we were going before the hike!  He told me it was 1448 metres.  When I told him that I didn't know what that meant in feet and would have to convert it later, he pulled out his phone and converted it for me.  It was 4,750 feet.  The highest I had hiked before that was 3,500 feet in Colorado.  He congratulated me on the new height.

We noticed as we got closer to the peak that clouds were moving in around it.  The weather started cooling a bit, but we didn't noticed at first because were sweating from the climb.  When we finally reached the top, the temperature started dropping rapidly, and clouds were forming around us.  We got there just in time to see a view of lakes and towns down below in the valleys.  It was an amazing view.  We just got about two minutes of it though, and then we were enclosed in a white room.

We sat on a log and watched the temperature drop to 11 degrees Celsius while we ate.  It got quite cold, and Chris jokingly said that when the temperature stopped dropping, we would leave.  I told him that would depend on how low it got!  Fortunately, it only dropped to 11, which he kindly converted to Farenheit for me, which was about 52 degrees.  That made me feel warmer because, as I told him, 50 degrees is running shorts weather for me.

Also, I didn't notice the cold much because Chris pulled out a fantastic assortment of food, so I was well-distracted.  There were Bavarian pretzels, cheese and cheese spread for the pretzels, Bavarian sausages, cherries, strawberries, and tomatoes. There were also the beers.  I drank an Oktoberfest beer that was delicious.  For dessert Chris pulled out organic creamy milk chocolate that we snacked on on the way down.

We finished our lunch, and the temperature stayed at 11, so we hiked back down.  I was glad he had brought walking sticks for me to use.   They helped because there were times that it was quite steep both up and down the mountain.  On the way down we took a different route, so we saw some new things.

(When I showed Griffin this picture, he asked me what the snail was thinking.)

When we got to the train station, we had to wait a half an hour for the train to leave, which was just enough time for Chris to buy us a couple of beers for the train ride back.  That was a really nice touch.  In Dubai and even in the US you can't drink out of open bottles in public, so it felt a little rebellious, but it made the train ride go by faster and was a nice end to an exhausting day of steady hiking.

I think everyone who likes hiking should fly to Munich just to hike with Chris.  It's not often in life when someone else takes care of all of the details.  It was so luxurious, too, with the thoughtful touches like beers and chocolate.  The easy conversation made it feel like spending a day with an old friend.  This is perfect for a woman traveling alone (especially if you don't speak German), but Chris also offers this tour in small groups for anyone who wants an expert mountain guide in the Bavarian Alps.  You can email him here if you're interested: mail@ui-muenchen.com or find him on tripadvisor: http://bit.ly/12xTaiE

Home

Listening to Edward Sharpe's song "Home" that crones, "Home is wherever I'm with you," I realize that I'm lucky to have a loving family that gives me a home wherever we go.  And this is good, but there are times when I long for more.

I grew up near Atlanta with Ohioan parents of German, English, and Irish decent.  The most I know about my family is that my mother got my grandfather's red hair, freckles, and fiery temper, and that my father's grandfather floated on a raft down the river into Ohio from Canada.  How he got from Germany to Canada is a mystery to the family.

Throughout my childhood, my grandparents were mostly dead or estranged.  The one grandmother I had contact with was in a nursing home in Ohio, and when we did see her, the visits took place in a dark room where little conversation transpired.  Due to this lack of contact with extended family, my background is enigmatic to me.

After Atlanta I moved from city to city: Houston, Orlando, Jackson, and others.  I was blown around by school and jobs.  The more I moved, the harder it became to answer the question, "Where are you from?"  When people ask me that, what I really want to say is, "What is home?", like Arthur Dent in The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  His planet was recently blown up, and he was on board a stolen ship lost in the universe.  This is similar to the feeling that washes over me when people ask where my home is.  However, to be polite and avoid a long and awkward conversation, I pick the last place I lived.

Now I live in the Middle East with my small family.  Farthest from whatever concept of home I've ever had, I find myself searching for and trying to connect to some roots, any I can find.

Due to my German maiden name (Wilhelm), blonde hair, and large frame,  I've always felt the most connection to my German family.  Why did my grandparents leave Germany?  Why didn't they stay and give me a home, some roots, a real heritage?  Maybe for the same reasons why we keep moving our son around from place to place.  Every day he begs to go back to Texas, the place he calls home.  If we move back there will it be enough, or will he someday search for deeper roots, as well?

A benefit to living where we do now is that we are relatively close to Europe.  This summer I will go to Munich to drink its beer, hike its Alps, and hope for some mystic connection to "where my ancestors are from."

I have to think that there are many Americans who feel this way.  Most of our ancestors came from somewhere else.  We've adopted a somewhat homogenous American culture, and in many ways we're lucky to have that.  But for me, there's always been this ghost itch for some time-honored culture that remains in the place from where our ancestors fled.

And I find myself constantly searching for "a real home."  A place where I fit in, where the air feels right in my lungs, where the way people interact with each other makes sense.  I'm waiting to fall in love with it in the way that I fell in love with my husband.

I don't honestly expect to find this fictional place, but I do expect to find something.  Maybe myself, maybe some knowledge that every place is in some ways the same.  Whatever the outcome, I am lucky to have a family to go with me.  I know that wherever we "go back to" by choice or obligation, it will give me a place to call home when I'm asked, at least for now.

Singapore!

I know it's been a while since I've blogged, but I've just been busy living life, and it's felt just normal, nothing particularly blog-worthy.  However, we just returned from a family vacation in Singapore, and I want to share our experiences and photos with friends and family.

Day 1:

Our flight left around 11 PM, so we flew overnight and didn't sleep much on the plane.  The layover in Sri Lanka was interesting.  As I told Woody, I've never considered layovers an actual visit to the country . . . until our Sri Lanka layovers.  The first time a cafe lady tried to get Woody to illegally buy liquor for her.  The second time we both had creepy bathroom attendants beg us for money and stare me down strangely.  Of course, there was also the fact that our flight departed late and the airlines giving us bad information about when it would be ready.

Nevertheless, we eventually arrived in Singapore, and it was warm, rainy, and delightful.  We easily got a cab to our hotel.  Our cab driver was funky and friendly and gave us a tour as he drove.

It felt great to be in an Asian city again.  More accurately, it felt great to have a break from a Muslim country.  And Singapore is so funky that even the old ladies have purple mohawks.  Woody and I have pretty  much decided to return to the US in the summer of 2014 so that Griffin can have a stable place to grow up, learn what it means to be an American, and get to know his grandparents.  However, this city made us dream of retirement when we can live anywhere we want to.  We can see ourselves scooting around on the MRT and hanging out in the Hawker Centres eating duck satay.

On the day we arrived we had two separate very friendly encounters.  First was an older man on the subway who showed us how to buy tickets and even gave us advice for which stop would save us the most money.  The second time, an older woman approached us on the street and started talking to us about her son, her own travels, and suggestions for where could take Griffin while we were in Singapore.

Based on these people we met and others we observed, it seems like such a convenient place to retire because the city is so clean and easy to move around in.  Also, people move together politely and orderly, unlike Dubai where people push each other around in order to get where they're going.


Here's Singpore from our hotel balcony:

As you can see, it has some amazing buildings.  I found that I didn't really take many pictures on this trip because most of what there was to see was modern buildings. 

Day 2:

On Day 2 we went to Chinatown, Little India, and a Night Safari at night.  I didn't take any pictures in Chinatown because it didn't really seem that different than Taiwan when we lived there, so nothing really stood out to me.  

Little India was pretty quiet during the day, but I got a couple of pictures:

Below I'm enjoying a refreshing citrus soda after a long, hot morning of walking.  It was exactly what I was hoping to find, and, as you can tell, I was pretty happy about it:

At night a bus picked us up and took us to a park next to the zoo for a night safari.  I didn't get many pictures because it was obviously dark, and we couldn't use a flash because it would hurt the nocturnal animals.  However, one of the tram turned out:

This night safari was really cool.  We took a tram through the rainforest and stopped periodically to walk through and view different animals.  My favorite was a Giant Indian Red Flying Squirrel.  We were about four feet away from creatures like this:

We were also inches away from giant fruit bats.  They were hanging all around us at one point, and we didn't realize it until our eyes adjusted to the light (or should I say dark):

There were so many other amazing nocturnal animals.  I wish I could remember them all.  Also, it was just generally a beautiful place.  There was a still-as-a-mirror lake that was surrounded by trees and reflected the stars.  It was lovely and peaceful.

Day 3:

On the third day we took a bus across the river to Malaysia and went to LegoLand.  Our Singapore trip, in general, was the most "touristy" trip we've ever taken.  Never in my life have I been a fan of guided tours, but this time it worked out well for us.  It's so easy because you let other people do the planning, scheduling, and driving, and we saw things we never would've otherwise seen.

On the bus we met a nice family from Hong Kong who had a boy around the same age as Griffin.  They said they liked Singapore better than Hong Kong because of the pollution.  We added this info to our running mental list of the best cities in the world to live in.  We were curious about Hong Kong, but after hearing this comparison, we rest assured that Singapore could remain in our top five.

After an hour or so and the immigration stops, we made it to LegoLand.  If you can believe it, Malaysia is even more humid and hot than Singapore.  However, it was green, hilly, and beautiful.

Griffin loves gears, so he was very happy about these giant gears:

Griffin actually got a Lego driving license and drove on this track.  He did great!  He never crashed, and he parked it back where they said to.

A mini lego Singapore:

The lego villages were amazing.

The train ride was a highlight:

 The plane ride was also a highlight:

Despite constantly reapplying sunscreen, we all got farmer's tans that day.  It was the closest to the equator we've ever been, and we underestimated how hot the sun was.  

Griffin had a great time, and he wants to go back to LegoLand.  Luckily, he's close enough to turning 6 that he was able to do everything.  Most of the rides had a cut-off at six, so I would recommend to other families to wait until your children are 6; there's not much to do for kids younger than that.

Day 4:

The day before, when we were in line for the Legoland bus, Griffin spotted a "Duck truck."  It's a truck that is also a boat.  I signed us up for a Duck Boat tour the morning of Day 4.

We saw lots of landmarks on the boat cruise.  On the right is Marina Sands, and on the left is the famous Art museum of Singapore.  After the tour, we walked over and saw a lego exhibit.  Unfortunately, my camera died, so I couldn't get any pictures.

 This is the famous merlion that Singapore is named after:

After the boat tour, we rode on the famous Singapore flyer:

On a clear day, supposedly you can see all of Singapore and some of Malaysia.  Our day was a bit cloudy, however.  This was also after my camera died.

After the flyer, we walked down below and explored the pretty little park beneath it:

Day 5:

On Day 5 we flew home.  We didn't leave until 3:00 in the afternoon, but thanks to some bad weather in Dubai (who's ever heard of a dust thunderstorm, anyway?!), the shady Sri Lankan airlines rerouted us to Abu Dhabi where they let us sit on the runway for over 4 hours.  Luckily, someone who knew that it was illegal to keep people on a plane for more than 3 hours called the cops.  Immediately after that we were rushed home to Dubai.  A trip that was supposed to end around 10:00 at night instead lasted until 5 AM the next morning.  We came home exhausted and very happy to see our beds and kitty.

I hope you enjoyed reading about our trip to Singapore.  It was the refreshing break that we needed.  Singapore is lovely.  Look for us there in about 35 years donning purple mohawks and eating bowls of laksa and duck satay.

Stay tuned for my solo trip to Munich in June, and then in July/August for our Scandinavian vacation where my mom will join us.  :)