Anecdotes from our European Vacation

Since Derek recapped our trip to Germany & London, I thought I would share a few of the things that stood out to me the most on our trip for memory's sake. This was my first time going to a different country, so there was definitely some culture shock for me! I don't think you can ever really comprehend what culture shock is until you experience it yourself first-hand.

{Germany}

{Germany}

{Germany}

Germany...
--Bathrooms are called "water closets," which was weird enough in and of itself to me. But then there's the fact that you have to pay to use the restroom in most places. And the public restrooms looked so different than American public restrooms. For the most part, the European bathrooms were much cleaner and the doors were very different. The doors to the individual stalls went all the way down to the floor in most places. I don't know why I thought this was particularly noteworthy, but I did. ;)  And the flushing mechanisms surprised me, too!
--There were very few if any overweight people in Germany. I actually felt kind of "big" compared to a lot of people there.
--The smoking was out of control there! It seemed as though everyone smoked! Disgusting. We even saw vending machines for cigarettes. Crazy!

--I was surprised to see so many American fast food restaurants! We saw a ton of McDonald's & Burger Kings and a few other places as well. I know Derek already posted the picture of the McDonald's we went to Munich, but it's worth mentioning again. It was crazy! I expected most of the people in these American fast food restaurants would be American tourists, but I was totally wrong. Apparently German people are wild about McDonald's! The McDonald's in Munich was seriously out of control. They had about 7-10 cash registers with lines formed of customers waiting to order, and each line of customers was at least ten people deep. They also had self-serve ordering kiosks to expedite your ordering process! There were two floors of seating areas, and we had to fight to get a table! I've never seen anything like it.
--Apparently, soft pretzels originated in Germany. They were sold everywhere we went, and there was lots of pretzel souvenirs in all of the gift shops.
--I minored in Spanish in college & took a few ESOL courses as well, and I also taught a lot of ESOL students and worked with their parents. So I would like to think I knew a thing or two about people who did not speak the first language of a country. But like I mentioned before, I learned on this trip that you can never truly understand it until you experience it first-hand. It was really hard for us to get around at times when all of the signage was in a different language! Restaurants were the hardest if things weren't listed in English as well as German (hence why we ended up eating at McDonald's more than once). But thankfully almost everywhere we went, people spoke at least a little bit of English and we could get by just fine. The most challenging language barrier we faced was at a Burger King when we were traveling from the Frankfurt airport to Edelweiss right after I arrived in Germany. The Burger King was out in the middle of nowhere, so I'm guessing they don't get a lot of American tourists stopping in. ;)  We had quite  the experience trying to order our lunch! Ha!
--Dogs! People take their pet dogs everywhere in Germany! It was so weird!
--NO DIET COKE!! Are you kidding me?! They have Coke Light in Germany that looks exactly like the Diet Coke cans here, but don't let them fool you. Coke Light is disgusting. I was seriously missing my Diet Coke.
--Favorite parts of Germany: the breath-taking scenery & Edelweiss. We were so thankful to be staying in a military resort where everyone spoke English and there were 3 different American restaurants inside the hotel that made this picky eater very happy. I also loved seeing the quaint little villages and walking around seeing the houses! That is one of my favorite parts about traveling--seeing how people live in different parts of the world!

{London}
Cold & windy atop the Tower Bridge

{London}
In front of the Tower Bridge

{London}
In front of Westminster Abbey

{London}
We went to a local restaurant for lunch one day. I was really in the mood for a Jason's Deli style baked potato, so I was delighted to see that this restaurant had an array of specialty baked potatoes on their menu! I went for one very similar to the "Plain Jane" on the JD menu--cheese & bacon. I was quite surprised when I received my baked potato that there was probably a whole pig's worth of bacon on it! I ate around most of it, but Derek was happy to eat the leftovers. :)

London...
--We were so thankful to see signs in English when we arrived in London!
--Even though we were now in an English-speaking country, we were surprised that it still somehow seemed as though we were the only ones speaking English! Apparently the city of London is very international.
--Our first night in London, we went to a chain restaurant they have there called Garfunkel's. Everyone eating there was cutting their "chips" (aka french fries) and eating them with a fork. Weird!
--Instead of seeing signs for "bathroom" or "exit," their signs were labeled "toilet" and "way out."
--Again, we had to pay to use the "toilet" in most places.
--Smoking was very prevalent in London, too!
--The red telephone booths were everywhere, but the weird part was that we never saw a single one being used.
--The double decker buses were everywhere! I always thought those were more of a touristy thing, but they were just as many double decker tour buses as there were double decker city buses that the locals used.
--Favorite parts of London: touring Westminster Abbey, the Duck Tour, the architecture, and as weird as it may sound the dessert we ordered one night at a sit-down Pizza Hut restaurant {again, we were the only Americans in that place!}--the name of the dessert escapes me now, but it was something about cookie dough. It was basically an underdone chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream and chocolate drizzled on top. I'm pretty sure I could eat that dessert every day for the rest of my life. It was amazing!

We are so thankful we had the opportunity to take this trip of a lifetime together! What an experience it was!!