No Wonder

Going to Europe has changed us. John drinks sparkling water now, and I like chocolate. I just took a bite of this candy bar, "Apfelstrudel and Bourbon Vanille." It was one of the few pieces of chocolate that we brought back that we didn't give away. I saved this one for myself because it sounded so good. It's better than good, this is extraordinary! No wonder I never liked chocolate before, American chocolate tastes nothing like this! Forget the M&Ms, I'm WAY into this candy. I could possibly like this better than the fruity candy I so enjoy, like nerds or sour patch kids.

Other interesting small differences:

There's no speed limit on the Audobon, no duh, but geeze, it's AWESOME! Dietmar took his Audi TT over 200 km/hour with me, and that's like over 120 mph. We came up behind a police car, and the police moved over so we could fly by. That's sweet.

On more than one occasion, I paid money to use the restroom. We also paid money to get information at the tourist information center. (?) We paid 35 euros in tolls on the French highway. =(

We did not see one piece of styrofoam our entire visit. We saw very little plastic. Susanne's trashcans were tiny, and they recycle like crazy. In Munich, we were in an outside market, and Susanne got a smoothie, and they gave it to her in a glass, and we stood there while she drank it, then gave it back.

Normal everyday things tastes better; bread, coffee, pretzels. The soda seems less sweet.

We didn't see any road kill. They have a fence along all the highways to protect the animals. Why on earth don't we have that?

All the young people speak English. One night at the wine festival, we met all sorts of German people our age, and they all spoke English very well. Can you imagine a German person coming here to visit, and we all spoke German to them? Why don't we start our young children with a second language when study after study has shown that kids pick up languages much easier than adults?

In Paris, they really do take a month long holiday. About 1 in every 10 restaurant was closed with a sign saying they would be open on Sept 5 or Aug 28 or whatever. French people also take lunch from noon to 2 p.m. Everything stops but the restaurants for those 2 hours.


Vincent: And you know what they call a... a... a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
Jules: They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with cheese?
Vincent: No man, they got the metric system. They wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.
Jules: Then what do they call it?
Vincent: They call it a Royale with cheese.
Jules: A Royale with cheese. What do they call a Big Mac?
Vincent: Well, a Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it le Big-Mac.
Jules: Le Big-Mac. Ha ha ha ha. What do they call a Whopper?
Vincent: I dunno, I didn't go into Burger King.

-Pulp Fiction