European Vacation

I just got back from a small European trip, and decided to pen a sort of diary of observations. A blathering, off topic, series of observations that a few may enjoy.

My wife (Melissa) and I did London and Paris, and my wife decided to bring a friend. Her friend (Jen) was on a tighter budget than us, so by room sharing it made the trip more affordable for her (we’d saved, so it was no hardship on us). I didn’t think a tag-along friend would effect much; in psychological terms this is known as denial.

I also forgot to factor in that to many people (women included), status is important — and that their men should not publicly be slovenly, farting, grotesque wisecracking brutes that we are, which somehow raises our property value, thus the status for our trainers. So instead of being on my normal “at home” behavior, I was expected to raise levels to “in public” mode. The under the breath little warnings, and occasional looks were the give away. So much for guy reasoning that a tag-along would adapt to my level of civility, instead of the other way around.

They say men speak an average of 12,000 words per day, while women speak an average of 25,000 (at twice the rate of men), so I had figured that the estrogen crowd could entertain each other after I’d used all my words or listening prowess up, and that they could entertain each other shopping, frolicking and doing what women do. I’m not completely sure it worked out that elegantly. It felt more like I had 50,000 words per day against my 12,000, at four times the rate, and I did more shopping for things that had little interest to me, as they were having more fun doing it. I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.

England

We got to London, and had to figure out the tubes (subway), which was not very hard, despite the difficulties of a sort of “in-common” language. I was amused that toilet is more descriptive than bathroom, lift and elevator were synonymous enough, “way out” for exit seems very 70’s — but I’m not “taking the piss” out of anyone, even with a Foley Catheter. And someone needs to explain that “to let” signs may mean “to rent”, but it looks like an “i” fell off the “toilet” sign. Still we managed to translate without a dictionary and too many misunderstandings.

The good news is we arrived to our destination almost directly. The bad news is that we ended their a little lighter; to the tune of one digital camera that we’d bought for the trip. It seems that pilfering (pickpockets) are rampant in London, and the backpack my wife carries around instead of a purse was a ripe target; we were just lucky they didn’t get more. The OK news is that we’d bought the camera on a Platinum card which carried a bit of insurance, so may eventually get the camera replaced; after a few bureaucratic gymnastics. We use Jen’s camera a lot, so the trip wasn’t devoid of photographic memories.

Crime it seems is rampant in the UK. We were later cased by a few guys that were just too suspicious looking at a bus-stop. Maybe it was just paranoia, but there were three of them, and I wouldn’t let any of them get behind me, despite their casual banter, and they decided to go somewhere else. After talking to my UK relatives, they explained that they felt much safer walking the streets of NYC than the streets of London. Home invasion robberies, rapes, assaults, and other types of violent crimes are often far higher than in American cities. Sad commentary as it is, it seems an armed society is a polite society.

The exchange rate stank for us; roughly $2 for each £1, and most of the prices ran the same. A McDonnalds hamburger (one of our metrics for universal costs) would run about £5.49, which would translate to be about $11.00 in U.S., or in other words, many things cost about half as much for us, twice as much for them. We tried that on many things, and it often worked out the same. Then throw on 17% vat tax, or factor in that their salaries are lower and taxes much higher, and it would be tough to be a Brit. Their cars were tiny and their gas was exhorbinant (£.90/litre or about $6.80/gallon). The price of the cars themselves weren’t too much worse on the low end, there were glaring exceptions — like a new Mustang GT which costs about $25,000 in the U.S. was about $75,000 over there; as if any of them could afford 15 mpg and $500/month in gas alone. The news talked that over 25% of the average persons wages went into maintaining/operating their cars and had surpassed food prices.

We toured London proper, did the touristy stuff; we love the bus tours where you can get off and see the sites. We’ve done those in many U.S. cities, as well as abroad, and they’re a lot of fun. Then we went and stayed with relatives in the country. The rooms are small, both in Hotels and in their houses. It is amazing how they have a ton of farm land, but cram everyone into these small little villages, with small little houses. If their houses have a stand up shower, you need to learn to bend at the knee’s to pickup things you dropped, or your bum will hit the back wall, while your head raps the glass. It felt more like a vertical glass coffin with water.

We came during their elections, so it was a lot of fun to a political watcher. My Aunt and Uncle-in-law are both involved in local politics, so it was fun to hear about how they view things different. Their system isn’t all that different than ours. They have more parties, but mostly, it is just our parties factions broken apart; I recognized most of the same groups under different names. They’ve been controlled by the Liberals/Labour for a decade, but the Conservatives/Torries won a lot of ground back and halved the lead. They had England being split about 50/50, but Wales, Ireland and Scotland being the equivalent of our Red-States and skewing things way left. But we had many a good conversations about similarities and differences; as bad as our system sometimes is, I far prefer it to what I understand their system is like.

Paris

We took a quick flight over to Paris, and got to see another city. Paris’s subway was as much a step above London’s, as London’s is above New York’s; at least in number of stations, places you can go, how often the trains run, and so on. In smells, it is a step down by an equal amount. My wife is a hyper smeller, and she looked a few times like a fish on land, gasping for oxygen. Me, I just become a mouth breather, and ignore the melange of sewage vents, B.O. and the occasional smell of improvised urinal.

Many people say the Parisians are rude, or not to judge France by Paris, and so on. Well, I heard the same about New Yorkers and the U.S. The truth is people in big cities are often in big hurries, and deal with crowds so often, that they sort of push, shove, and don’t have much time to slow down and enjoy life or chit-chat with annoying foreigners — they’re rats in their race, and if you stay out of their way, or can merge with the flow, things will be fine. It isn’t rude per say, but you just have to speed up and adapt. It wasn’t like the people in London or New York are any more or less friendly either; you just pick who you ask questions of, you don’t stand in high traffic areas, and you adapt to where you are. I do that well, my wife less well. She dislikes all those cities; she gets all agog with the flow of humanity and looking around, or gets “polite” and lets people go before her on the train, then has the doors close on her, because she was too slow, and so on. I keep trying to keep her from becoming grist for the mill.

We weren’t the ugly Americans that expected the French to adapt to us; we were in their country and tried to adapt to them. If you try to speak French or pantomime things, most of the Parisians I ran into quickly talked to me in English so I’d stop butchering their language. I was making an effort, and not expecting them to adapt to me — and that mattered a lot. However, if the first thing you say is “Polly-voo Anglee”, some people will mess with you in ways that only urban sadists can appreciate.

Paris was probably more expensive than England, even with the better exchange rate. My relatives had warned me “dirty town”, but I didn’t think it was much worse. At least in Paris they had trash-bins available on corners, not that they used them, but in the London, you couldn’t find one to save your life, yet they managed to keep the streets cleaner (go figure). Graffiti was rampant in both cities, and all over Europe (I understand). My wife thinks it is “nasty”. Americans paint over it and try to clean it up, fighting a losing battle but trying, while Europeans just tolerate it. There’s also some difference in what is tagged. Mainly, I think it is just about density of people, and as it increases, you must learn to tolerate the byproducts.

Paris is the land of good food and lousy service. Europe in general doesn’t believe in tips for food service (it is factored in), so you shouldn’t be an ignorant American and throw the tips around — it isn’t like they are in any hurry anyways. We couldn’t get out of a restaurant in an hour if we tried; so you just need to slow down, and expect that they’ll get to you when they feel like it. Fighting it, just annoys them. But I loved having little shops where you could go by and grab pre-made sandwiches or hot-dogs that were on great bread, made with good cheese or other products and tasted great. We did eat in Planet Hollywood because Jen had a hankering for a Burger — $60+ for 3 burgers and fries was a little steep, but I guess Jen felt like someone on Survivor.

Traffic was bad in London; it reminded us why we moved out of Southern California. I’ve driven in the UK before, and other than taking an occasional left turn too wide, I adapt pretty quickly. Roundabouts don’t bug me, but the multi-lane ones can throw me a little; making a left across 3 or 4 lanes of traffic seems somehow wrong to me — but whatever. I learned to drive in downtown L.A., so I understand a little cursing, swerving/jockeying, and communications through use of the horn — though not my normal pattern any more. London wasn’t all that different. Paris on the other hand, freaked my wife out completely. We didn’t drive there, but we watched it from the relative safety of a double decker bus, with my wife saying, “Oh my God, what are they doing” quite often. She’s never dealt with places where people would enter an intersection on a red-light, or where busses cut off 4 lanes of traffic because they can. I tried to explain to her that the Parisians were like subdued octogenarian retirees compared to the Italians, and that to them lane-lines, red-lights and sidewalks are just suggestions — but she doesn’t believe anywhere could be worse than Paris driving. Heck, I’ve driven in Boston, I know better.

One observation I noted was that I’ve been to three of the five cities vying for the 2012 Olympics recently; Paris, London, New York. New York has a better exchange rate and is the cheapest (whether that holds in 6 years is open for debate), Paris probably has the most facilities, and London seems to have little to offer other than being somewhere where it hasn’t been held the longest. I don’t know enough about Moscow or Madrid to comment. I just kept contrasting the cities while there.

Conclusion

In the end, I had a little personality conflict with our tag-along traveler. I think after 10 days, she was pushing buttons and playing drama-queen just to see what would happen. In the end, there was a minor argument, blown out of proportion, that resulted in returning a day earlier than intended. But we were tired, and it was time to come home anyways. So, we saw a lot, had a lot of fun, and came back more tired than when we left, and now we have a much deeper appreciations for what we have in America, as well as just being home. We enjoyed seeing sights, and seeing more what it would be like to live abroad, and talking to the people, and so on. But while I could adapt to their lifestyle if I had to, I know I’m much happier with the one we have here — and the same for my wife. Nothing beats coming home after travel, and taking a long shower in your own shower, eating your own food, and sleeping in your own bed, and being a homebody again, until the trials and tribulations of the last trip have become distant memories, and you repeat the process all over again.