Christina said to do it, so off I go:
Name five things you love in your new country:
1. The ability to take public transport everywhere.
2. The ability to feel safe as a single female traveling alone, no matter where/when.
3. Being 32 and going somewhere with my camping backpack and tent raises no strange looks here. In the US I would be considered either too old or quirky when doing the same. Here, it's considered normal and no one blinks an eye seeing you en route somewhere with bus or train.
4. In smaller restaurants, how serious the serving staff reacts when you say you are vegetarian and nothing is on the menu but a salad. Normally they go off with a serious expression and consult with the chef and come back with something written on their little pad of paper to recommend. In some cases the chef has later come from the kitchen to make sure that the veg fare was agreeable. (duh. Even if it was the most awful veg meal in the world, the careful consideration given earns it a rave review.)
5. How it is common to split the bill and only pay for what you ate/drank directly with the waitstaff.
Name four things that you miss from your native country:
1. Doritos (The actual US kind, the Dutch ones don't count)
2. Oreos (US again, Spain ones don't count)
3. Packaged food/frozen dinners. Who wants to always cook?
4. The ability to shop on Sundays or anytime in the middle of the night as the mood strikes.
Name three things that annoy you a bit (or much) in your new country:
1. The ever-present smoke everywhere
2. The constant dour and angry expressions and negative attitude here.
3. Adherence to structure and strict rules and the inability to think beyond or question them.
Name two things that surprise you (or surprised you in the beginning) in your new country:
1. German employees from work don't socialize or go out for happy hour together.
2. How cheap it is to post a book to within Germany book rate (only 85 cents!)
Name one thing that you would miss terribly in your new country, if you had to leave it:
1. The availability of fresh, local, in season, organic produce at a low cost
I think I'm the last one to do this one, so I tag no one. :-)
3 comments:
I miss Cheetos (the crunchy kind, not those pathetic, soggy, fluffy ones).
I miss the all-night shopping too, but on the other hand, it forces me to plan better (not normally my strong suit).
OK, so the colleagues are not all up for a trip to the pub. On the other hand, the friends you do make are friends for life... when you get a promotion you are not expected to immediately drop all the friends from the lower echelon.
That's a really good, thought-provoking list. I didn't know that the restaurants bend over backwards for vegetarians like that, that's pretty cool! And I agree with you about all the negativity, it used to get me so depressed when I first moved here.
vailian: ah, cheetos! to your point of having to plan better for shopping--i'm not sure i want to be forced to have to plan better.
christina: thanks for bringing me in to this one.
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