Vive la Différence

After two+ weeks abroad, I’ve really noticed some things that Europeans—or at least the ones in Vienna and Prague—do differently from Americans. Some are inconsequential, some are annoying, and still others are brilliant. So let’s consider them.

 First, bags. Do not expect anyone to give you a bag to put your purchases in, at least not without paying a bag fee. At the grocery store, they just slide the food to the end of the checkout lane and you are expected to bag it yourself into your own bag. If you aren’t fast enough, other people’s food starts coming at you along with dirty looks.

 Usually, people scoop their stuff back into the cart or tote they’ve used in the store, then turn around and set everything on the handy counter at the front of most stores. You can sort your things and bag them properly there.

 Occasionally, bakeries or fast food restaurants will provide to-go bags, but I’ve been charged for them, too. As far as I know, Burger King doesn’t charge for their bags. (Yes, we have eaten at BK one time since we got here. What can I say, we’re weak.) Here’s what those places won’t do for customers: anything non-standard.

 I’m talking about non-standard as in, when buying a large sandwich, cutting it in half. That happened to me again today in Prague. We were going to be on the train from noon until dinnertime, so we bought sandwiches at the train station. They were great-looking ham and cheese on croissants with lettuce and tomato. Because we would have to wrestle them in our seats with those little tray tables, I asked, “Would you cut those in half please?”

 “No,” the otherwise nice young woman replied. I thought she didn’t understand my English, so I tried again. “I just need them cut into two pieces,” I said as I pantomimed cutting. “No,” she said again and gave me a flat stare. Still baffled, I opened my mouth once more, but before I could say anything Michael intervened. “They aren’t going to cut the sandwiches, Lane. Let it go.”

 It’s apparently a thing here: you get what you get and you don’t get upset. Like in preschool.

 Something they do very right is arrange the screw tops on items like plastic bottles and milk cartons so that they don’t fall off after you open them.

It’s an ingenious little adjustment—two rings instead of one around the opening. The top ring unscrews from the bottle, but it doesn’t detach from the bottom ring. Voila! Your cap can’t fall off your bottle and you don’t have to mess with it at all after opening.

 I dropped the cap off a gallon of milk back home before we left and it rolled under my stove. Despite a valiant effort with first my arm and then a broom, the cap disappeared as if it had never existed. The milk went back into the fridge open, where it could pick up food odors and slosh around when picked up. I told Michael we should save the cap off our next empty in case of future losses. In Europe, it wouldn’t have happened.

 Tipping is another area of difference. Europeans don’t expect to be tipped and are happy if you do give them something extra. One way that is done—if you are pleased with your service—is to round up the bill to the next larger number. A 27-euro dinner rounds up to 30 euros, for example. On the card machines that offer tipping, the amounts you can choose from are 8%, 10%, 15%, or custom. We’ve been tipping modestly for good service and more generously for excellent service, but feel no pressure to tip at all for anything less than good.

 A big difference that we had the misfortune to discover practically upon arrival (because Michael was not feeling well) is how pharmacies work. A few definitions first. A pharmacy mostly sells drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter. The pharmacist talks to you and decides what you need. No doctor required unless it’s a regulated prescription, then you get sent to a doctor.

 Drug stores as we know them exist, but they don’t sell any drugs. They sell supplements and salves, lotions and potions, but anything resembling an actual drug (even OTC) you get from the pharmacy. Pharmacies sell cough drops, not drug stores. And groceries don’t sell anything but food and beverages as far as we’ve seen. In our experience, they are very small and local even when they are part of a big chain.

 And that points up another difference. There are cars in Vienna, but most people use public transportation or walk. The people we see every day aren’t making big grocery store runs because they have to get the food home on foot. I’ve seen some older people pulling wheeled grocery totes, but even those don’t look particularly full.

 And speaking of old people, they’re everywhere with their canes and walkers, shambling along, because, I presume, the culture is based on getting around on your own two feet. Michael and I have never walked so much in our lives. We don’t have step counters, but others in our group do and they’re regularly getting 13,000-15,000 steps per day. And, I might as well admit it. We discovered on this trip that we are indeed old people.

 I don’t say that flippantly. When you drive everywhere and mostly walk from the parking lot to your destination, it’s easy to feel like you are fit and doing fine. Here, on a daily basis, we walk two blocks to the tram, ride it and then walk more blocks to whichever transfer we’re making (tram, bus, or underground), then (often) walk more blocks to the next transfer, THEN we walk to the destination. It’s not the same as jaunting from the Kroger parking lot into the store…

 I haven’t exhausted the list of differences, but I have run out of steam after traveling all day.

 What about you? Where have you been that cultural differences surprised you either for good or for bad?

Ciao