Entries in Germany vs the US (1)

Friday
Mar182011

Observations from the US

Usually my trips to the US are vacation trips, and we all know vacation has little relation to reality. But this is the first time in a while I've been to the US and spent some "normal" time there. You know....getting up in the morning and going to work everyday, having a routine, etc...

For the record, it's been WONDERFUL! Except that I get really confused sometimes - at my level of German speaking, I'm used to planning in my what I'm going to say before any interaction with others. I find myself doing this, and then realizing how useless my German sentence will be to anyone here

A few random observations on life compared to Germany:

  • The food portions are huge, but the beers are small
  • Everyone walks to and from the train station, but few walk to lunch (maybe in summer??)
  • Due to construction this morning the walk/don't walk lights were out of service for most of the walk.  I think a lot of city-dwelling Germans would have been lost when the lights stayed red forever. I wonder what's the longest someone would wait before giving up and jaywalking?
  • Interestingly, everything at Starbucks has a calorie count on all its baked goods now!