It has been a couple of weeks since I last posted up here. I have been busy and a lot has happened. I have been to Oktoberfest, took a tour of Alsace and now am packing for a trip to Eastern Europe.
Tomorrow morning, I will be heading on a 5 day excursion with 6 other friends. We are driving to Vienna, Austria, then to Bratislava, Slovakia, then to Budapest, Hungary, then to Bled, Slovenia, and back to Strasbourg. We rented a mini-van. It wasn’t too bad, but they also have the 25 year-old rule like the states. Although one girl coming with us is 25, so it saved us about 170 Euros.
I’m kicking myself in the butt right now for not pulling all my money out when I got here. When I arrived less than 2 months ago, the exchange rate was $1.26, today it is $1.41. I keep reading that Bernanke is going to start his “quantitative easing,” which means I’ll probably see the exchange rate jump up to $1.50. This little economic war with China that Japan, the U.S. and the E.U. are having better end soon or my travel plans for the rest of my stay here are about to diminish.
Alsace is amazing. When you see those Christmas pictures of snowed in town nestled in little valley’s among the mountains, you see Alsace. The history is wonderful and we toured it while they were harvesting grapes. I was supposed to go on a “class trip” but it filled up so fast that I couldn’t get in. Then four of my German friends invited me with them. We drove one of their cars and followed the tour bus. It was awesome. We saw a monastery, a castle and different Alsascian villages.
While driving with them, it was the usual sorting through cultural stereotypes, stigmas and other B.S. that people get jumbled in their head when they know nothing about other cultures. Since I have been here the biggest thing I have learned is that nobody really knows anyone else’s culture, including me (but I will speak further about this later). They made a good point about something, and it was cars. We were driving 5 in a Ford Focus, not like the ones we have in the states. It was quite small, but overall not too bad. The engine was 1.6 L and had about 90 hp. We talked about my truck, 5.7L with over 300 hp, and they were amazed. First, the biggest motor they have in Germany is our smallest motor, 2.0L roughly. Lukas, the driver and owner of the car, made a good point. He said “I don’t understand why you need 300 hp, I have 90 and I do 110mph (I converted it from kph) on the autobahn and you can only do 75 mph, legally, max.” I thought to myself, that is a damned good point. Why do Americans drive such big cars and trucks? Well I had to let him in on a little American secret, Americans like big things. If we were really concerned about resource conservation we would have smaller houses, smaller engines, and smaller eating plates. He asked about gas, and I had to let him know that we pay 60% less for gas than they do here in Europe, although he knew gas was fairly cheap in the U.S.
And houses, I was using Google Earth to show some friends my parent’s house in St. Chuck where I grew up. The first thing out of their mouth was, “Wow, America is just like the Simpsons.” I had to think for a second, but next time you watch the Simpsons, think of how much it resembles suburbia! I saw some of their houses, all in apartment looking buildings with no yards or anything. It is one of those things you really never think about, but once you do, it explains a lot about value differences. First off, houses are jammed into what we would call apartment buildings. They don’t believe in mechanical dryers here. I have what looks like a heated towel rack…that is my clothes dryer. And the washing machine is awful small, but any bigger and I’d be washing more clothes than I could dry. When I first got here, I saw my roommates washing clothes in the sink. I thought that was weird, until I realized that it isn’t uncommon for them to do that. Then something made sense, AMERICANS DON’T REALIZE HOW CONVIENTANT THEIR LIVES ARE.While we, Americans, value timeliness and convenience, the meaning of those two words are different in Europe.
The biggest difference between Europe and America is a simple idea which is the basis for the cultural differences. Some conservative Americans would call it Socialism, but I will refer to it as Collective Thinking. Where Americans think primarily of themselves first then others around them secondly, Europeans think of others around them first and then themselves second. That is why such things as governmental health care and other programs the U.S. is trying to model after the E.U. might be doomed to fail form the beginning. First off, nobody here self-medicates. I never realized how self-medicated Americans are. I was coming back from Oktoberfest and had quite the hangover. We stop 5 times and 5 different gas stations, none of which had Aspirin. I then asked my friends if they even carry it, and they said “No, you need to go to the pharmacy.” So when a Euro is sick, they might have some type of medication, but they let it ride its course. Nope, not in America! We see the doctor twice and get 3 weeks of prescription medicine for a cold, which we only use 1 week and the rest rots in the medicine cabinet until spring cleaning. Now I see why healthcare can cost so much, not including the issue of malpractice insurance and such. Here, they get sick…no doctor visits (even though it is FREE) and no medicine. Maybe some aspirin for the aches or some over-the-counter antibiotic from the pharmacy, but that is pretty much it.
So enough about Socio-Economic babble, and onto Oktoberfest. Without exaggeration, words cannot express what Oktoberfest is. That only word to describe it is simply, Oktoberfest. I went with a school group and it was about 115 people who took 2 tour busses. We met about 9PM the day before at the School and tried many different German beers. Then we left at midnight and arrived in Munich around 6:30 am. The first thing we did was have a French breakfast…cookies and orange juice. That isn’t what they really eat for breakfast, we non-French poke fun at the French because they tend to lack perception. We will be drinking for all day, and do you think cookies and orange juice is supposed to be a good foundation? Anyways, so we started drinking again at 6:30 AM and headed to the fairgrounds. We arrived by foot at 7AM and the lines were starting to get long. At the tents, which are just huge temporary buildings, only let a certain amount of people in then it is done. So we got in line 2 hours before it opened, and boy was that a good call. When we arrived at 7AM, we saw about 5,000 people and at 9AM, close to 25,000. When the doors opened, all you felt was pushing from every angle, it was mob mentality. They have big bouncers with interlocked arms attempting to hold the crowd back, and they did. When we got inside, after about 15 minutes of non-stop pushing, the bouncers checked your bag. Well nobody told me that I couldn’t bring anything into the tent. I assumed food and stuff was a no-no, but since I planned on drinking a lot, I pack 5L of water. The look on the bouncers face was priceless when he saw how much water, but he took it all away.
We were finally in and I swear it is what any picture of heaven could look like, it was the Paulaner tent. Check out my facebook photos to see. The beer is served by 1L and is called a maß (pronounced “mass” the ß sounds like “ss”, In Germany, the signs to Strasbourg say Straßburg). It was awesome; I have never seen so many happy people in my life. In America, with a crowd this big and this drunk you would expect to see fights. Not in Germany! I saw happy, and later on in the day passed out, people. Everyone was everybody’s friend, didn’t matter what nationality. When you met someone, it was “Prost!” (This is German for “Cheers”). I have never experienced anything like it and I have found my new life’s goal, I’m going to start an Oktoberfest in St. Chuck that will rival Munich’s. I have so much I can say about Oktoberfest, but I will spend the $1200 for a round trip ticket just to come back to it next year. It is a huge festival for everyone, not just beer lovers. They have carnival rides and food on top of the beer tents. It is now primarily a foreign attraction; a vast majority of the people weren’t German at all. I don’t know how to express it in words, but all I can say is go visit. I can guarantee it will be worth every penny! You need at least 4-5 Days in Munich for Oktoberfest. Munich is a very nice city and the festival is huge.
Now I feel like a giggly school boy talking about the class hottie, yes Oktoberfest is on that level, I do think I have found a new love. Anyways, onto other things. Vending machines, I don’t think Strasbourg has been introduced to them. Nowhere are there vending machines. Found that out the other day when everyone in France was striking, I needed a snack and all food places on campus were closed. The favorite pastime of the French is to strike. When one group strikes about an issue, they all go on strike. It is quite annoying because they like to walk in the middle of the tram tracks, and the government lets them do it. So trams get shut down, I have to walk a ½ hour to class, and it just makes for a bad day. The biggest issue over here is the French government is thinking about rising the retirement age. Let me tell you something, the French value, and I mean VALUE, their free time. They value it so much that they take lunch from 11AM – 2PM.
So onto that point I said I would discuss further on in this blog. AMERCIAN COLLEGIANS, BE VERY AFRAID, THE CHINESE, RUSSIANS and INDIANS ARE COMING FOR YOUR JOB. These three cultures have an extremely high standard when it comes to education and I see them, speak with them, and are friends with a lot of them. They have drive and ambition that will rival most American entrepreneurs. They are on the cusp of, in my opinion, of culture change and they are ready to be successful. They speak 3-6 languages, fluently, and have working experience in multiple countries. They don’t stop at their bachelors; they go straight to the masters. College isn’t finished for them until they have a masters degree.
And talk about not understanding culture. I remember hearing Obama talk about wanting to require American collegians to spend a year to two abroad. I thought to myself at that time, “ehh, I do understand the value, but I still question the necessity.” Holy hell have I been sold on this argument. I think that American student should spend at least a year in another culture. The things you learn, the perspectives, the reasoning, and the logic. I see these Chinese, Russian and India students and I am quite jealous of them. They have been educated in 2-4 different cultures/countries and they have a breadth of cultural knowledge and experience that would make a Fortune 500 HR foam at the mouth.
I always like to have conversations with others about America; it is insightful to see exactly where their perceptions (and misconceptions) come from. To wrap this up, because it is late and I need to get to bed; our media screws us, flat out. When you don’t understand America from an American perspective, you cannot understand our media. When you hear me talk about the French, it might sound like they are lazy. Actually quite opposite, you just have to understand they values and beliefs. It is really amazing that when you pull back the cloak of cultural differences, everybody values the same Macro-ideas.
Bonne Nuit!
Billy
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