Before moving to Europe this year, the sum total of my time
on this continent was 3 weeks. If that was dipping my toe in the water, this
year could only be described as jumping into the deep end of Euro-life. In
2014, I have spent only 40 days in the US.
As my time over here this year winds down and I become
increasingly homesick, I’ve thought about all that I will and won’t miss from
this side of the pond. I made a list of everything that is quintessentially
American—seemingly insignificant facets of the country I grew up in, but that I
find myself missing now.
It is likely no surprise that the thing I miss most from the
homeland is food. Not just American food, but food in America. Want Thai food
at 6pm? Got a sudden hankering for pancakes in the afternoon? Can’t decide if
you want Italian, Mexican, Chinese, or juicy steak? In America, you just find a
strip-mall with all of the above restaurants at whatever time the mood strikes
and go for it.
I have dozens of incredible Italian restaurants just a short
walk from my apartment. I could eat myself into a pizza-and-pasta coma (but
only after 7pm) any day of the week without visiting the same place twice. It
doesn’t matter what I’m in the mood for, I’m having Italian for dinner. Variety
is the spice of life, but the spice rack over here has just basil and oregano.
Thankfully, mercifully, the supermarket has a few racks of imported foods that
give me a taste of home. Of course the prices are premium, but BBQ sauce and
Thai sweet chili sauce go a long way when it comes to sanity. Side note:
Italian grocery stores have pasta AISLES. Plural.
Speaking of, I will never understand Europe’s widespread
avoidance of condiments. It only seems logical that your sandwich of awesome
bread, great meat, and tasty cheese would be well-complemented by some spicy
chipotle sauce, but maybe that’s just my typical American decadence speaking?
Just because the supermarket has imported foods, though,
doesn’t mean they’ll be good. I have left the Mexican rack alone--I can’t even
see the expiration dates on the salsa because they’re so dust-covered. Maybe
I’ll crack in another week, though.
I celebrated the end of my season with a pint of Ben and
Jerry’s (they actually have it, and it only costs as much as a pizza!), which
is how I learned not to buy American ice cream in Italy. It’s been sitting
there so long that it crystallized from so many thaw/freeze cycles of being
moved from freezer to freezer while awaiting a particularly homesick bike
racer.
Say you’re going out for dinner in Europe. You can sit
inside, but it’s a lovely fall evening and the weather is fantastic. Of course
you’d like to dine outside, and why shouldn’t you? Oh, right, because your
dinner might be ruined by the smoky intermingling of cigarettes and two-stroke
scooter exhaust.
I miss America, where cigarette smokers are the rightfully
vilified minority (I may be a bit biased on this topic, as their disgusting
habit is why I must preempt any judgment on my Dad’s cancer with the
oft-repeated “no, he never smoked”), rather than the behind-the-times majority
who can’t be bothered to account for the wind’s direction or the sensibilities
of other humans. Side note: I hate few things in life as much as somebody
having a smoke upwind of me while watching me warm up for a time trial. It
happens way too often.
In America, your dinner is accompanied by unlimited free
water in a glass that is filled to the brim with ice cubes, even though the AC
in the restaurant is cranked to ‘Arctic’. You finish dinner and drive to your
hotel in your big SUV that would lose its mirrors driving through any of the
small villages around Italy, and lay in your oversized hotel bed while flipping
through the myriad TV channels, all of which feature the original audio track
rather than the dubbed-over versions that dominate European media. Your phone
is charging while you watch How To Train Your Dragon for the third time
(because you only caught the second half the first two times), because you
don’t have to choose between recharging your phone and watching TV, as the
hotel room has 37 outlets to meet your electricity needs from any location. The
movie finishes and it only takes 2 seconds to check your email because the
internet in America moves faster than a door-busting shopper on Black Friday.
Caught up on email, you feel like taking a shower before bed.
You wouldn’t think it would be such a big deal, but I really
miss American showers. Showers that make sense. American showers are big enough
to bend down and shave my legs without banging my head into the door or bumping
into the handle and turning the water to freezing cold. European showers that
actually have a door are just small vertical tubes that Americans who find
themselves on the right side of the waist-size bell curve would vehemently
protest.
Odds are, however, that the shower is one of the open-air
bathtubs with the plastic divider as a half-hearted attempt at keeping the
water in the tub. If the shower head is actually high enough to stand under
without bending over, it’s assuredly one of those adjustable-height numbers
that is worn out and constantly slides down while rotating to spray the wall
instead. The lukewarm water, in the short time that it sprays you before
returning to the wall, fails to combat the cold air attacking you from all
sides, as the absence of a door or shower curtain allows any warming water
vapor to escape.
Dissatisfying shower completed, you go to step out, but
realize that you forgot the floormat on the other side of the bathroom. Now you
nearly bust your head because every European shower is a foot (that’s right, an
American measurement) above the floor, so you must awkwardly step down onto a
surface covered in water because that little plastic divider works about as
well as a mesh umbrella.
And that’s just the AVERAGE European shower. I’ve seen some
truly baffling ones this year. At our altitude camp in the French alps, I spent
3 weeks trying to figure out how I was supposed to use the shower. I have an
engineering degree and was confounded by a shower. The plastic divider reached
no further beyond the slanted back of the tub, with the faucet at the other
end, where the mount for the shower head was at waist height. I found that if I
took my showers sitting down while holding the shower head with the water
barely flowing, I could limit spillage to just what the towel could absorb.
In America, you can go out in public without considering
your future restroom needs, as nobody is going to charge you for a visit to the
Water Closet. I have never paid to use a toilet out of principle--my American
pride would rather suffer a bladder fit to burst than pay for the privilege of
using a public toilet!
I hope you enjoyed my tirade. I really do enjoy Europe and
its culture, and my litany of trivial gripes will be quickly forgotten after an
evening of watching real football while eating a big juicy burger at home. I’m
counting down the days!
