REFLECTIONS

Europe is different from America. Differences are what make traveling interesting and broadening. I've mentioned how all the cities, towns and village are compact. This impression was confirmed by views from the air on our trip home. Germany was extremely neat and tidy. White houses, red roofs, compact villages in tight circles, separated by green space. France was slightly more free form with a village center with most houses clustered around it, but perhaps with a few houses spiraling along the roads between villages. There is more variation in housing styles. Still the towns are discrete, and there is green in between.

There is much more automation in Europe. Toll booths and parking lots have no attendants. You always want to have lots of Euro coins, so you aren't trapped. In one case, we had no idea how to get through a tollbooth and were freaking out. A kind lady in the car behind jumped out and helped us--of course, it was in her best interest that we made it through, but we appreciated it nonetheless.

In Europe, you're charged for what you use. I mentioned that in one Munich restaurant the waitress counted the number of pretzels we left in the basket, so she'd know how many we consumed. There's also no volume discount. A 25 centiliter beer is exactly half the price of the 50 centileter.

Then there are the roads. I apologized to my husband, several times, for not downloading European maps into our Garmin and bringing the Garmin with us. Needless to say, I wasn't going to give Avis ten Euros per day for the privilege of renting theirs--that's literally highway robbery. We managed with the folding maps I ordered before the trip, however, Garmin would have been the ticket. As I mentioned, in Europe, you don't follow a road, you follow signs to a town. For instance, one day we wanted to go from Metz to St. Mihiel. We knew the roads we wanted to take, but all the directional signs said "Luxembourg" or "Paris"--not 903, the number of the road. You don't know if the Paris road will be the autoroute or the backroad you prefer, until you are committed.

This time in Europe, I noticed how many people use bicycles for transportation--especially in cities such as Munich. I also noticed lots of Parisians on bikes two years ago when I was there. It makes a lot of sense. Parking can be a challenge, and we did not encounter severe traffic, except at Lake Constance or where there was road construction. The towns we visited were closed to traffic in the city centers. We also saw scores of bicyclists in the French countryside--so many we suspected they might have been connected with the Tour de France. These riders were the only ones who wore helmets.

Water is another issue for me in Europe. I think we saw one water fountain in two weeks. You also are not routinely offered a glass of water with meals. The Germans consider it bad form to drink tap water, so you must buy a bottle of still or fizzy water with your meal. It can cost as much as a glass of beer. The corollary is that there are very few public bathrooms, so perhaps the lack of water makes sense. There is one exception to this rule, and that is on the autoroutes of France and autobahns of Germany. There seems to be a rest stop every 30 kilometers. There were always scores of trucks at the stops, making us wonder if there were some sort of work or safety rules at play. We learned the hard way only to stop at rest stops attached to gas stations and restaurants. The free-standing bathrooms are grim.

The AT&T International Plan I bought for my iPhone was a joke. 130 megabytes of data didn't even get us out of Germany. I saved the last few megabytes for emergencies. Technology was a challenge, but I could have bought more and cheaper megabytes in Europe for my old (unlocked) iPhone. The problem was, each country has a different plan. I decided to go without connections when we couldn't access wi-fi. I was up to my eyeballs in technology problems, and I didn't want to invite more. Going primitive is not the end of the world, in fact, it's probably good for you.

Another difference that you especially notice in France is how everything stops every day between noon and 2 p.m. and all day Sunday. People actually eat big lunches with friends or family and forgo commerce.

Something else I noticed this time, as opposed to other visits to Europe, was there seemed to be babies and children everywhere. There must be a baby boom. There were also more people of African and Middle Eastern descent. There were large numbers of women in Germany wearing hajibs and niqabs. I even saw two woman in burqas which, I must admit, was quite shocking to see.

We were impressed with all the wind turbines and solar farms we saw in both countries, but especially in Germany. Many times there would be several rows of solar panels lining the autobahn for half a mile or more. They were not unattractive, and they would form a border between the road and a low-lying crop of some sort. It was a very good use of space. Sometimes you'd see a turbine all by itself, other times, there would be a string or farm of turbines. I don't think turbines mar the landscape at all. I felt like I was looking at the future, but it's a future the U.S. is not sharing.

Wind turbines in German countryside

Europe seemed very dynamic to me. Germany especially seemed to be "under construction." The people seem very healthy and their diet is far superior to that of the average American. I make an effort to buy good quality food, but our high-end choices don't compare to what's available in their mass-market groceries such as Simply or Monoprix. I think most Americans are complacent about our place in the world. We've inhabited it for a long time, and take it for granted.

I'm really surprised at how well the trip turned out. Even our mishaps became an indelible part of the experience. I am also surprised at how much the trip followed our plan. We did almost everything we hoped to do, except the Vogtsbauernhof in the Black Forest. We really loved revisiting the Route des Vins and our excursion to the World War I sites in the forests near Verdun. Our tour of Dachau was something neither of us will ever forget.

Even though the journey is over, it's not done. I'll be dreaming about it for a long, long time.