Saturday, September 11, 2010

Is Europe a third world country?

Following up on last week's rant, why would an American arriving for the first time in Europe think he arrived in a third world country?

  1. Cars are tiny, many people use bicycles or walk.
  2. Food portions are small and rationed.
  3. People live on top of each other.
  4. Lots of idle people in the streets.
  5. Many places do not accept plastic money, including hotels.
  6. Ethnic hatred going far back in time.
  7. No shyness about being naked.
  8. Many monarchies.
  9. And... passports are checked when you leave.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice try but it doesn't really work, does it? Not even close...

Not that Europe doesn't have its problems, of course!

Andrew said...

Interesting stuff. Good companion to the U.S. one from last week.

You forgot that in europe you get your choice of paying to use a washroom or a hole in the ground. :)

Anonymous said...

Plus the architecture is way too old. . or is that a feature and not a bug?

Seriously though, revealed preference means USA > Europe. Europeans have zero business culture. Not to mention compared to the suburbs of say Boston, Europe is really, really dirty.

Unknown said...

Apart from car, food and monarchy issues, US is not that different from Europe.

...

All right, US people may have a comparatively bigger house.

Anonymous said...

I don’t know who really wrote this article....but seriously I have my doubts about where in Europe have you been…..
Any hotel in Europe accept plastic money…if they didn’t you haven’t been in a hotel….maybe it was a motel, a backpackers….….. at the moment Europe is more advance in electronic payments than Remember than in the US is still using checks….its very strange if you find someone in Europe using checks…it was over almost 10 yrs ago…..
Houses are smaller….. it´s true, but are made of concrete and not of wood….. because houses have foundations…. You have big houses because you need to create a safe space for your children…..well, we don’t have that problem…..
Old buildings…… are culture….not a copy…….hope I don’t need to explain that….we have our own culture…..
People in the streets….indeed, we are not afraid about our safety…we can walk in our cities and we don’t need to drive everywhere if we don’t want…..
Food portions are smaller…..of course, we eat for live and we don’t live for eat….i don’t have to remember about overweight in the US, do I?
We don’t live in a state of frightful, nobody is going to attack us…..and we don’t make any invention about it neither…..
US is happy playing wars…..i understand, that´s something that happened in Europe 200-300-400-500….yrs ago…..so, maybe US is living in the Middle Ages, thinking in wars and conquers trying to be the avenging of the world….
Many monarchies….indeed, monarchies are history, tradition and made us proud….. (you can watch History Channel….)
Passports are checked when you leave….. of course, but have you ever been in a passport control in the US?....no comments…..It´s a shame…..
And… in Europe EVERYBODY knows where America is……could you say the same about Europe? Are US citizens thinking that Spain is in Mexico????
I could continue…. Social Security Services, taxes, culture, better quality of life, retirements ….
And remember, we travel to US for shopping and money…..US travel to Europe to learn and discover where you come from……
And, remember, Us culture is work, Europe culture is live!!!!!!! Big difference….

Anonymous said...

All houses in Europe are smaller and ridiculously expensive (hence you currently have a debt crisis) where as in America not all houses are made of wood or if you can't find one you can easily buy yourself a large plot of land and build a brick house BRICK not cheap concrete. And our houses are not glued together and we don't share walls with our neighbors.

We have big houses because we want big houses not cause we are afraid we will get attacked. And its not like our houses are big its just Europe's houses which are tiny. We have large gardens for children to play, to have barbecues, parties etc in private and not on the street.

Old buildings are indeed culture and should be preserved, we also have our old buildings e.g. Chrysler building, but what they are talking about is old half unmaintained unpreserved houses which have absolutely no historical value and absolutely no one wants to live in them IMO they should be demolished.

We don't walk on the street not because we are scared (although we do have areas where we would be scared but so does Europe) but because distances are greater and we can't walk that far. Not saying this is an advantage of America but those who want to walk will live in the city and those who want gardens, outdoor space live in the suburbs.

The problem is not the food portions being small but the small food portions being ridiculously expensive, costing more than double the largest portions in the US.

US is happy playing wars but you forget Europe is happy playing along.

Monarchies are history and should be history, the fact that you had it 500 years ago doesn't mean you should have it now.