It's a cultural thing...

This past week has been the same. Helping with the kids, eating good German bread, the usual. I don't need to go into detail about every single moment of every single day. It is often tedious, and boring.

Instead I would like to share with you what has been weighing on my mind. Cultural differences. It has been sweltering hot this past week (due in part to global warming, no doubt), and although we did go to the public pool a few times, on Saturday I needed to get some shopping done. So I headed out on my own and took the bus into town. It was hotter than it is in the little village I'm staying in, to be sure. I had thought, however, that some of the stores would have air conditioning on-and I was correct, they did. But it was on so low it didn't do a hell of a lot of good-especially since the stores were more crowded than I had anticipated.

So, instead of enjoying a relaxing day of site-seeing and shopping, I chose to buy everything as quickly as possible. Upon doing so, I then decided to try and sit down outside at an outdoor cafe. I had thought sitting under one of those giant umbrellas, reading and drinking an Eis-Schokolade would be well worth putting up with the heat. It was nice, for about five minutes. I quickly paid and took the next bus back home.

As I sat in my basement room, nice and cool, I started to think more and more about cultural differences. Why don't Germans use air conditioning? Why do they leave their doors and windows open (without screens, mind you) and let bugs in? Why do they drink that horrible bubbly water? Why is the service at restaurants so bad? And then I realized, due to the heat, that I was thinking of everything wrong with the country I am currently in instead of everything that is right about it. I walk everywhere here, and when the distance is too far, I use the excellent public transportation. They have the best Italian ice cream, amazing bread, and the yogurt with chocolate balls that I love so much. They have adorable postcards and stationary, trendy clothes from H&M, S. Oliver, and Esprit. They have beautiful greenery everywhere, open-air markets, and pedestrian only shopping zones. *It's all in the way you look at things.*

:) Bye, Molly