We have arrived at our 4th American hotel in prague via bratislava with a small stop in brno. Road trip. Not that pretty. Hotel. Not that great. Walk to the metro to get to old town(and we just tried out the walk to the metro not even to old town). Terrible. Over it.
So to brighten my mood and this post, I thought I'd provide a list of noticing and differences between the US and Eastern Europe.
Currency-each country has had its own currency. We went from the zloty in poland and are now using a krona.
Distance-everything is in kilometers. So dad, in order to keep himself awake and nimble while he's driving does mental "exersizes" where he tries to figure out how fast he is going using mileage and then how many miles he is getting to the gallon (the gas is sold in liters here) and then how much a tank costs in $USD. As you can see the possibilities are endless.
Time-They use military time here. It's just not as satisfying to say, it's at 15 o'clock, as it is to say 4 o'clock. Although I guess it is fairly gratifying to say 1500 hours. So maybe a point for them.
Attitudes-Eastern Europeans are sticklers. About time, about directions, about rules. Our tour guide in Auschwitz-birkenau actually yelled at someone for taking a picture at the camp smiling. I understand that it's super in poor taste, but people also smile in pictures. I think intentionally bring sad may be equally patronizing.
Roads-Roundabouts EVERYWHERE!!!
Counting-unlike in the US where the first number we count is our pointer finger, they count with their thumbs first. It sounds silly but it's super weird to see someone counting with their thumb.
Smoking-its still cool. People do it everywhere, in your face. There are ashtrays for people's convenience everywhere. Somehow they have yet to learn it's unhealthy.
That's all I can think of for now.
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