In my travel abroad summer semester I've noticed several things:
1). Free water-- Italians can't seem to comprehend that water from the tap should be free. They insist on charging 3 euros for it.
2). Movies-- In the states, the 20 minutes before the movie are interesting 2 minute previews and entertaining commercials. Usually applicable to the genre of the movie you're about to watch. In Europe, there are 15 minutes of mind numbing, boring commercials, and about 7 minutes of previews to movies that are unrelated to the one you're seeing.
3). Movies-- People in the states don't talk much during the movies. Europe, they do.
4). Gas-- $9/gallon in GB. Insane taxes. Yet public transit still costs 3 pounds.
5). People more relaxed in Europe-- when you live in a country that has architecture from 2000 years ago that the whole world comes to visit, deciding to close shop on any given day of the week, because you don't feel like coming in, isn't a problem and doesn't affect your business. In the states, you have to attract customers by good service. Not so in many places in Europe, they just don't care, because 90% of their customers won't ever be coming back.
6). GB-- 5 privatized railways under the umbrella of the government is the worst of both worlds (government and privatized). If you miss your train due to a fault of the railway, they won't coordinate with one of the other companies to get you to your destination before the night is over, even though the train goes straight there. Doesn't matter, because that is a different rail company. You can't complain to the rail company, because they are sanctioned by the government and aren't in danger of losing business to a competitor. But you can't complain to the government, because it's 5 different privatized companies. Result is massive loss of efficiency.
7). Cheap, free, open internet? At Oxford, their IT group doesn't allow the use of any p2p programs except Skype. No ooVoo for chatting with friends back home. Also, free wireless is very rare. Most places charge about 7 euro/hour of internet.
8). Food is cheaper-- hard to get a nice portion of food for any reasonable amount of money. Past about 15 euros at nice restaurants they just start decorating your food and drawing pictures and making it look nice; they don't give you more. No I'm not fat. I just miss being full for a reasonable amount of money. I used to think $8 for burgers and fries was a lot, here it's 10 euros or 10 pounds. Rough on the wallet.
So these are just some thoughts I've had lately.
updates:
9). Can hardly use your credit card anywhere in europe
10). They are incredibly inconvenienced to have to split the check up between multiple people eating at the same table. Since service (tip) is automatically included in the bill, they have no reason to be flexible.
Roundabouts are nice, though.
2nd update:
Most important: Healthcare. In GB there is no economic incentive for research. If it weren't for American research and technology, GB wouldn't have anything to buy to treat people with; they'd be stuck using their same old technology.
1). Free water-- Italians can't seem to comprehend that water from the tap should be free. They insist on charging 3 euros for it.
2). Movies-- In the states, the 20 minutes before the movie are interesting 2 minute previews and entertaining commercials. Usually applicable to the genre of the movie you're about to watch. In Europe, there are 15 minutes of mind numbing, boring commercials, and about 7 minutes of previews to movies that are unrelated to the one you're seeing.
3). Movies-- People in the states don't talk much during the movies. Europe, they do.
4). Gas-- $9/gallon in GB. Insane taxes. Yet public transit still costs 3 pounds.
5). People more relaxed in Europe-- when you live in a country that has architecture from 2000 years ago that the whole world comes to visit, deciding to close shop on any given day of the week, because you don't feel like coming in, isn't a problem and doesn't affect your business. In the states, you have to attract customers by good service. Not so in many places in Europe, they just don't care, because 90% of their customers won't ever be coming back.
6). GB-- 5 privatized railways under the umbrella of the government is the worst of both worlds (government and privatized). If you miss your train due to a fault of the railway, they won't coordinate with one of the other companies to get you to your destination before the night is over, even though the train goes straight there. Doesn't matter, because that is a different rail company. You can't complain to the rail company, because they are sanctioned by the government and aren't in danger of losing business to a competitor. But you can't complain to the government, because it's 5 different privatized companies. Result is massive loss of efficiency.
7). Cheap, free, open internet? At Oxford, their IT group doesn't allow the use of any p2p programs except Skype. No ooVoo for chatting with friends back home. Also, free wireless is very rare. Most places charge about 7 euro/hour of internet.
8). Food is cheaper-- hard to get a nice portion of food for any reasonable amount of money. Past about 15 euros at nice restaurants they just start decorating your food and drawing pictures and making it look nice; they don't give you more. No I'm not fat. I just miss being full for a reasonable amount of money. I used to think $8 for burgers and fries was a lot, here it's 10 euros or 10 pounds. Rough on the wallet.
So these are just some thoughts I've had lately.
updates:
9). Can hardly use your credit card anywhere in europe
10). They are incredibly inconvenienced to have to split the check up between multiple people eating at the same table. Since service (tip) is automatically included in the bill, they have no reason to be flexible.
Roundabouts are nice, though.
2nd update:
Most important: Healthcare. In GB there is no economic incentive for research. If it weren't for American research and technology, GB wouldn't have anything to buy to treat people with; they'd be stuck using their same old technology.