The Little Things...

Friends often are the best critics, are they not? That trusted confidant can expose flaws in your writing and even sometimes in your character in ways both needed and inoffensive...

One such friend, a German who I had met along with his lady love at JFK International Airport in NYC before flying over to Frankfurt, gave me some good advice on my blog. He said that one thing which interested him was the "little things" or rather, the "little differences" I mentioned previously... the little differences between life in America for instance and that in Germany.

Of course, many interesting, profound, mundane, or puzzling differences could also be found for Expats from Japan, Argentina, Turkey, Norway, or Australia living in Germany too for that matter. This is truly a universal expatriate experience I believe.

I have often felt that one of the reasons I love travel abroad so much, and even more so living abroad, is the exploration and attempted understanding of just such differences - but, also, the surprising similarities. Both can amaze, confuse, and cause us to laugh out loud!

One of the most interesting and HUMOROUS differences for me has been the concept of "the DRAFT". No, not the one where everyone gets a nice green uniform and a piece of paper saying you're going to the combat zone... ha, ha... the other one. The draft that comes from the rush of wind by an open car window as you're driving, or from a strong breeze coming through an apartment window.

The one which many Europeans, and in particular it seems, Germans, DREAD. I have only discerned bits and pieces of the complete story, here, but basically I think they feel a rush of wind or breeze - especially if you are damp or wet for some reason - is automatically a ticket to an onset of a bad cold or flu!

Coming from such an Air Conditioning-loving culture as I do, this is a bit hard and puzzling to understand. So... what you're saying is, you WON'T leave a window open on a sweltering, burning-hot train or car, but you WILL ride down a hill on your bicycle at 30 kph, wind blowing in your face? I'm not sure I follow! Ha, ha... my new friends from Kosovo & Bulgaria steadfastly claimed that a little sweat (such as from hiking on a hot day) combined with a strong draft or breeze - well, how could I do such a thing, I'll end up in a sick bed! We all had a nice laugh on that one.

Then, we have my interesting new friends from Germany who experienced an over-heated hotel room in New York City. As Olaf proclaimed "the room was at about 25 degrees C (mid-70s Fahrenheit folks), and I could not turn down the heat in any way" (paraphrasing here Olaf!)... or rather, "the only way we could moderate the temperature was to turn on the Air Conditioning, which we HATE. Every time we have done that before we always got a cold the next day!"

While I don't doubt my new friends, it does raise a bemused eyebrow for this Yankee Expatriate... having grown up with beautifully air-conditioned movie theaters on sweltering hot July days, ice-cold Coca-Colas to quench the thirst from the heat, and cool supermarkets... the idea of getting a cold from a breeze is truly incomprehensible! That said, my fellow Americans (and I as well) could certainly learn to moderate our use of natural resources to power our Air-conditioned lives, but to our friends abroad we have to ask - could we PLEASE open a window? It's HOT in here!

This all goes to show how even small things are up for exploration and discovery abroad... some things that they (and we) took for granted growing up as normal, is considered quite the opposite somewhere else. I will never grow tired of it.

Of course, you will always find the surprising similarities as well - things you just assumed would be different, and really weren't that different at all, even in some quite unusual places... but then, that's the subject of another blog.

Tschuss!

Brett