Random Slices of Cool

You know we’ve been trucking around a lot over here on The Continent, and in our wanderings and waitings and whatevers, there have been little things we’ve seen and noticed that are different and cool. But sometimes they’re so unconnected they don’t seem to fit into another blog post, or so small they don’t justify an entire one themselves. So here’s a random collection of neat things from our traveling and early-settling months.

Grown-ups use scooters as valid transportation around the city. I’m talking not about motor-scooters like Vespas, but those small-wheeled, foot-powered, handle-barred kick scooters you imagine my kids riding. Especially in Paris and here in Würzburg, adults of all ages and class-levels ride around the sidewalks wearing their skirts and suit jackets and carrying briefcases. A couple of times we’ve seen a kid standing close to the handlebars and a mom with a foot on behind doing the powering.

In Italy particularly, nudity for kids was a nonissue. Girls up to Maggie’s age would wear only bikini bottoms and everyone would change into and out of suits right on the beach. We saw a school arrive one day for an afternoon at the lake, and the whole class just all stripped down right there to change, and that was that. Refreshing for us, from our paranoia-crazed home country.

The double-hinged windows are awesome. They tilt in from the bottom and also swing in from the side, depending on which way you turn the handle. Means we can leave our windows cracked and not really worry about security or rain. (But come on Europe, when will screen technology make its way over here?)

Skin pigment! This may mean more to us coming from our (frankly) mono- (or at best bi-) ethnic mountain town, but there are different races of people here. And (although I’m sure there are problems of racism and discrimination that we’re not picking up on) there are people of all skin colors in all sectors of the public: dark and light business people, dark and light blue-collar commuters, dark and light beggars on the corner. (This was less true in big-city Rome and the Czech Republic.) It felt nice to be one among many.

There are more salons and hair-cutting businesses than people. Seriously, there’s, like, a hair cut place on each and every block in each and every town in Europe. Why? How are so many businesses of the same sort sustainable?

Light switches are opposite, and it still gets me every time. On is down and off is up. When we get back to the States, I will be so confused.

At a Paris park, I watched a school group initiate a water fight with their teacher. She called them together at the end of their time, one kid took the lid off his water bottle and just started throwing water at her. Her response? She took the lid of hers and got him back, and his neighbor. And soon everyone had their water bottle lids off and was running around soaking each other, refilling and dumping and refilling and dumping, for about 10 minutes. Can you imagine a US teacher running around a park with her class participating in a water fight?

Dogs are not neutered here. I don’t know if there are over-population issues in the canine community, but we have seen no strays and a lot of intact doggies. Also, we have seen many more male than female dogs, probably by half.

Europeans don’t wear hats. We are the only people wearing sun hats when it’s super bright and hot out, and the only people wearing knit hat now that the mornings are chilly and frosty. Asian tourists carry parasols for the sun; and locals wear huge scarves for the cold. We stick out a little.

And you know how we said Czech people were a little distant (*snort*)? Bill finally found a way to break through those cold exteriors, at least for the babushkas on the metro. A good solid wink from a young handsome dad will earn at least a ghost of a smile. 😉