European Quirks - All days in Europe!

Beautiful, fun, inspiring Europe!  It’s an area of the world we have very much enjoyed traveling within, and hope to travel more within over the years.  We also found it to be full of what we will fondly remember as interesting quirks, and dedicate this blog post to what we have collected as our favorites, with love and appreciation for them all, of course!  

The bad news:  We have limited pictures (proof) to back up our statements below, as we did not think of this post until we had left Europe.

The good news:  If you believe our statements below, you may find yourself better prepared for your next Europe vacation!

Doritos nachos.  It is exactly as it sounds.  Do you remember a couple of years ago when Taco Bell came out with their crazy Doritos Tacos?  Well, it is something Europe has incorporated strongly.  Not the Doritos taco, per say, but the concept of every corn chip being a nacho cheese Dorito chip is imbedded in European food culture.  Would you like tortilla chips with your soup?  Doritos.  Would you like to order nachos?  Doritos covered in nacho cheese.  Brilliant marketing.

Bread bowl with a side of corn chips (doritos) in Iceland

The missing shower curtain.  Did they forget to put a shower curtain?  Nope, a shower curtain needs a shower rod to hold it up and there is certainly no sign of a fixture to hold a shower rod or curtain.  Maybe there is a shower door I just can’t see?  Nope, that is not there either.  Learning to contain the shower water within the 24 inch space allotted has been challenging, in addition to the challenge of not flooding the bathroom entirely.  We know the trick is in fully balancing how to use both the rain shower overhead and the hand held spray jet, yet somehow one of us managed to flood the bathroom every time.

Double whammy on this one.  How do you keep the blinds and/or floor dry?  No shower curtain in sight

Card operating light switch.  This is one Ines’ Dad wishes he had when her family was growing up.  The lights simply don’t turn on without the room key card inserted in the card slot controlling the master light switch.  Great for efficiency!  Not so great, however, when one person wants to stay in the room for the evening and the other person wants to go out and needs the card key to operate the elevator when returning.  Herein lies the master negotiation for how one person gets the room key and how the other person gets the headlamp.  The solution? Remembering to always ask for two keys or be prepared to fold your travel map into the size of the key card.  Otherwise, one of us gets to enjoy a cozy evening with the headlamp!

The European bed crack.  This one has been our greatest source of laughter, as almost all hotel beds in Europe that don’t specifically cater to Americans is made up of one platform bed frame and two twin mattresses, forming what is inevitably a crack right in the middle (sometimes as wide as three inches).  Ines would like to state that she is a fan of always having her own assigned blanket (each twin comes with its own).  Inevitably, one of us found ourselves wedged in the crack in the morning, but at least we had a blanket!

Our room in Salzburg, complete with a fantastic bed crack

The man coin purse.  Coins rule in European currency.  Coins represent both the value of a dollar (Euro, Kroner, Swiss Franc, etc.) sometimes two, sometimes three!  And paper money appears to only be used to make more change.  When Korey’s pockets began to jingle when he walked, we wondered how everyone carried these coins around in their pockets all day, and that's when we discovered the universal use of coin purses, made for both men and women, representing the bulk of any wallet.  We continue to not understand the fascination with coins Europe appears to have, and recommend rounding rules be applied to bring every price to a whole number, which brings us to…..

The metric system.  We know…the metric system is better and we don’t dispute this fact.  And, we now know….the entirety of Europe uses the metric system.   However, when already presented with the challenge of converting currency from American dollars to Euros (Kroners, Swiss Francs, etc.), with the type of currency and conversion rates changing every three to four days, one cannot also be expected to simultaneously convert milliliters to ounces and estimate the cost of an adult beverage, all before the wait staff returns to take your drink order!  We cannot tell you how much Korey thought he was getting a great deal on a glass of his favorite whiskey and received a mere tasting, and how many times Ines ordered a glass of wine and a half carafe was delivered to the table.  Oops!

We thought we ordered the same amount of beer.  We were a bit off.  The big one was Ines'

Push, do not pull.  We mean doors, of course!  This was one of our biggest challenges, as most doors in Europe require one to push the door from the outside to enter and pull the door from the inside to exit.  Seems simple, doesn’t it?  Well, when autopilot is in play nothing is more noticeable or frustrating to Korey than being seen fighting with a door and being reminded by Ines that the door must be pushed to enter or pulled to exit.  

What, no breakfast?  We love the reaction we have received with our general lack of taking the breakfast option provided by most European hotels.  Breakfast is typically held from 6:30am to 9am in the morning, with most hotels either including breakfast in the hotel cost or adding it on upon checking in.  We’ve entirely lost count of the number of times we have been asked the question….”What, no breakfast?” or “I see you did not book breakfast with us, was that a mistake?” or our favorite, “We missed you at breakfast today, was everything alright?”.  We simply are not big breakfast people, opting to grab a piece of fruit or yogurt, or simply choose not to wake before 9am.  We don’t mean to offend anyone by our lack of early morning digesting and simply wish not to be called out for not waking before 9am!  Sheesh.  Obviously no picture on this one.

Americans are either crocodile hunters, toothless, live in the wild, or all of the above.  Nothing is more satisfying after a long day out traveling and exploring everything the rich European culture has to offer than coming back to our hotel, struggling to not flood the bathroom floor with shower water, and settling into the two English speaking television channels, all while avoiding falling into the bed crack.  One universal theme we have discovered is that all English-speaking television shows distributed throughout Europe depict Americans as either wild animal wranglers or toothless feral humans living in the remote wilderness.  What the Europeans must think of Americans!  We were simultaneously entertained and appalled.  Can the American television industry please relax whatever international viewing laws preventing the showing of television that depicts a more well-rounded and favorable view of Americans?  Between wild game anglers and Trump, we don’t have much to defend ourselves with on this trip.  Please, we beg you…for the sake of our future international relations…and our sanity.