America Wins

I shit on America a lot, and I still stand by what I’ve said. We’re loud, arrogant, wasteful, “independent” to a bad extreme, too religious, and willfully ignorant. We have crappy-to-non-existent public transportation and a terrible healthcare system. We do a lot of things wrong.

But there are some things that America wins pretty consistently, and this post is about those. 

1) Plumbing. I’m not talking toilets specifically, because there’s a whole thing with different toilet designs around the world, and I don’t think America has it quite right. But the water that gets to those toilets? And sinks and showers…well, we kick ass in this department. We have had showers that are hot for 30 seconds, then cold. Or cold the whole time. Or alternating between scalding and freezing for the entire shower. In our first stop in Civitavecchia, our hotel just lost water entirely at least three times over our short stay. Sagan got screwed twice, with it running out just as he was getting in. Mike had it even worse when he got as far as being covered in soap and then, bam, no more water for you!

Garbage disposals are unheard of. Dishwashers are useless. Oh, and flushing is a literal crapshoot every time. Sometimes you flush once, and that’s it. Sometimes it’s flush, then flush again for it to really “take.” Sometimes flushing just sorta fizzles out, and you hope that sometime later that day you’ll get to try again. 

2) Bottled water. 

WTAF, Europe? Americans are known for their wastefulness, but just try to get a glass of (free!) tap water in a restaurant. It has nothing to do with water safety or taste. The tap water is fine. But they will bring you bottles of water - usually plastic - every damn time. It kills us. But we’re thirsty, so we get it. Whenever we have the option, we refill our own bottles and carry them with us. I cannot understand what is happening in these countries. Have they not gotten the memo?

3) Smoking.Speaking of memos, would someone like to break it to Europeans that smoking is bad for you? Because I’m pretty sure they’re all in a race to die by lung cancer. It is completely bizarre to us and especially to the kids how many people smoke. Even weirder, it seems to be more common in the UK than in some of the grittier countries in southern Europe. (Paris was INSANE with the smoking. Every single table at a restaurant would have at least one smoker at it, 100% of the time.)

4) Shower shelves.This could possibly be a subcategory of plumbing, but it deserves its own section. Bathtubs aren’t common, so there’s no setting your shampoo bottle or soap down on the edge of the tub. No big deal. You’ll just put it on the shelf, then, right? But, ummmm <looks around> where’s a shelf? I seriously don’t know. Do Europeans just keep their bars of soap on the shower floor? Gross. I do know they don’t have a problem using vast quantities of plastic bottles, so shower gels and such are common. But even then, do you really want to have to step over and around your toiletries every day of your life? 

5) Bidets.

Yes, yes, another subsection. For the record, I am Team TP. I have tried bidets, and that’s a no from me, dawg. I absolutely understand why I should like them better, and in theory, I do. But the new ones are just high-powered enemas in my experience. And the old ones like they have here…well, I don’t get any part of them. Are you supposed to poop, then jump off the toilet seat and sit on the other one? But there’s no seat. So do you squat over it? And what if something drips or drops between devices? So, okay, let’s say you get over to the bidet and you do know whether to sit or squat…do you face the faucet or away from it? And if it points down, what’s it hitting? You can move the nozzles a tiny bit, but not enough to really control the aim in any useful way. But okay, fine, let’s say you make it over there, and you know how/if to sit, and you get yourself washed off. And I’ll even say that you somehow miraculously don’t get your pants/underwear/legs wet. There’s usually a hand towel hanging next to it. Is that…your hand towel…or, like, a <gulp> communal one? Is this a one-time use thing? Or is it like a family toothbrush? What in the world are you supposed to do with that towel?!!Mike and I discussed this for a while, and I said, “You know, what they really need is to have, like, a series of small towels. Like, you could put them on a dispenser, so each person could use what they needed. Maybe on a roll. They could even be disposable…”Team TP 4 Life.

6) Drinks.

I touched on this in my Barcelona post that got eaten by my computer (RIP post). We all know the jokes about room temperature drinks in the UK, but really, the drink situation all over Europe is sad. You pay for water for no reason (see above). Glasses of anything other than beer are tiny, and no refills. (And no, I don’t want a Big Gulp’s worth of soda. Just an amount of water that might actually quench my thirst would be good.) The more snobby a country is about their coffee, the tinier the servings. Mike basically got a shot glass of espresso on the train in Italy today. And, I know I’m far from a coffee expert, but I really don’t think the coffee here tastes better than in America. It tastes like coffee. Coffee tastes bad, unless you add a ton of milk and maybe a ton of sugar too. But it’s equally bad/good wherever we’ve been. Sorry, Italy. Your coffee is not so special.

I suppose the sodas/pops/Cokes are better here because, like in Mexico, they use real sugar. Yum! But as a family we rarely drink those, so it’s not a huge selling point. And anything else…well, they’ve got some American drinks or equivalents, but they picked all the worst ones! Monster Energy is everywhere. Red Bull is common, too. Powerade here and there. But nothing that’s sugar-free or lighter to drink. It’s weird. No LaCroix or Bubly-type drinks. No zero-calorie Vitamin Water. When you’re hot, do you really want to drink full-on orange juice? I sure don’t. Since we came down to southern Europe, I think I’d happily pay 20 euros for a case of Waterloo. Just something refreshing! If I have to pay for it and waste a bottle or can anyway, I’d rather it not be plain old water.

7) Air-conditioning (and mosquitos)

Call me soft, but living in 80-90 degree humid places without air-conditioning seems insane to me. I mean in this century, at least. We’ve been prioritizing stays with a/c this month (being further south), even over wi-fi in the case of Barcelona, because the one condition that I know I cannot tolerate when sleeping is being too hot. And we’ve gotten lucky some of the time, with a/c units that actually work. But more often we’ve gotten ones that barely qualify as air-conditioning. As I type this, we’re in a 2-bedroom hotel in Civitavecchia, with two thermostats to control the a/c. I think we have them cranked up as much as we can, though the controls are different in each room and neither is very clear. But even with them running day and night, I’m sweating. And the cute little place we stayed in Monterosso had a stand-alone thing where you had to add ice and water to it. It helped, but it was in the kids’ room, and all Mike and I had was this sad little fan. Thankfully that place was coastal enough to cool down a bit at night, but the days were a bit uncomfortable for me. (I know, I know. I’m a big, soft, spoiled baby. But we do all live on the same planet in the same year, right? There are so many inventions for this! Somebody tell Europe!)

And the related issue to this is that leaving the windows open all the time lets in mosquitos. Story and I are mosquito magnets. She seems to maybe be allergic to them, too. Her mosquito bites turn into big welts. She and I hate mosquitos. And they love us. So we get to decide, do we sweat our balls off, or do we wake up covered in itch? Because of course Europeans haven’t gotten the window screen memos, either.

8) Electricity.

I’m assuming air-conditioners aren’t more common because the electric grids rival those in Texas. (Sorry, Texas friends!) We’re constantly hunting for outlets because I think each room in a place is allotted one by law. Okay, slight exaggeration on that. But seriously. There aren’t a lot. 

And can we talk about how light switches for a room are so often outside of the room? I have to assume that big brothers all over Europe are constantly torturing their younger siblings by turning off the bathroom light while the little ones are peeing. Who’s brilliant idea was it to give control only to people outside of the room that needs lighting?

9) Appliances.

Along the same lines…appliances. (This one’s for you, Tammo!) I’m actually okay with the lack of dryers in most places. I am not one who “loves the smell of line-dried laundry” because man do I love warm clothes coming out of a dryer smelling like fabric softener! But air-drying is certainly better for the planet, and in many places, it’s pretty efficient anyway. Along the Italian coast, I would not say it’s efficient at all, but I do like how laundry has become part of the scenery. It’s charming. 

But the washing machines, I’m gonna complain about those. They are tiny. They are slow. Or they’re so fast that they don’t clean anything. There doesn’t seem to be an in-between that my Google Translate has found in any language so far. We hadn’t been able to do laundry for a stretch, and then we basically spent our entire time in Cinque Terre trying to play catch-up on it. It didn’t help that our last load before packing was still hanging on the line when there was a downpour of rain.

And as I mentioned above, dishwashers are just taking up space, and there are no garbage disposals. Hot water heaters...don’t get me started. Those are a combo of appliance/electricity/plumbing nightmares. I’m neutral on their microwaves. Induction stovetops seem to be the thing here, and those are fine too. They certainly have their upsides. But somehow we have to re-learn the wheel (not quite reinventing) in every new place we stay. Could we please come up with a standard for how you turn the damn things on and off?

9) Wifi 

I mean…it’s not good. You know how wars were fought over spices like cinnamon or whatever, and now you just go buy it at the Piggly Wiggly? (I’ve never been to a Piggly Wiggly, but I am positive they sell cinnamon.) It feels the same here with wi-fi. It’s this rare, precious commodity that gets doled out oh so carefully. I don’t know if we’ve stayed anywhere that actually had wifi that reached every room in a house. (We haven’t been staying in big places, mind you.) This one has it in the living room. That one has it in one bedroom and maybe that corner of the kitchen. Our current hotel room says it has wifi, and sometimes it does, but sometimes it doesn’t. Or maybe it can cover one device but not two. 

I typed some of this down in the lobby, where the signal is stronger. But guess what? The doors were open to keep it cool down there, and I got attacked by mosquitos immediately. 

Oh, Europe, you silly bitch.