We're all just people: Culture shock between America and Europe

I very recently flew over the Atlantic after a long visit with my family in the United States to reclaim my normal life back in Europe some kilometers from Prague. It was so recent that I still have jet lag and I'm doing most of my writing at 3:00 am. after a limited amounts of sleep. 

Neither of my homes is in a large cosmopolitan center. Both are salt-of-the-earth places where most people who are born there expect to die there. Both are conservative and traditional in their own very different ways. And both embody many of the stereotypes that Europeans and Americans hold about each other. 

In Eastern Oregon where I was visiting my family, the main excitement was the militia that had taken over a local wildlife refuge. Ranchers, guns and American football made up prominent parts of our holiday experience. And in the shops, there was always someone smiling and ready to help us part with our money in the most pleasant manner. 

Don't get me wrong. I love going into American stores. I am legally blind, and shopping is a nightmare for me if there aren't helpful shop assistants. This trip to the land of "the customer is always right" has meant that I have a nice, professional wardrobe for the first time in... well, forever really.

My luggage always weighs twice as much going east as it does going west. America is good at consumerism and I'm not immune to its charms, despite my anti-materialist leanings. This time my suitcases bulged with things like candy with natural food coloring, brown-skinned dolls, clothes that last more than a year, environmentally friendly and extremely nice-smelling soap, English-language books, real maple syrup and an ice cream maker--all things I couldn't get in Central Europe or at least not for any affordable price. 

Not coincidentally all of those things are also things that help me live the sustainable, open-minded, earth-friendly lifestyle I want to live. So, even my lapse into consumerism is still essentially in character.

And there is even more to love in American culture. I also brought back new CDs that prove that the music of my homeland just continues to get better. And I had more hugs in five weeks in America than I'm likely to encounter in the next two years in Europe--if I don't count my children.

Amsterdam Airport -- Creative Commons image by Nikodemus Siivola

As soon as I touched down in Amsterdam, on the shores of Europe--my home for the past twenty years--I got wallopped in the face with the cold, harsh reality of this continent. Not only is Amsterdam airport highly sophisticated and sleekly professional, it insists that passengers must all have highly refined tastes and be at least forty years old. The stores are all for expensive chocolates and alcohol. And according to the cleaning staff that I cornered and questioned at the beginning of my four-hour layover with two exhausted preschoolers, there is no place in the entire airport that is friendly to children, no place to even slightly recline in a chair, no soft area at all and "no lounging" allowed.

For the gods' sake! This is supposed to be Western Europe where everything is more progressive and family friendly than in Prague. But no. I might as well have landed smack in a provincial business center in Poland for all the support there was for the softer side of humanity. 

After our four-hour wait on hard tile floors and hard chairs with mandatory armrests between each seat (to prevent any sort of lounging or children sleeping at what is to their jet-lagged bodies 2:00 am), we approached the gate for our flight to Prague. Although boarding was supposed to start in fifteen minutes, there was not one KLM employee in evidence anywhere near the gate. But Europe has taught me to be patient. This is NOT the land where customers can make demands. 

Boarding time came and went and still there was no appearance of staff. I asked at other gates but none of the personnel there were KLM and they had no interest in a KLM customer with a white cane. Finally, in desperation I approached the gate for the sixth time and began inspecting it in detail with a small telescope that allows me to see things at around ten feet away. And then I saw the very small sign behind the desk saying, "Gate changed." There were plenty of announcements on the intercom but not one for this--not even once, as later admitted by KLM. They didn't consider it to be important enough to announce the change.

I frantically ushered my children up the stairs and down long hallways to the next gate and made it just in time. We don't coddle customers or people with disabilities or children here in the land of "sophistication" and "no lounging."

We made it home to Prague, utterly exhausted, and the very next day I had an appointment with an eye specialist for a check-up. There's the rub, of course.

Make that the land of "no lounging" and "free health care." Damn good, free health care.  The highly competent doctor spent over an hour with me because it's necessary once in a great while to ensure that my extremely weak eyes won't get even worse and to make sure I have absolutely the best prescriptions possible. She's conscientious, professional and, yes, sophisticated--which is very nice in an eye specialist.

Despite American stereotypes to the contrary, European health care is exceptionally good, technologically cutting-edge and rarely requires much of a wait. The throat-and-nose specialist who shares a waiting room with my eye doctor is the exception to that last rule. He doesn't believe in appointments. You just show up and wait, even if your issue is not acute or infectious. And the waiting room--which is shared by all the elderly people trying fill their glasses prescriptions--is always full of miserable sick children with ear aches and coughs.  Hey, it's a small town of only 10,000 people, so some doctors share facilities. 

The line for the throat-and-nose specialist is always huge at this time of year and even though the pediatrician had asked me to take my five-year-old son in to have his nasal tonsils checked, I was procrastinating. Even though I had to be there for the eye doctor anyway, I didn't want to drag him through that chamber of infection until spring, if I could avoid it. 

But this particular day I noticed that the line on the other side of the waiting room was oddly small by a freak chance. There was only one mother waiting with a sick child. I watched as another mother came in.

"Good day!" she said formally to the room at large.

"Good day!" we all chorused. This is Austro-Hungarian Central Europe and we are very much into polite greetings among strangers.

She walked to the door of the throat-and-nose specialist and glanced around in confusion. She turned back to look at me and the elderly people on the eye-specialist's side of the room.

"Who is the last in line for Dr. Mrazek?" she asked as standard polite behavior demands.

"I am, I think," the woman with the sick first sick child answered.

The second mother stared at her in amazement. "But how is it possible that there is no line?" she asked.

"I have no idea," the first one said with evident delight. "Have you ever heard of such a thing?" 

My husband was nearby waiting for me with our children and a surge of hope shot into me. I stood up and came over to the two women. 

"Does the doctor even know anyone is here?" I asked. "I think I might get my husband to bring my son in, since it's such good timing." 

They nodded encouragingly, but the first one said softly, "I"m not sure if he knows, but I'm too afraid to knock. You know they'll often shout at you. I don't think I can take being shouted at today. You go ahead and knock if you want to." 

The other one made a noise of understanding under her breath. "I'd be too afraid too," she admitted, clutching her coughing child closer. 

I steeled my nerves and knocked.

There was no response as is the norm, so we waited for the nurse to get around to coming out to see what the "commotion" was about. Patients don't make demands here anymore than customers do. 

"I do wish they wouldn't shout," the second mother continued.

"Yes, but I also understand," the first one comforted her. "We're all just people. Them too. They get harried and everyone has a temper, you know." 

I did get my son in with the specialist and saved a great deal of time. As I left the waiting room, I nodded and said, "Good bye" to all those still present and they all chorused back at me, "Good bye and have a nice day." 

No one smiled or tried to make me part pleasantly with my money. The "have a nice day" is a thing said from patients to other patients. And it reminded me that despite the cultural differences between Europe and America we are all just people.