European trip

Just back from 10 days in Northern Europe including a 7 day cruise.  Some observations:

1.  Hardly any males wear baseball caps, white athletic shoes, or white socks in Europe.

2.  In Copenhagen and Amsterdam bikes are everywhere.  I mean like thousands and thousands and thousands of bikes.  Supposedly 36% of people in Copenhagen commute to work on bikes. The Amsterdam Central Rail Station has a bike parking garage that holds 2500 bikes.  It was full.  Separate bike lanes are built into all the streets, set off from the vehicles by a curb.  My wife and I, avid cyclists, thought we might rent bikes there, but after witnessing the craziness, decided to opt for the relative safety of walking and using public transit.

3.  Tours offered by the cruise lines are major ripoffs.  Instead of paying for the $70 or $80 per person organized tours, we bought transit passes at the info centers for around $7 or $8 good for the whole day on any public conveyance.  Armed with a transit map we were able to see everything on many of the tours at our own pace and mingle with the locals.

4.  Except in Germany we found that the language barrier was no problem.  That we visited major cities helped.  In Copenhagen and Oslo everyone seemed to speak some English, to the point that you could stop someone on the street to ask directions and they would speak English.  We were told that all the kids learned English in school.

5.  How big are Nordic winter sports in Norway?  At a stadium next to the famous Holmenkollen Ski Jump we watched contestants in a mid-September Nordic ski race enter the arena for their final lap.  The cross country ski trails were paved and the skiers were on roller skis.  The arena had several thousand spectators, a diamond-vision giant screen showing the action, and a huge electronic scoreboard with the updated results posted.  When we returned to the ship, I turned on the TV and found the event being televised live on the Norway station.

6.  On the train out to the ski jump outside Oslo, we passed a small stadium where an American football game was being played.  It looked like a high school game.  The stands were half full, and the one play I saw looked like any other football game in the USA.  I was shocked.

7.  Culture shock:  When do Europeans use the bathroom?  You would think that with thousands and thousands of people walking around, European cities would have ubiquitous public restrooms.  Not so.  Finding a "toilet" became one of the most difficult tasks of our excursions.  A further shock:  on finding one we normally had to come up with .75 Euro to use it.  A dollar to piss ... talk about capitalism and a recession-proof business.