Some other observations:

- each toilet flushes differently (how many different ways can there be?)

- Parisians really DO buy a loaf of french bread every day (I loved seeing people walking home with their loaf)

- the Swiss have their streets swept clean every morning (and in the same vein, my Swiss sister-in-law vacuums her home every day)

- having to pay in a Swiss garage at a little terminal BEFORE exiting (we almost caused an international incident with this one)!

- experiencing a real connection to history when touring through castles (I just love castles!)

- seeing how tiny an elevator can really get in Paris

This is a fun thread. I know I have a lot more, but I've got to run....

Susan

In Bologna my street was swept every morning at 4 am.

Has anybody shopped here(the states) at a small discount "box" store called Aldi's? It is a German owned chain (I think I've got the facts right). Anyway, it has all those European touches-- the carts are rented for 25 cents (you get it back when the cart is returned), they carry fresh flowers for $2.99, the produce is FRESH, it is VERY clean, and it's the only store in our area where the cashiers do sit down, and you do pay a couple of cents for bags-plastic or paper. No exotic cheeses though!

Men singing in Paris. Workers--a carpenter on a ladder, a guy fixing pipes in the street--just singing away. It struck me that I hadn't heard a man singing for his own enjoyment in the regular course of the day since I was a little girl. It was so nice to hear.

jeri, I used to love shopping at Aldi's when we lived up north. My chi-chi friends couldn't believe I would shop at a place where I had to 'rent' a shopping cart, but I would laugh all the way to the bank when I would get a full load of groceries for $50. I appreciate gourmet touches, but c'mon, bananas are bananas.

In England:

immaculately manicured lawns in public green spaces

the "mind the gap" reminder when boarding and disembarking tube trains

vienna-sausage like sausages (I'm not sure if this is a British thing or Austrian thing since we stayed at an Austrian-run hotel chain)

wide-spread use of cell-phones (3 years ago) even on trains

smoking being more common than in East Coast cities

people standing out in the middle of the streets talking and socializing in some parts of downtown London at night

politeness of British men toward elderly women

The bath tubs are much deeper in France.

And those tubs don't get much use judging from what I smelled on the subway last summer.

Europeans are more conscious about recycling. In Amsterdam organic waste, chemical waste, paper and glass are sorted seperately. In Europe you have to buy your shopping bags in the market. In the Us ALDI stores is doing this. They are in EUrope and own Trader Joes in the US.

I think its more that the US has very mixed rules on recycling - here you have to separate cans, bottle, paper, cardboard etc from garbage - and there are significant fines of you don't comply. And in a lot of the NYC suburbs they also have recycling (all those little red or blue cans at the curbs one or two days a week). but I know in a lot of places they have no recycling rules at all.

nytraveler, I agree. In Amsterdam it seemed like their way of life. In nyc we are going back to recycling glass again next month. I can never remember what the rules are.