The final installment in our series of Euro/US comparisons, “Clash of the Continents 3: The Incontinence,” will be judged in a similar manner to the previous installment. That is, the grading scale will be in PIPs (Portman isn't Preggers, for those of you new to the system), with 10 PIPs signifying my belief in a world where Natalie Portman and I are married and divorce in illegal, and 1 PIP signifying a high likelihood of me rage-punting a Pomeranian if you use the words “Millipied,” “pregnant,” or “Milan” in my presence.
THINGS THE UNITED STATES GOT RIGHT:
ESPN – I tend to not watch TV much when I’m at home, and I watched even less when I was in Belgium because my computer screen was larger than the TV we had and didn’t yell at me in French. But if there was one thing I missed about American television, it was ESPN. I missed the playful banter between anchors. I missed the Top 10 Plays because in Europe, top 10 plays are a montage of soccer goals from varying distances, indistinguishable from any other top 10 plays in the past. I did not miss that sorry excuse for sports programming SportsNation or Tony Reali’s gelled mullet that I’m convinced harbors international fugitives. But I did miss the opportunity to watch sports where diving like a wounded fairy wasn’t encouraged (you’re on thin ice though, baseball). Finally, I missed the manly side effects of watching ESPN, such as increased chest hair, belligerence, and the superiority complex that comes with spouting off the same information every other man knows. 5 PIPs to ESPN for limiting broadcasts to sports-related topics (and poker?), distracting me from celebrity gossip during this trying time.
Gas Prices – When I came back and filled up my gas tank for the first time, it was a bit terrifying to find it cost more than $50. I sopped up my tears, trying to forget all of those GW pizzas from Bi-Lo I could have had, and did some calculations. $3.75 per gallon is pretty terrible, but in Europe it would be cheaper if your car ran on milk. Or beer. After factoring in the conversion from liters to gallons, and Euros to dollars, and Celsius to inches, I found that a gallon of gas in Belgium would have cost more than $9.00. So filling up my car in Brussels would cost nearly $140, which is almost three times as many potential McDonald’s cheeseburgers thrown out the proverbial window. So the next time you complain about filling up your tank, think of the poor drivers in Europe and all of the Frosty’s they can’t buy. 6 PIPs to US gas prices for allowing me to travel to Natalie Portman three times for the price of one trip in Europe.
Race relations – The dark horse for the United States in this installment is race relations, a surprising late entry that confused the judges. America isn’t known for its accepting attitude towards minorities. Considering that a major attraction in Charleston is still called the Slave Market and that Mexicans are considered contraband in some states (source unknown), it’s not hard to contend that America is in fact one of the most racist countries on Earth. But then you see the things Europe does on a regular basis and America seems like the Valhalla of racial acceptance. Belgian landlords will often state “No foreigners” on their applications, but foreigners only include folks of the non-cracker variety. Americans are not foreigners, for instance, but Turks are. Thankfully, not all is lost in Europe. France recently decided to install a quota for black people on its national soccer team. See, that’s the kind of progressive laws tha- What? Oh. It’s not a minimum quota for black people? It’s a maximum quota? So they’re actually going to fire players for being black? Well apparently, Europe really is full of racist bastards. And apparently France wants to keep waving the white flag in all its activities for the sake of “Liberty, equality, and brotherhood.” You stay classy, France. 6 PIPs to American race relations, because it’s not about how fast you run: it’s about how slow your competition is.
24-Hour Stores – For all of the partying Europeans do, they still haven’t caught on to the beauty of a store that is open all night. All grocery stores are closed by 8:30 PM at the latest, and that’s if it’s not Sunday, when everything is closed. So if you’re jonesing for a Mars Bar after dark, you have to visit the “Paki-man” (Pakistani corner store; See: Race relations.) The corner stores mark up the prices heavily, have a limited supply of everything except non-alcoholic beer, and still may not be open all night. Then you come back to America where you can play capture the flag in Wal-Mart until you get kicked out, hit up Waffle House at 2 AM when you get hungry, then cruise down to IHOP at 5 AM because you’re feeling sophisticated after surviving the first wave of gastric distress. With all of the partiers, Europe is just scoffing at a perfectly legitimate untapped market. 7 PIPs to 24-Hour Stores because sometimes you get nightmares about Natalie’s wedding and need a place to drown your pain in syrup.
Internet – Anyone who attempted to contact me in Brussels for the past semester knows that all European internet is comparable to molasses with severe, debilitating seizures. If you’re either confused as to the meaning behind that description, or you’re trying to imagine molasses with epilepsy, I suggest you stop whatever you’re doing and attempt to contact someone in Europe through Facebook. Go, do it now.
OK, now that the morons are gone for a few hours, let me get right to the point. The worst internet in America (at home, where your mom set up the router upside-down inside a steel box, forgot to password protect it, and named the network after herself) is still better than the internet I received at international business hotels. Dial-up would have been faster and more reliable during a phone-a-thon than the internet in Europe. Just…just be thankful, you spoiled Americans. 9 PIPs to the American internet for allowing me to research Natalie Portman’s upcoming movies. Before they’re released.
THINGS EUROPE GOT RIGHT:
Culture – I know Americans like to think that we’re a melting pot of different cultures, but we’re really not. There’s a bunch of white people who sound different throughout the country. With the exception of rednecks who think the “War of Northern Aggression” is still ongoing and hunt Yankees for sport, most of those people can get along and understand each other fine. Other minority groups don’t differ much across the country either, especially when you consider European diversity. I’ve learned how to toast, curse, and squirm uncomfortably with a full bladder in a variety of languages. Aside from the languages, the cultures are such that people from certain countries will absolutely not get along well with each other. French and Germans will actually combust if you leave them alone in the same room. Conversations between a Catalonian and Madrilenian will degrade into a bar fight within minutes. Walloons and Flemish, like electromagnets, literally cannot touch each other without flying off in opposite directions immediately. And that doesn’t even touch the myriad other cultural differences. It’s something you’ll never experience in America. 6 PIPs to European culture for showing me that it’s OK to hate someone for being different.
Weight control – The first thing I noticed upon landing in Atlanta last week was the large (Ha! Get it?) number of fat people. It was as if a great fat fountain had flooded the flight deck, then demanded I use alliteration to describe it. I felt vulnerable and confused. Fat people were illegal in Europe, either immediately deported or rehabilitated to allow them to rejoin society. I had forgotten that such policies weren’t in place in America. Later that day, I pondered why America was unable to control the weight epidemic over my Baconator with large fries and a diet soda, but never did figure it out. This is a question for people more scholarly than me. All I know for sure is that I definitely felt more comfortable among the svelte European crowd. 7 PIPs to European weight control for figuring out the secret to weight loss: cigarettes and poverty.
Lodging – The one thing Europe has plenty of that the US severely lacks is hostels. For those of you unfamiliar with hostels, think of them as a very cheap hotel where you sleep in the same room as a bunch of strangers. A friend of mine, during a class presentation, described them as, “…a place where you go to have kinky orgies and then get tortured by Slovaks.” So, just like the local YMCA. The unique thing about hostels isn’t the torture, however (that can happen in your own home, if you’re so inclined,) it’s the opportunity to meet foreigners. When you go to hostel, you’re almost forced to interact with strangers, which often lead to going out to the bars with new people. It’s a great way to network with people you’d otherwise never meet, and an even better way for you to condition yourself to fall asleep under impossible circumstances. 7 PIPs to European lodging for allowing me to meet other Natalie fanatics, then sell them to Armenians for a hefty profit.
Work – If you haven’t picked up on this yet, Europe does not care about anything you as an individual do. The list of things I’ve seen European people do in public that are outright illegal in America is long and moderately upsetting, and society there doesn’t even bat an eyelash. In that same vein of not caring, jobs in Europe are essentially adult daycare, yet inexplicably productive. Vacations are doled out like candy, hours are shorter, and if you’re just having a rough case of the Mondays, striking is a perfectly acceptable option that requires almost zero forewarning. Our Economics professor who worked at the European Commission said, and I quote, “Getting fired from the Commission is nearly impossible. You’d probably have to murder someone. And even then, you might still have a job.” And she was dead serious. This is the most upstanding, highest-paying institution on the continent. Even simple minimum wage jobs are ludicrously hard to get fired from, allowing people to be truant for weeks at a time and still maintain a spot on the payroll. However, it is much more difficult to get hired in Europe. But who needs a job when unemployment benefits are as good as they are? 8 PIPs to European jobs for allowing that convicted Armenian trafficker to whom I sold other Natalie fans to maintain his job at the European Commission after serving his sentence.
CUBC – This is the part where I get all sappy, so bear with me. In fact, I wouldn’t be offended if you skipped this part. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the acronym, CUBC stands for Clemson University Brussels Center, which was our program while abroad. The four months I spent with that program were unbelievable, from the people in the group; to the opportunities we had to travel to other countries; to the Europeans we met (and pissed off) by being dumb Americans. I wish that everyone I knew could have an opportunity to study or travel extensively abroad. Not only do you get to see things that millions of people never will, but also you really start to understand yourself and the world around you. There’s something empowering about knowing that you can pack yourself up, go anywhere in the world, and still trust yourself to not only make it, but make the most of it. So to those of you reading this, thank you for paying attention to my ramblings about my travels, and a special thanks to my parents and my brother for funding and encouraging this adventure. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. 10 PIPs to Clemson and CUBC because I know Natalie likes a well-traveled, well-educated, borderline obsessive man.
Notes:
1. All sappiness aside, if you can find a way to study abroad, do it. It’ll cost a lot, but you can always make money when you’re older. You can’t always travel.
2. In the four months, I visited 9 countries, 5 of which I had never been to before.
3. Superlatives and more in depth statistics will be up within a few days of this post on the blog and on Facebook.
4. In recap: Barcelona is the best, Moroccans are insane, and the Dutch love biking. That’s all you really need to know about Europe.
