nerd’s eye view

Be it ever so, well, not humble, but…

May 1, 2006 – 6:40 am | by nerd's eye view

We’ve all done it; it’s the curse of the (liberal?) American in Europe. We get back from swanning about the continent, where we’ve living out of our backpacks or little rolling suitcases and we are convinced that Europe is superior in all kinds of ways. While we get over our jetlag, we laze about drinking very strong coffee and making declarations about socialized medicine or public transportation or working hours. We consider ourselves somehow better for having been to Europe, we fancy ourselves more cultured and improved for the experience. And we diss America for all kinds of things, for our brutal social policies, for our politicians, for whatever easy target strolls by when we’re eating our dim sum or ice cream or whatever readily available foodstuff we’ve been pining for while we’ve been getting so refined.

We are full of crap, of course. And man, are we tiresome. We should shut the hell up, already.

We unlocked the door to my flat on the hill on Friday evening. On the way home from the airport we stopped at the Moonlight Café to feast on their inscrutable but delicious fake meat dishes. The Moonlight is a Vietnamese place where the food is fresh and cheap. The staff is hard to understand but charming and somehow wacky.

On Saturday morning, our neighbors from around the corner – who we had not seen for 509 days, they informed us, repeatedly – came by with cereal and milk to feed us breakfast. We had no groceries in the house, though if we’d wanted to, we could have trundled up to the market on the corner because it’s always open.

Then, on Sunday, we strolled down the hill to join another neighborhood family for a feast of waffles. We had a splendid spread with two kinds of berries and later, we did a maple syrup taste test to see if the organic syrup beat out the non-organic for flavor. (It did not, just FYI, it was a straight tie.)

To all this casual feasting and friendliness, I say this: You-Ess-Ay! You-Ess-Ay!

Europeans are no slouches when it comes to hospitality. They can be warm and inviting and they will put on a remarkable spread when you are their guests. But there is a certain formality involving invitations and setting times and planning. It would be unheard of to pick up the phone and call the family four blocks away to say this: “What are you making for breakfast? We are on our way, okay? What are we bringing?” In Austria, neighbors do not show up on our porch with cereal or stop by to make us go with them for pizza. It just does not happen.

I will gladly concede that this is my own skewed perspective from living in our little farming village – though I have read in travel guides that one should expect the country folks to be considerably more welcoming and social than those in the city. And I will also concede that in Austria. I am a freaky foreigner with limited language skills. But I can’t seem to break the social barrier there. Two weeks ago I went for coffee with a classmate. It was the very first time in so many years of being in Austria that I’d just gone out without planning with someone who wasn’t family. The sheer normalcy of it blew my mind. So imagine how delighted I am to be back in the heart of my neighborhood in the heart of the city where people show up without asking first and where socializing is a thing that happens without ceremony.

Don’t think that I have rolled over and embraced all Americana. I’m still terrified of the President and I still pay too much for health insurance. On the culture shock side, I’m currently flabbergasted by the quantity of advertising for new cars in the face of all the noise about gas prices. (Dude, you are not going to tell me you need a Dodge extended cab pickup at the same time you are complaining about three bucks a gallon.) My eyes are wide open to our flaws. But for now, I’m going to have a little romance with the city of Seattle.

Wow, check out the very tall African American dude in the cutoffs and the fake fur coat! Hey, our neighbors are just there and they are home, let’s see what they’re doing! Oh my god, I can get that prescription filled even though it’s Sunday! I’m going to wallow in the pleasure of being in the US again for as long as I can make the feeling last.

I’m delighted to be home.