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The Wandering Life: Adventure is Great, but Sometimes, you Really Do Miss Wal-Mart

I have a love/hate relationship with the U.S., specifically my home state of Florida. I love it when I am not there, and hate it when I am. My family is very fortunate to have lived overseas for so many years and had so many cool adventures. But, on some days, I just want to go to Wal-Mart in my pajamas at midnight and buy some corn tortillas, a gallon of two-percent milk and my favorite brand of toothpaste.

Top 10 things I miss about living in the United States:

 

  1. Shopping 24/7. Here in Germany, and many foreign countries, businesses are closed on Sunday. This includes just about everything except restaurants and (most) gas stations. Malls, supermarkets, large chains, mom and pop businesses and everything in between are closed on Sunday, by law. Many also close early on Saturday, and smaller businesses often take a one- or two-hour lunch break during the week. Oh, and don’t forget about the one-month vacation – many small businesses and restaurants, as well as doctors, dentists and other professional offices, close down for an entire month in the summer.
  2. My DVR. Oh, how I miss recording a show and being able to watch it later at my leisure. Granted, we do have AppleTV, Hulu and Netflix, plus a selection of American shows aired on the military-run TV stations and some U.S. cable channels. But often that one show or sporting we want to watch isn’t available online. Or if it’s on one of the available U.S. channels it airs in the middle of the night. Anyone want to stay up with me until 2 a.m. to watch the Super Bowl?
  3. Chick fil A. For the love of god, why am I so enthralled with the No. 1 combo, sweet tea, hold the pickles? We have plenty of fast food here, including McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King and Taco Bell, yet we rarely eat any of those. In fact, my kids hate McDonald’s. But tell them we are moving and the first thing they want to know is whether the new location has a Chick fil A. Oh, and a Krispy Kreme. Mmmm, Krispy Kreme …
  4. Customer service. Perhaps it’s a language barrier problem, or just a cultural difference, but customer service often seems nonexistent here. If you go into a store and ask where something is, they will tell you it’s “in the electronics section.” Ok, where is the electronics section? That will likely be answered with a vague wave of the hand. And don’t bother asking for anything out of the ordinary in a restaurant – sauce on the side, for example. That will probably get you a sigh and a roll of the eyes, and your sauce might or might not come on the side. Or it might not come at all.
  5.  Paying with a debit card. Although the use of credit and debit cards is becoming more common, many businesses still operate on a cash-only basis. That’s fine if you run into the grocery store for a liter of milk, but it’s a whole different story if you are buying living room furniture.
  6. Local news. This is another one of those language barrier things. Because my German is not great, I can’t just turn on the TV or go online and watch or read the local news. And if I could, the news cycle doesn’t run 24 hours a day like it does in the U.S. Often we see something going on – a car crash, a fire, a protest, a new construction project – and would like to know more about it. It’s like living in a vacuum. You just hope you don’t miss anything important.
  7. Stop signs. Driving in Germany is a great experience worthy of its own post at a later point. But there are very few stop signs in Germany and no such thing as a four-way stop. Main roads are declared “priority roads” and anyone entering them has to yield the right of way to those already on the priority road. However, if neither road is declared a priority, the person on your right always has the right of way at an intersection, despite the lack of any sort of stop or yield sign. This is true mostly on smaller neighborhood streets and in parking lots, but it causes a lot of confusion for us Americans. German drivers who are used to these rules don’t even slow down at such an intersection. They will simply glance to their right and if they see no one coming they keep going. They never even look to the left. American drivers, on the other hand, have a tendency to slow down and look both ways. This often results in getting honked at by impatient Germans.
  8. Being able to talk on the phone. The six-hour time difference to the East Coast, and more to other parts of the U.S., makes it hard to connect via phone with family and friends back in the States. Yes, we have email and Facebook, but sometimes you just want to have a real conversation. That’s hard to do when it’s early evening here and everyone back in the U.S. is in the middle of their work day.
  9. Ice. I love my drinks with lots of ice – whether it’s soda, water or a cocktail. But for whatever reason Germans, and Europeans in general, don’t do ice. This is made even more odd to me by the fact that their refrigerators are not kept that cold. A bottle of soda or juice from a refrigerated case in a store is often barely cooler than room temperature. Sometimes, if you get lucky, the wait staff at a restaurant will take note that you are American and bring you a little bowl of ice with a tiny scooper or set of tongs. This is very nice of them, but if you have to split that little bowl four ways you each get exactly one cube.
  10.  Pop culture. I have no idea who Lena Dunham is or why she’s famous, I have heard the song “Uptown Funk” exactly three times and I know nothing about current fashion (are Crocs still cool?). When writing this I checked what was trending on Yahoo, and thought “Chevy Cruze” was a person. That being said, we do have the internet so this information is readily available. I just am not inundated with it on a daily basis. Wait, maybe I don’t miss that after all …
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