Europe Day 5

After being in Europe for 5 days there are some things that I realized.  Without meaning to we are slowing introducing our children to their new home.  We started off going to England, a country where we speak the language but the accent is different and there are a few things that are noticeably different.  Then we went to France, where often we were unable to understand what was being said but we could usually find someone to help us figure things out.  Then we went to Disney Paris where there were people from all over and who have different concepts of waiting.  For example, B wanted to get a character signature and there was a mob of children surrounding the character.  We helped the character get some of the children to step back for a few minutes and then we waited patiently.  We were finally rewarded with a signature just before he had to leave.  When we left, B stated that he did NOT like the way everyone was pushing and no one would form a line.  I know that there will be much more of that in India so hopefully this experience will help him.  When we arrive in India I anticipate that both boys will be overwhelmed at first but they have been doing great with the changes so far.

I will say that being at Disney Paris was a crash course in cultural differences with the above extreme to the next extreme.  Yesterday I was in the ladies room when one of the moms was asking her child if she could wait in the line.  The child was about 6 and you could tell she was not going to last long.  I suggested that she ask to cut in line.  The mom stated “We are from Britain, we queue.”  I responded, “I’m an American, we do what is necessary.”  I then made a loud statement that we had a child emergency and she needed to get to the front of the line.  The mother was embarrassed at first but did take her child to the front after a few people ahead in line encouraged her to bring up the child.  On her way out she thanked me and you could tell the girl was relieved.  

We also realized even more how Americans are unusually obsessed with time.  In every hotel we have stayed at there has NOT been a clock in the room.  It is actually pretty hard to figure out the time unless you have a time piece on you.  There are not many places that have a clock unless it is somewhere like the train station that requires it.  The next time you are out and about in the USA, look around and I bet within 2 minutes you will find the time without any extra effort.   That has not been the case anywhere I have traveled outside the USA.  

I have been writing some as we go but unable to post very often.  I will plan to do a section on Disney and compare it to Florida as a separate post later.