"WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE "EUROPEAN?"" a Europe Travel Page by thinking

This page explores the differences between the mentalities of Europeans and people who live in USA.

1) Architectural differences
You do not have to be a genius to notice that European cities look different than large suburban cities of USA. European streets are very narrow sometimes, and there are many cars parked not only on the sites of the road but in every possible place…and here, Parisians are very imaginative. They can park the car in the middle of the road right before the road splits into right and left directions. They just assume that it won’t bother anybody since you have to go left or right and because of that the little place in the middle creates a perfect parking space. Only one who ever tried to park a car in Paris will appreciate this imagination. People in big cities in Europe are also accustom to live in quite small apartments compare to the large and specious apartments and houses in USA.

2) Educational system

I would like to only a few: The mis-concept of “good French education” which for most people means that the child obey and respect the authorities. Regardless of the fact if this is true or not, there are major drawbacks to that fact …the child respect the authorities “too much”. One of the grates advantages of the educational system in USA is the early encouragement of challenging the teachers, and the knowledge. In my opinion this is the engine later on of American entrepreneurs and economy in general.

3) Leisure time (vs. work time)
It almost seems like in France there is at least one strike and one manifestation every day. And that is in the environment in which most people are entitled to 6-8 weeks vacation.

4) Food and diet.
European are definitively eating much better than Americans.

5) Nationalism, liberty, and tolerance.
Well about the nationalism….Europe is a big place and you can not generalize. After all, not everybody has a mind of Serbian. You do , however, find nationalism almost in every country and this is one of the major real obstacle in a real unification process of Europe.

6) Lack of Entrepreneurs in Europe, why?
The risk of failure in Europe is much greater and affect many more people than in USA. People do not like risk and it is extremely hard to begin a new concept in Europe. EU need certainty due to workers being requred to pay all those high taxes.

7) Socialistic capitalism of Europe vs. consumption capitalism of USA.
In Europe there is also a drive to make money, make profit, etc. The difference is that this is not the only thing that it is important, and the above is 100 percent true in America.

8) Americanization of Europe?

The biggest difference between Europe and America is the mentality of people, the way they think, the way they trust in many different things (economy, religion, family values, etc)

The socialistic Europe will never be USA and vice versa. "American marketing invasion" is not going to ever change the mentality of Europeans, people who value peace of mind, security of government protection, cultural continuation of family and national values more than the typical American love of consumption and comfort.

9) Trust in economy, capitalism, etc.
French are famous because of their criticism of almost everything. They criticize a lot but especially they like to criticize “advertising”, “making money”, and “valueless capitalism”.

10) Unemployment and different kinds of jobs. The way you create a job in USA is by encouraging growth of new businesses. The way you create it in France is by sitting at the governmental table and deciding that it won’t hurt that many people if you put another extra person in the lobby of the office so she can “help” another person already working there. The final result is “an average life for everybody”.

There are of course still social classes, but the French “take care of their people”. Try to live here for a while and see how this system encourages incompetence, over-cost leading to high cost of living, and …sure enough, high unemployment.

11) Europe vs. Eastern Europe vs. USA
One major advice is to remember that those countries are going through transition time and that unfortunately encourages high crime, theft, etc. Also, in Poland, for instance, there are no high ways. Plan your trip with caution.

12) Health System

The best example of how difficult it is for many Europeans to imagine USA system, is the Health System in USA. It is almost unthinkable and unspeakable for some French people that one would have a system in which the citizens would not be covered by at least some minimum health insurance. The fact of "paying a lot" for Education at American Universities is also very "extraterrestrial".

Little differences

1) Different video and TV systems

In USA we have NTSC system. You can nowadays easily buy NTS-reader VCRs in Europe. This will let you view the American types in Europe (France), but, and I am speaking from my own experience, for some reason anything that you type from TV in USA, you will not be able to view in France even with NTSC reader VCR. OH, and if you bring the American Play Station with you, it may work, depends on how advance your TV is, but you will still have to buy all the CDs in USA, that is in NTSC system because all the CDs in Europe are in PAL system and your Play Station will not recognize that disc as a valid source of data.

2) Different cars, gasoline, and "sense" of distance.

When you plan on traveling in Europe by car, make sure you know how to drive a manual transmission car. Try to rent a DISEL car, since the prices of the gasoline in Europe are about 4 times higher than USA. The DESIL car will save you probably half of your money since you will pay for your fuel about 2 as much as in USA.
And, do not compare distances in USA to distances in Europe. Because of the traffic here, normal 5 hours distance in USA, may take you here from 7-8 hours, depends on the region you are in. It is crowded in Europe. Many cities close together create a lot of slow moving traffic specially around 8 am, noon, and 5-7 P.M.