I just returned from two weeks in Spain, and I’ll do my best to share some stories, pictures, and videos from the trip over the next few weeks. My primary focus was engaging in my current obsession: mountain biking.

Beyond that, I wanted to practice my Spanish (y realmente necesito practicar), enjoy some good food and drinks, and explore a few new places.

This was my first visit to Spain and second to France (barely), but I have been a lot of places in Europe. To enumerate (as much for my own sake as anything else), I’ve now been to Italy, Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, Czech Republic, Germany (barely), Iceland, France, Switzerland and Spain.

While I work on other posts, I thought I’d share some thoughts I wrote down about things I like and dislike about Europe based on my experience so far.

Like

Showers — I like that pretty much all showers in Europe have a separate control for off/on vs temperature. This means I can leave the temperature where I can it, turn the shower on, and avoid the tweaking to get things just right. Simple and consistent. Why aren’t all our showers like this in the States?

Default to roundabout — While traffic lights and stop signs exist in in plenty of places, the roundabout is extremely common, and I am a huge fan. Who wants to stop when there’s nobody coming just to comply with a silly law?

Architecture — I like the general feel of Europe… both large cities and small towns. There are some “modern” roads but a lot of places have tight streets with cobblestone or brick roads. On top of that, there are always people walking and everything is quite walkable.

Cafes — cafes are everywhere, and the average coffee is at least on par with the top 10% of coffee in the States. Everything is espresso based (for the most part), which I like. This is all wonderful, until you come back home to the States and realize your fate is to coexist with sub-par coffee forever.

Eating outside — eating outside seems to be the default. The plazas are usually the most expensive places to eat, but nearly every restaurant has seating on the sidewalk and unless the weather is bad, the insides are usually near-empty and the outside areas are packed.

Plazas — speaking of plazas, I like them.

Pizza — and similarly, I also like pizza. And the pizza in Europe (at least the good places) are almost always Italian style, which is my favorite, and always really good, which is also my favorite.

Toilets — lastly, I appreciate the two-flush toilets. It makes sense, and they’re everywhere. I’d guess its just a matter of time before we catch up on this back home.

Dislike

My dislikes are few, but here they are.

Water — water doesn’t come with meals. Ever. Sometimes its free, but a lot of times you have to pay for it. I think I live in a constant state of dehydration when I go to Europe. On the positive side, there are public fountains in a lot of cities that are potable, and the water is usually really good. Rome in particular comes to mind.

Restrooms — having to pay for a public restroom feels wrong. What’s my alternative? This isn’t common in every city / town / country, but the ones that do charge always irritate me. I will say this isn’t unique to Europe as I did visit one restroom in Ecuador where you had to pay an attendant for toilet paper.

Service — good customer service in restaurants is rare, and apparently unappreciated. I wouldn’t describe restaurant service as particularly friendly or helpful. If you walk in and look confused about what to do (do I seat myself? Wait to be seated? Order at the bar?), it’s unlikely anyone will offer to help you. In my experience, you’re better off just doing something. On the positive side of this, you don’t really have to tip in most European countries, so that’s at least nice. Back to the negative, it frequently takes 10-15 minutes to get the check when you are finished eating. A two hour meal is probably more like three hours by the time you’ve been addressed and have gotten the check.

Wrapping it up

Overall, I am a fan of Europe and believe the positives outweigh the negatives by a significant margin, at least for a traveler. I won’t pretend to understand the day-to-day life of a person that lives in any of these countries full time.

I didn’t plan to write this post until yesterday, so I didn’t have great pictures for everything. Lo siento!