After quite a few months in Central America the move over to Europe brings some significant cultural differences. Before we just into specific read-outs on our destination, let’s just examine a few of the changes.
Street Food: Central America wins this, hands down. Any time of the day or night, there is some amazing food ready to be had—likely made by this one person for the last 25 years. And it somehow costs, like, a nickel.
Transportation: Team Europe for the win here. I didn’t miss it in Central America, but as soon as we hit Europe and there was a complex, reliable, robust transportation system that allows us to go do day trips, visit other parts of the country, etc.
Size of beds: Yay, Europe! Mostly Central America is “matrimonial” beds which equates to a full size/double bed for Americans. Doable, yes, but so annoying when someone is not feeling well or the weather is hot out. Europeans mostly do two twin beds strapped together. As long as there is the “connector” in the center, you don’t even realize its two beds. And its huge.
Bed top sheets: So, even though their beds are tiny, Central America uses top sheet/flat sheets on their beds which is fantastic! In Europe, top sheets are so hard to come by that it feels like a tiny miracle when you stay someplace with one.
Drinkable water: Wow, I didn’t realize how much I missed drinking tap water. Weird thing to say? Yes, for sure. After using garafones of bottled water in Mexico and Guatemala, its so nice to just turn on the faucet and stick a glass under there.
Time Zone: Being in Europe creates all kinds of new challenges for us from a time zone perspective. After years of thinking “call your mom on Sunday mornings”…well, its midnight for Mom and she’s not going to be very happy if you do that. All of our work and social calls get all lumped together into a small afternoon/evening window. Central America and its US time zone overlap wins this one for sure.
Produce: Tie. Both Europe and Central America have amazing markets filled with the freshest of produce. One has pineapples and avocados, the other truffles and sardines. Each season there’s new great things and shopping this way has been one of my favorite parts of this travelling.
Chocolate: Shockingly, Europe wins this. Europe eats chocolate, where Central America mostly drinks theirs. While I love having a mug of the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had (Guatemala), I’ve been trained to want a big slab of chocolate, which makes Europe the winner. The aisle they have dedicated to it at the grocery store makes the US look like amateurs.
Cost of Living: Central America, obviously. While I love Europe and the wine and vegetables are quite affordable, it certainly does not compare to budgeting for Central America.
Language: While our Spanish is far from perfect, it’s pretty serviceable. When in Central America, we’ve been lucky to not have to worry about new languages and can use our Spanish to get by. Europe…not so much. While you never change currency, you change languages every 10 feet. In Portugal and Croatia, everyone speaks English so you can get by with just a few local language niceties. However, if you pay attention that person who just spoke to you in English likely knows about 5 languages and can easily switch from one to another. (Yes, this makes me feel horrible being an American who speaks 1.5 languages!)