There a clearly many differences between the American culture that we are all used to and the European in which we have recently been apart; of all of these differences the clear victor, as in largest difference, is clearly the language barrier, however this is being talked about by so many others I will move on to lesser differences. One difference that I have noticed is with the customer service, as in waiters/waitresses as well as store attendants and managers, now it was a lot more prevalent in the Czech Republic but even here in the Netherlands the customer is clearly not what comes first as it is in the US. Now of course this makes sense from a business point of view, and maybe they just know were all tourists (most likely) but it would seem to me that the business should always treat the customer with respect, and clearly that is not what happens here. That aside, in the Netherlands, both in Leiden and Amsterdam, the amount of bike travel is extraordinary. And this can be really biennial but also a nucance at the same time, while this obviously saves on all the carbon emissions from cars and can make streets a lot less cluttered with cars and vehicles, the bikes are often forced onto the walking paths and can be quite dangerous to walking pedestrians. Though mostly bikes, there are also many scooters (mopeds) that generally travel from street to sidewalk ad back without warning or even slowing down in some circumstances. These are just some of the differences in culture and how things here are different then what we are all used to; some other small examples can be: people here eat sandwiches with silverware, majority don't use turn signals with cars, cars are much more compact, make good use of canals, and definitely enjoy there cannabis... somehow.
-Sam Downs
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