For my last journal entry I think I’m just going to talk about my takeaways for this trip.

Even with Germanys much older history, I feel like it has much more in common with the United States than other European countries I’ve visited. I know it’s hard to come to any conclusions after just 12 days, especially on a tour bus. As a group we stuck to mostly bug cities with a few small towns sprinkled in. I think I was hoping to see a lot more small towns, suspenders, and pig tails.

I wanted to see a little more culture. Instead, it felt like everyone was dressed the same as North America. I think that’s common for a lot of Europe but you can still stumble across a group of kilts in Edinburgh, Scotland, or a medieval themed night in Bunratty, Ireland. I supposed we saw some dressed up German outfits on display at the Galeria Department store; there were also some similar pieces for sale at Allianz Stadium.


However, diversity is definitely there. There are all walks of life all over Germany with particularly high amount of Turks and Turkish restaurants. As I’ve said before, it’s easier to find non-German restaurants to eat at! I can’t remember which city we drove through but we saw a small neighborhood of portable homes set up by Germany for refugees. I found out that Germany is the 3rd largest refugee-hosting country in the world. Huge difference from where they were at in WWII times.

Another thing I noticed… no PDA! I’ve seen it in Italy and France. Germany, not so much. There’s no way I just didn’t run into couples. Seems like it’s frowned upon or not a popular love language.

I found that even with the occasional protest or demonstration, there’s an overall sense of order and dislike of chaos. Demonstrators tend to cooperate well with police. The honor system seems to work well and laws are respected. Every now and then when we travel, we have a tendency to feel like European countries lean towards socialism, but without the title. High sales tax and higher income tax brackets than the U.S. can be found in most European counties I’ve researched. Labor laws are also pretty strict. I know there’s a lot of good benefits and the citizens tend to be happy; but it’s hard to consider when you’ve grown up with totally different freedoms.

Moving away from politics, I really didn’t hear much German music. Perhaps one German rap song in or around the metro station but for the most part, all music we came across was by American or British artists.

Souvenirs across the board were collectively expensive, particularly the famous German mugs with the caps on them. I got a more simpler one from Neuschwanstein Castle for €60 but the more detailed ones the same size were €90 and up. I couldn’t justify it. Occasionally in Italy, or Egypt, I would run into a hole in the wall souvenir shop where prices were less than half of the tourist areas. Actually, probably most countries I’ve been to were like that. The only “discounts” we ran into in Germany were with postcards. If you strayed far enough away from a main square, postcards might go down to only 30 euro cents but everything else stayed pretty uniform. Oh and the quality of those postcards was vastly different.

We were advised yesterday of a 4 hour delay in our flight out so we took advantage by sleeping in some. We ignored any travel anxieties we might usually have had and just kind of went with the flow of things today. We ordered an Uber to the airport after sauntering through check out. At the airport, Delta gave everyone meal vouchers for the day. The airport was very easy to navigate and there is one TSA checkpoint for every 4-5 gates. It only opens up about 2 hours before the flight departs and then the security agents move around as needed. Passport control and customs were all very easy and employees were kind and without authority complexes which is always nice. Nothing chaotic about Frankfurt airport which I can appreciate. Madrid airport felt like a maze with backwards and upside down arrows everywhere. We had to rebook our second flight and got back home pretty late.
Monroe, our black cat, was still waiting up for us and very excited to see us. We all meowed back and forth to each other for a few minutes before calling it a night. Tomorrow will be loads and loads of laundry. And then likely planning for our 2025 trips.