Day 33
Location 8: Amsterdam
Dec. 3, 2022
People keep asking me the same question again and again. What's the biggest cultural difference you've experienced? Until Amsterdam, it was an easy answer: "probably the language barrier". In Amsterdam, that all changed.
Just watch this American trying to pay like a normal guy. Just like I'd do it back home. Standard stuff. No funny business. And yet, he is doing it wrong (so we're told). Europe just different.
The cultural differences are insurmountable.
When I was moving out of Boston a few months ago, a college pal named John Donnelly was preparing to take my spot in the three-bedroom apartment. At the same time, one of my original roommates, Alex, was visiting Colorado for a month. I wasn't quite ready to leave Boston, so I sublet Alex's room for that month.
To recap: in the very apartment I had just lived in for a year, I was now sleeping in my roommate's room and John (the newcomer) was staying in my (old) room. It was disorienting to say the least. John was constantly nervous that late at night, I might accidentally enter the wrong room out of habit and crawl into bed with him. Luckily, he was very cool about it all fourteen times it happened.
Anyway, I met John in Amsterdam for the USA vs. Netherlands world cup match and joined him and his friends for a pub crawl. Get a good look at John's face below:
Somewhere along the crawl, a bartender handed me change that included a ripped €10 bill. I didn't notice until my attempt to pay at the next bar. The bartender looked blankly at my cash and said flatly "no". It was embarrassing.
In the bathroom stall, though, all my embarrassment washed away and I realized God does have a plan for each of us, after all.
