Invisible things that you miss abroad

[Jamie (K)]

If you have lived in another country, is there anything that you've missed from home without realizing it for a long time? Everything might seem normal, but something is missing or different, and it doesn't occur to you until later what it might be.

Here are two examples from my life in Eastern Europe:

I liked most of the food in the country where I was, but after a while it started bothering me for some reason, and I didn't know why. Later I realized that the food in the country where I was had fewer textures than in my country. Basically, you had a meat texture, a bread texture, a potato texture, and a boiled vegetable texture. Variations on those were almost all there was to eat. I missed certain types of crunchy textures and chewy textures from back home.

There was also something about the topography of the place where I lived that bothered me, but it took a couple of years for me to figure out that too. I grew up near the Great Lakes, so I'm used to knowing that if I go a certain distance in a certain direction, the land will stop, and there will be water stretching so far that I can't see the other side of it. In my East European town, there was only a small river, and if I saw any lake, it took only a few minutes to walk or bicycle around it. I could even swim across it, if I wanted to. That meant that I had land as far as I could go on every side of me, and I had trouble figuring out what direction I was walking or riding in, since the land didn't seem to end anywhere.

[Alan]

I'd like to turn this idea on its head, as it were and comment on something that I miss living at home on a small island. What you realise when you first go abroad is how envious you feel of people living on a continent. I am always conscious of this when I come home from driving several weeks in Europe. To be able to jump in the old galopy and shunt off into several different countries without having to lug your motor over the water must be bliss. And that's only Europe.

A
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[Haihao]

As long as I am concerned, I would like to say that I once found a thing I hadn't realized before I came back from a comparatively long stay in another country: the savor (smell). Don't you think every country has a particular savor of her own?

Haihao

[Yankee]

Hi Jamie

In a way, I had the opposite sort of experience. There were many things that I had always unthinkingly accepted as "that's just the way things are" until I went to Germany.

When I moved to southwestern Germany, it didn't take long to identify things I missed. With food, it wasn't too much of a problem because I could make many of the things I missed if I really wanted to have them. On the other hand, I modified quite a number of my cake recipes and they became more "German". The most common modification was to remove 30 to 40 percent of the sugar that my American recipes called for.

Since I grew up close to the Atlantic Ocean, I missed the easy access to the sea very much. Swimming in or visiting a lake (even Lake Constance) simply doesn't begin to compare. One thing that I didn't realize I missed until much later, though, was the sound of fog horns. But I suppose I could have had that if I'd lived on the northern coast in Germany.

One thing I didn't miss in the least was the high humidity that's so common in the summer in the eastern US.

The convenience of built-in closets was also something that I didn't fully appreciate until I went to Germany. On the other hand, I really enjoyed finding it absolutely necessary to have gorgeous wardrobes and armoires to keep all my stuff in.

Amy

[prezbucky]

Amy/Torsten

This guy was probably just weird, but I figured I'd run this past you.

As a kid in northern Wisc, one of my friends had a neighbor who was German (not just of German heritage... he had grown up in Germany and lived there well into adulthood).

We found it odd that he would often urinate in his back yard. We (kids) never saw it, but apparently my friend's mom had seen this, and we found out.

We thought that that was pretty odd.

Is such a normal practice in Germany, or did this dude just have a bit of the wild in him?
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[Yankee]

Well, let's put it this way, Tom: During my 17 years in Germany I never once saw a neighbor urinating in his garden or backyard. But I did notice that men occasionally pull over to the side of the road in order to "relieve themselves". Then again, doesn't that happen here, too?

[NinaZara]

[prezbucky]

lol, Amy, thanks for reminding me...

I have a sister who's two years younger than I am. A young girl enduring the long trip to grandma's house... you can imagine. My sister, I swear, had to go at least every 45 minutes or so.

So dad or mom (driver) would pull to the side of the road, we'd open up the front and rear passenger-side doors, stick Rachel in between those doors (to hide the act from traffic)... and she'd do her thing.

ROFL
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[aereal]

[prezbucky]

Northern Wisconsin is also a blue/green area -- lots of trees and lakes.
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[Haihao]

Oh, yes, color it is! I love the color of Northern Italy..., and the snug, colorful Southern California.