The 5 Biggest Differences Between Living in Europe and the U.S.
The Tales of a Texan Abroad
I have lived, studied, and worked in seven different cities, five countries, and two continents, and am surely all the better for it. I followed this path with the intention to expand my horizons, learn new cultures, and meet interesting people. It was always a dream of mine to get out of my Houston suburb to see the world more, and now that I have, I wanted to share the main differences I noticed between living in the United States and Europe. While there are so many obvious distinctions (languages, food, and history), the more subtle differences are what interest me the most. I’m talking about how Europeans consume news, how Americans imagine transit, and where the two land on socializing. While my experiences are obviously unique to me, I’ve had the benefit of studying and working on both continents and in turn understand the student and professional’s experiences. As a student in Europe, I rarely left the club before 4am, as a professional, I can at least afford the 4pm flight home instead of the 6:30am one…
My recommendation to anyone, regardless of the variances between the U.S. and Europe, is to get out of your comfort zone and to try something new. For me, that meant studying in Spain and working in Luxembourg. For others, a simple spring break trip to Croatia will suffice. It’s important to always keep an open mind though, and hopefully we learn more than we expected. Similarly, this essay is not a dis towards one city or a condemnation of another. I am simply pointing out the ways that I grew up in Texas and comparing that to my experiences in other cities across Europe. Both regions have incredible benefits, and glaring ‘areas of improvement’, and I want to lay them out for us to admire.
Today I’m going to talk about how Americans (read U.S. Citizens) and Europeans approach:
- Public transit
- Fashion
- Nightlife
- Education
- News Consumption
If you’re an American, European, or have experience in both places, I’d love to hear what items you think are missing from this list.
Public Transit
To make this simple, I’ve lived in Europe for 4 years and have never once owned a car in that time. Every night out during my time abroad was spent walking or riding a subway, tram, train or bike. That cannot be said about my time in Texas, but that doesn’t mean all of the U.S. is lost. Chicago has a very high functioning transit system that is great by any city’s standards; subway lines connecting all of downtown, and a comprehensive train system reaching the suburbs and nearby cities like Milwaukee. Washington DC also has a beautiful subway system complimented by an elaborate grouping of city bikes around the metro. But other cities like LA, Houston or New Orleans are a bit lacking in their transit options. While the U.S. is a bad transit country with a few exceptions (Chicago, NY, D.C.), Europe is a transit mecca with a few exceptions (Dublin or Sicily). It’s incredible how on international trips, I will subway to a historic city center, bus to an airport, fly to a new city, then take the first subway to a brand new historic city center. That’s diversification in public transit options. While some U.S. cities will provide these options, what’s noticeably different is the quantity of fellow passengers compared with Europe. It’s rare to find an empty seat on the bus to the airport in Milan, whereas the bus to the airport in Houston felt like the loneliest place in the world. That lack of fellow passengers makes you question if you’re going the right way or if you just hopped on an off-service bus. The U.S. is trending in the right direction, but this continued idea that electric cars will save us discourages me from the thought that America is finally ready to commit to state wide mass public transit.
Fashion
I’m not fashionable, and won’t pretend to know anything about U.S. or European fashion. However, due to the increased use of public transit, biking, and walking, Europeans are much more aware of their outfit than Americans. When you have to walk 5 minutes to a bus stop, and then another 15 to get to your destination, you’ll know exactly if it’s sunny, windy, hot or cold. The 20 minutes of commuting around public transit make you increasingly mindful that you need a scarf to keep you warm or high socks to protect your ankles from the wind. In the U.S., going from house to car to destination to car immediately cuts you off from the outside world. Why put on pants and a jacket if I’m just running to the CVS and back? Why care about the shoes I have on if I’m hitting the drive through only? This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but certainly a new perspective on how our environment truly impacts our outfits when we are subject to be outside. Naturally, Europeans are more prone to ‘dress up’ for simple trips like the grocery store or market because they know they’ll be seen by more people than just fellow drivers. Personally, I enjoy the U.S. habits more. Nothing beats wearing some Nike shorts and a hoody to the grocery store at 9:45pm on a Wednesday.
Nightlife
“What? The clubs close at 2am?! And what are we supposed to do from 2–5am then…” is a question that I would never ask.
I’m a little baby when it comes to going out, and I could never fully adjust to the Spanish lifestyle of dinner at midnight, hit the club around 2am and home for breakfast by 8. While studying for my master in Milan, I was regularly the first one to leave the club and that was still around 4am. It’s no secret that Europeans take their nightlife seriously, and it opens the door to many opportunities, depending on your taste. Besides the all night partying, the biggest difference with going out in Europe is the diversity of locations one can abuse. Piazzas, parks and canals are all great locations for young people to sit around, drink one or ten beers, and maybe even share a joint. In Houston and Chicago, we generally kept to bars or our friends’ houses because frankly the opportunity to drink in a quaint public square isn’t possible or legal.
A night out isn’t complete with out some drunk food either, is it? In Texas, I would always opt for Whataburger or street pizza. Fast food is the drunk food de jure, and I’m here for it. Nothing soaks up tequila like a Caniac Box. In Europe though, corporate fast food is few and far between (besides the occasional McDonalds), and as such Döner Kebab reigns king. In Spain, Germany, the Netherlands or Italy, one can always find a kebab shop open at 3 or 4am ready to provide the french fries and gyro necessary to get you home. Neither option is incredibly healthy, but both get the job done when heading home for the night.
Lastly, the age in which we start ‘partying’ is drastically different. While I was sneaking beers from my parent’s fridge at 16, Italians and Spaniards are already dancing in the club. 18 is the legal age for most European countries, but 16 is very common throughout the continent. Regardless, we find plenty of excuses in the U.S. to drink before 21, and it usually revolves around a friend’s empty house or a fake ID. Unfortunately, it seems the drinking age is much higher because our infrastructure based around driving puts too many young people in danger of drinking and driving. If we took a holistic approach to how we build our cities, we would realize that by handcuffing everyone to driving, we are also restricting how we go out and socialize. I wouldn’t promote riding a bike while drinking, but I would feel much safer if my kids were biking home after a night out rather than driving.
Education
In the U.S., parents will boot their kids out of the home at 18, send them to a four year institution, and after years of binge drinking and cheap bowls of ramen, hopefully they will move on to corporate America to start their careers. It’s a process that I loved, and was extremely excited for when I first moved to Austin. Europeans on the other hand will generally study university from home, finish their three year degree and immediately after start their two year master. Not only do students stick closer to home for school, but they pay way less.. like tens of thousands less. Let’s not get into costs right now, but there’s a reason America holds $1.8T (trillion with a T) in student debt and Europeans hold close to nothing. It’s a given that U.S. education is much more commoditized than in Europe, but also the product provided is vastly different. School rivalries, college sport, and immense pride for your institution only exist in American schools, and that comes from the fact that you’re paying for an overall ‘college experience’ and not just an education. That being said, it’s also not as mandatory to go to university in Europe as it is in the U.S. Where 42% Americans have a college degree, that value varies quite a lot for countries across the EU (only 18% for Italians!).
What we Americans call ‘study abroad’ during our years at university, Europeans call Erasmus. The big difference here is that the country they’re placed in and the amount of scholarship money given is based in large part on the grades they’ve received to date. Since 1987, Europe has supported this study scheme to send Europeans all over Europe to learn more about… well, each other! and it has worked brilliantly. For 3 decades now, Italians have learned Spanish in Spain, French have eaten currywurst in Germany, and all sorts of Europeans have blacked out around Europe. While this organized scheme doesn’t exist in the U.S., we travel for education independently enough as is, with 31% of students leaving their home state for college.
News Consumption
To start this off, MSNBC and Fox do not count as real news. While I am a left leaning liberal, I have no sympathy for news channels that want to emotionalize what’s happening around the world. General lies on national TV are bad enough, but no one should be allowed to read the news with as much emotion as Tucker Carlson does when he spews whatever right wing falsehood he comes up with next. Fox is truly the most dangerous, and uses their platform more as an opinion-mill rather than to enlighten their viewers on what’s happening around the world, but CNN and MSNBC aren’t much better. On the contrary, news in Europe is much more even keeled. In the Media Bias Chart from Ad Fonts Media, we can see that BBC and Reuters (both British media sites) are right in the middle as opposed to leaning left or right; as all media should be. While living in Luxembourg and the Netherlands, I always watched Euronews (French owned) and was so surprised at how… direct the stories were. No use of opinion or inflection, just facts. While I won’t go in-depth on the reasons behind these differences — media ownership, legalized lobbying, clickbait monetization — it should be noted that the problem is not as widespread in Europe as in the U.S. This isn’t meant to discredit the dangerous far right-wing movements building across France, Italy and England (#Brexit), but more to call out how these movements aren’t promoted on national TV.
Conclusion
I could write all day about how these two regions differ, but let’s leave it here for now. European cities are built around sensible public transit and public spaces, and in turn this impacts how Europeans dress, drink, socialize, and study. Similarly, U.S. cities are built around cars and highways, and in turn we are more prone to study farther away from home, end the night earlier, and dress more casually. Obviously many things like current wages and cultural history impact these decisions as well, but I can’t help but notice that so many of the differences emerging between the two cultures derives directly from our city’s structures. I recognize that this essay misses so many small and large details, but hey, here’s to more travelling and more learning!
