Independence day realization and reflection upon travel to overseas

The trip to Europe was great just for the reason of seeing my husband - kind of like a honeymoon. But, as far as the Europe itself, I was a bit disappointed, I have to admit. I psyched myself in what to expect and things just didn't meet my expectations. Of course, the low value of dollar didn't help.


Taking trains around to different countries and different cities were fun and something different.


And of course, experience with the tiny car with manual transmission was interesting to say the least.

Overall, I enjoyed Frankfurt, the most I think. I always wanted to go to Paris for a lot of reasons of being overly commercialized and romantized. But, in reality it just wasn't as amazing as I dreamt it would be. Sorry Parisians - no offence - but you need to clean up the trash and locate some public WCs around the city and keep them clean.

Since we went to Germany, of course, I wanted to see berlin - the changes and remainings of the Berlin wall and the museums showing the story of people who lived through the World War II and the building and falling of te Berlin wall, those who did cross into the West Berlin and to west Germany through different means and those who tried crossing and lost their lives or got caught and suffered the harsh punishments.

Americans have learned to take many things for granted and gotetn very spoiled. The evidence was very obvious - I have gotten spoiled. Considering where i grew up, I thought i didn't take things for granted and expected people to serve me. But, when the hotel service was poor, or the restrooms where I had to pay 80 cents (euro) and still come out grossed out with the uncleanliness and the poor quality of the toilet paper, I realized how wonderful it is to live in this country and not pay to go pee and not actually walk hours and not find a restroom.

I sound pretty bad obsessing over restrooms. But, the independence day spirit and the patriotic attitude of people made me realize how grateful we all should be to be living in this country no matter how bad we think things are here, it is million, trillion times better than everywhere else. The gas in France was about $9.50 a gallon and in Germany about $9.00.

People want so badly to live in this country that they risk their lives to come here and live in horrible conditions, some fight for this country when they haven't even gotten the blue passport to call themselves the Americans. Why? Because people have freedom to complain and critize anything and anybody with the wonderful bill of rights called freedom of speech. Stop complaining and start appreciating what you got. God bless America and those who are fighting for our freedom.