Germany: Culture shock!! January 10, 2004

Again, I am still at that same computer in the Uni-Freiburg library, so the keyboard is funny.
I'll post pictures soon (once I get to a computer where I can use the camera and get access to FTP uploading).
Well, the title of this post is "culture shock". The title is somewhat of a joke, as there really isn't that much different about Germany when compared with the USA. I'm not sure if this is because Germany has been Americanized (sollen wir shopping gehen?) or if America owes its culture to Germany (yummy hamburgers).

Here are some differences:
People tend to speak German (of course, most of them also speak English, so whatever).
Nothing is ever open (the hours here are very limited. In the states, we can go to grocery store at midnight without a problem. The grocery store near me closes at 7PM).
People can't decide if they want to jaywalk (in America, we jaywalk all the time, unless we have reason to think the car hitting us lacks the insurance to pay for our luxury hospital visit). In Germany, it seems that most people don't want to jaywalk, but sometimes the crosswalk signal just takes way too long. There are way more car brands here than in America. The other day, I saw a Seat parked next to a Skoda across the street from a Citeron and a Fiat. The cars tend to be smaller, but there are a ton of vans (their alternative to SUVs).
There's no such thing as a roommate. Everyone lives in a single.
Lightswitches are up for off and down for on.
You walk when you see a green man (not a white man) and you don't walk when you see a red man (not an orange hand).
The word they use for peeing looks like a French version of American slang for peeing.
The sun rises 6 hours earlier.
France and Switzerland are a train-ride away.
Tipping is different. For example, if your meal cost 5 Euros and 50 cents, you might hand a 10 Euro bill to the waiter and say "7 Euro", and you'll get 3 Euro back, and the rest will be kept as a tip.
All the taxis are Mercedes diesel sedans or wagons.
Everyone smokes.
And finally, beer is not alcohol, despite the fact that it has way more alcohol than American beer.