Things that are different here

A work-in-progress list, good and bad, probably to be updated in the future:

- we have no dryer, so we have to do 1 load of laundry every day so it can all fit on the small drying rack. We can no longer do 6 loads in one day like Sundays in Ohio
- the ibuprofen pills are so big we have to chop them up with a butcher knife
- you have to tell the pharmacist WHY you want anything you buy
- you pay to use a grocery cart by putting a coin in a little slot. At the end, you get your coin back when you return the cart
- you weigh your own fruits and vegetables and bread, and put stickers on them showing the weight and price, before checking out
- there is no peanut butter, maple syrup or colby jack cheese in our grocery store
- we go to the grocery store several times a week, because we have to carry everything home, including the really heavy things like liters of seltzer water and watermelons. The heaviest stuff goes in our rolling cart and then we carry the lighter things like bread and nuts
- dogs (and sometimes children) pee and poop on the street, and people definitely don't always pick it up. Before you say "this is also true in the US," we agree, except it is much worse here
- girls don't wear tops on the beach. Actually it's not just girls, it is women too, younger and older. And all men and boys of course
- in fact the members of our family - with our rash guards and bathing suit skirts - wear more clothing on the beach than literally any other person there
- no cafe has coffee to go. You have to sit and drink it there out of a ceramic cup
- people wear shirts with bad (English) words on them, and use bad words all the time (see also here)
- we get up later (school doesn't start until 9) and we go to bed WAY later (10-11 for kids, even on school nights). There is no part of the evening anymore which is after the kids go to bed & before the parents go to bed
- way more people smoke. They also throw their cigarette butts in the street
- there is a professional army of human street sweepers who clean up every morning, including hosing down the sidewalks and road, and fishing the trash out of the fountain in the plaza
- we do more of our own chores (see also here)
- school backpacks are *really* heavy. Cy weighed his on the bathroom scale: 19 pounds. This is because all the books and notebooks go to and from school every day. Very little is left in the classroom overnight
- no lunch at school, so no packing lunch for Mama either. We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner together every day. Overall, we spend more time together every day than we do in Ohio (heart emojis)
- siesta is weird. It still feels strange to all of us to stop whatever we are doing at 2p and take a long break in the middle of the day, then go back to work at 5p
- we live in a flat in an apartment building, with an elevator and an outside buzzer/intercom system. (These suburban kids have only seen these things in movies)
-  our apartment has no air conditioning and no heat
- it is loud here, but we notice it much less than we did in August. Partly because the town is truly less busy than in August, but also we are more accustomed to it
- we have way fewer art supplies
- (some of) the playgrounds are old-fashioned and slightly dangerous
- there are a lot of mosquitoes, and they are faster, much faster, than in the US and therefore much harder to kill. When we can't kill them, we turn the fans on really high so they cannot bite us when we are trying to sleep
- there is a beach in our town, near our house
- there is a castle in our town, near our house