Interesting differences/observations

We wouldn't call ourselves experienced campers, but we did have four weeks of camping under our belts before embarking on our Denmark-Germany 2018 tour, so here goes.

Danish and German campgrounds are quiet and peaceful. Swedish campgrounds are crowded with yelling and screaming children. There were children in Denmark and Germany, too, and of course they were playing - but they did not disturb other guests. In fact, the only time we were disturbed by children was in Lübeck. Two Swedish families allowing their kids to run wild until after 10pm.

Danish and German camping grounds, streets and public restrooms are incredibly clean  - like they were here some 20 years ago. Whatever happened to the 'Keep Sweden Clean' Campaigns of my childhood?

We take good cell phone reception (and Wifi) for granted in Sweden. We're lucky, it seems. Updating my blog would have been so much easier with proper reception. Germany has the best engineers in the world, so we certainly expected more in this respect.

When we were in the States maybe ten years ago we were surprised to see how badly maintained quite a few of the roads were. Germany was worse! We were constantly bumped around, having to re-organize fridge and cabinets several times.

Germans are 'known' (in Sweden) to drive very fast. We feel this may be changing since our last vacation in Germany about 20 years ago. Maybe because of the roads? 

Cash is King in Germany. Having lived in Japan (where everyone walks around  with large amounts of cash since cards are simple not accepted), we don't have a problem with this but we were certainly surprised. Quite a few stores do not accept Visa or MasterCard but only the German EC-card, which of course is not issued in other countries.

And why can't you use your credit card directly at the gas pump? Instead of having to go inside to pay - with your card!

Bikes are the normal means of transportation for daily errands in Germany and Denmark. Grocery shopping, bringing the kiddies to day care or school etc. (They have trikes with huge boxes in the front with passed seats and seat belts.) 

You wouldn't think there was a whole lot to say about traffic lights, do you? Well we did not find one single 'intelligent' traffic light in Germany (the Danish towns we visited were too small for traffic lights). They were all just programmed with set intervalls, and did not seem to be sensor-driven by the traffic, the way we are used to. Again, this country is home to the best engineers and engineering schools in the world (sorry to all my US friends...) so we were a bit surprised.

I realize there are good reasons why people do things differently from us, which is why I would love to see a list like this on Sweden, from the German perspective. And remember this - we loved every minute of our vacation. Denmark and Germany are fantastic countries with friendly and helpful people. I do not want to sound like I'm criticizing - but these are things we noticed, because they surprised us.