“You have to buy the kitchen for your rented apartment.”

"I remember being VERY stressed as a study abroad student in Edinburgh. I had gotten a lovely SEARING ear infection at windy St. Andrews and was stressing about how much it was gonna cost to go to a doctor and get some antibiotics.

"I rented an apartment for a few months for a student thing and the landlord when he let me in said 'you should write a letter to the previous tenant thanking him for leaving the floor.'

The Netherlands every single thing was just so god damn complicated. I was terrified to live in Austria after that, but they're comparatively much less self-loathing."

"I moved to Germany and haven't driven since. That was ten years ago. I've debated getting a car, but the costs aren't worth it with how little I need to leave my city."

"We woke up at 10 AM, and I was debating about whether or not to go to the doctor, and my friend said, 'Just go. You don't have to pay anything, and if she has an infection, you can get it cleared up.'

I went on my insurance app and looked for a clinic less than a mile away from our house. They had openings from 12 to 4. I picked the earliest one, and our appointment was at 12.

We entered the clinic at noon, showed no identification, filled out no paperwork. We left the clinic by 12:15, and I had a prescription sent with a QR code to my phone that I could pick up at any nearby pharmacy. I had the antibiotic drops in hand and was in a coffee shop by 12:45.

In the US, I probably wouldn’t have gotten an appointment for at least 24 hours, and I would have been in the waiting room for at least an hour (based on past experience). And they would have charged me at least $50 for it, if not much more.

Anyways — healthcare in the US sucks. I knew it before going, but I wanted to cry tears of rage after my first experience in Spain."

"Moved to Germany, and at my first company, they introduced me to the receptionist who was there 'temporarily' to cover the woman on maternity leave. She had been there for a year. The receptionist who was gone didn't come back for another two years. She had had a second kid while on her first leave and still had her job when she got back.

And sick leave is the same. First is just that people call in sick all the time. For good reason, but it just shocked me. They didn't feel well, so they didn't come in. As simple as that. But also, the people who had bigger issues took six months off and came back like nothing happened. No one complained; it's just accepted that they needed that time off and are now back and ready to work."

"Realised that public transport is like buying time because you can do many other things because you aren't driving.

Realised how cars are often a ball and chain, and often good public transport is far more freeing while being dramatically cheaper and safer.

Realised my British friends owned hardly anything in contrast to even young Americans, but they didn't yearn for more shit.

Realised the background anxiety where everyone in the US feels not far from homeless and they must therefore grind is just not really there.

Not a utopia by any measure, but there was a lot I liked that I wish we would figure out here."

"The sheer number of smokers and that people can smoke at cafes and such outdoors. I hate it. I want to enjoy my lunch without inhaling cigarette smoke, and I deserve to enjoy the nice weather too.

Being able to leave my laptop alone in a crowded place with no fear of it being stolen, but not daring to leave my bike without at least two locks on it."

"Before moving to Europe, going to the Air and Space Museum, I didn't think twice about the missiles and fighter planes and shit that's displayed alongside the spaceships and rockets.

After moving back from Europe, stopped by the Air and Space Museum and was borderline disgusted by all the displays of military hardware. I kept thinking, 'That's the price of a school, that's the price of healthcare for a town of 100,000 people, that's the price of new bridges' when I see all the military hardware on display."