Learning about Culture

Coming to Europe I wanted to learn more about my culture and - being Eurocentric - about my historic cultural framework.

What I've found is that every town has got a bunch of Museums. Even New York has a museum. In fact the New York museum is better than most museums I've seen. So it kinda makes you wonder why you (or I) travel so far away to find a museum in the home country.

Anyway, I visit museums because they give some context and history to a place and that is handy to have. Organized tours are also a way to get this but are so much more crass with the tourist trap/bathroom stops that drive me a bit crazy.

What I find most interesting is just to walk around and look at people. And visiting magazine stores. In someways visiting a magazine/drug store is equivalent, culture wise, to visiting a museum. You get a sense of what language they speak/read, what they eat, what kind of candy they have, what things cost and some other subtleties of the current culture.

For example, in Sweden I bought something and it came to 17Kr. I had 20Kr, but didn't want to get 3Kr back in change so I tried to hand the guy 22Kr (a 20kr bill and 2 kr coins). He took the 20Kr and said something. I looked at him stupidly and he pointed to a box. Well after pointing at the box a couple more times, I figured that he wanted me to put the change in the box. I did and the box gave me a 5kr coin. I find this kind of thin interesting. Our change boxes in Safeways etc. only give coins - this machine took and gave them.

Also there is alot of licorice eaten in Scandinavia. Hot dogs are very popular too.