What Did I Learn on My Trip? Or Travel is an Education!

Belgium
In the hostel in Ljubljana I had 3 roommates from Belgium the first night and then 3 different Belgians the second night. From them I learned that the various ethnic groups in their country don't like each other and it is predicted that Brussels will become a city state and that the country will split into 2 (or was it 3) separate countries.

Also, the groups do not speak the same language. Does this sound familiar to my fellow Canadians?

It turned out that the two groups in my hostel were from opposing ethnic groups, but I witnessed that they met and there appeared to be no hostilities.

I had no idea this was going on in Belgium. The country rarely makes the news.

Switzerland
Next was my meeting of two Swiss cyclists. One from the German-speaking part of the country and the other from the French-speaking part. Guess which language they communicated in? ENGLISH! Otherwise they couldn't understand each other.

Picture-Taking
In Zadar, Croatia, I had dinner with a young man from Japan. He spoke no English and I spoke no Japanese. Thank heavens for digital cameras! We showed each other our pictures. We had been at the same place earlier in the day (Lake Plitvice). What I found so fascinating was that we took pictures of such different scenes. He took many pictures of the lakes whereas I found the lakes so insignificant that I didn't take any pics. They were small and surrounding the lakes were low hills. To someone from the land of lakes and mountains (Canada) they were very ho-hum. However I did take a gazillion pics of waterfalls, but it seems that they did not interest him. You would think we had been in different places, but I remember him getting on the bus when I did.

Showers
Lastly I learned that one does not need to use full pressure when running the shower. Partial pressure is more than adequate! We North Americans are so incredibly wasteful, though Europeans have far surpassed us when it comes to over-packaging their produce in grocery stores.

Ah yes, and I met some Americans who liked Sarah Palin, or at least thought she got a bad deal from the media during the Presidential race.