thoughts...

• While waiting for the train that would carry aryana_filker away (*sniff*), a freight train was passing through the station, loaded with coiled sheet steel. Another fascinating thing to the American, since I have some interest in trains even though I'm not really one of those fanatics. The cars looked tiny and the couplings between them were utterly unlike the American kind. We have zilch passenger rail over here, but the freight trains are huge. We run kilometer-and-a-half long trains with shipping containers stacked two high. Hundred-plus car unit coal trains. Three or four or five 4000+ horsepower diesel-electric locomotives. Just seeing the wires above the rails seemed odd, since we have so very little electrified rail here.
  
  Passenger service, though.... We think 79MPH (127km/h) is fast, and 125MPH (200km/h) 150MPH (240km/h) is super special high-speed rail, just on the one special route out east. The seven trains a day between the minor city of Milwaukee, the 25th-most populous in the US with a half million people in the city and another million in the region, and Chicago, is very unusual, super-frequent service.
  



• It was interesting to see in each flat a meter for cold water, one for hot water, and the little units on each radiator that record heating usage. The building I live in has no individual meters other than for electricity. The heating, air conditioning, water both hot and cold, are all unmetered. If we all use less, the rent will tend to rise more slowly, if we all use more, it will rise more quickly, but the feedback is rather slow that way, and merged with everyone else in the building. The other system here would be for each unit to have its own water heater and its own boiler/furnace, and its own gas connection and meter. I've never seen here the sort of fancy heating thermostats with radio links to the radiators and sensors on the windows to turn the heat off in a room if the window is open. I saw dual-flush or otherwise controllable-flush toilets all over, which are still very rare (though not unheard of) in the USA.
  
  Subjectively, I saw a lot more concern than I'm used to here for controlling heating costs and water usage. My personal impression was that attention to electricity waste didn't seem very high, but I'm biased on that by being something of a fanatic about it.
  
  Since I was being a tourist, I spent a lot of time being driven all over the place (Driving all day! Just like the USA!), so I don't have any impression of what real-life is like. And of course, that famous high-speed driving. On the other hand, small cars with teensy-weensy engines (though clearly big enough for that high-speed driving). Overall, of course, they use a lot less motor fuel per person over there than we in the US do, one way or another.



• Something I keep being reminded of now every time I order a drink of any kind here is how huge our serving sizes are. If you ever wonder why Americans are big, it might possibly have something to do with what we consider one serving of sugar-water to be. And the reuseable cups, with a deposit! Watching lisande ordering some colas for our group the first time, I was confused to see the price didn't match what I was expecting. The deposit on the cups! Never saw that before. Here you either be inside a restaurant where you're not going to be walking off with the tableware or else everything would be disposable. And, of course, three times bigger.
  
  I also saw restaurants working on the order, get food, eat, then pay system that I would have expected to be using the order, pay, then eat system. Again, befuddling for the foreigner.

the roof thing

My German friends were bemused with my fascination with all the tile (and even slate!) roofs is Germany. Want to know why? I have a photo taken from higher ground in the public park across the road from a fancy new expensive condominium development in a fancy expensive part of town by the river. Note that not only are these rooftops visible from the park across the road, but are visible from some of the units in the buildings themselves. This is not hidden away, but part of the view out the windows of the very building itself. An expensive view, no less. This is how we do it in America when we are spending plenty of money on a fancy place:

( photo )