Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Germany versus Italy versus France


One thing that stayed in my mind throughout the trip was a constant comparison between these 3 countries. I know it's hard to make any fair comparison as they are quite different but somethings just come to my mind.

Certainly if I had to choose where to move to I would choose Frankfurt, and if that was not possible I would choose Berlin. I was once again impressed with how awesome Germany is.
Simply put everything works. There are no delays, nothing malfunctions. Everything works all the time.
Trains arrive on time, buses arrive on time, people are on time, events start on time.
There're almost no traffic jams, subway system is perfect.
And what about the people! Germans are simply one step ahead. They are incredibly kind and polite. You can see it on the simple things, like waiting everyone go off the train before boarding.
Even the beggars are nice and friendly. Streets are clean. There are signs everywhere, it's impossible to get lost. If you get lost in Germany you are severely bad at directions LOL
Not to mention the fact that neither Frankfurt nor Berlin are top touristic destinations, at least as compared to Paris or Rome so the prices are the best ones. Did I mention unemployment rate is 5%!!!!
Did I mention the focus on bikes and subway? There are cycle roads everywhere. Subway is vast and cover the entire cities. Even considering they have got amazing cars in BMW, Mercedes and Audi.

Italy is a totally different country. Some say they are the Brazil of Europe. I must agree. It's intense and chaotic. It's really not so organized as Germany is.  When going from Germany to Italy you have that feeling of going from first world to third world. They have got the lame politicians too.
Unfortunately for lack of time we couldn't visit more cities like Bologna, who in my opinion represent Italy better these days.
The touristic cities are beautiful but they're own fame brings lots of bad things in the form of scammers, high prices, scarce resources.
When we arrived in Bologna for the first time we felt we had arrived in Italy. And the Italy that I have seen in Bologna was one that I liked. It's more organized, it's clean, people are kind. It's still historical, actually from the medieval times. Hopefully on the next trip I can go to more cities like Bologna and less cities like Firenze (Florence).

It's hard to judge France based on only 3 days in Paris. It's probably like trying to judge Brazil based on Rio de Janeiro, which is what everyone does outside of Brazil and pisses us off LOL
It's like a middle stage in between Italy and Germany. It's not so organized and clean as Germany, but it's not so chaotic like Italy.
There is no question as to the fact that there are thousands of gorgeous buildings in Paris. There is no question to the fact that they have one of the best public systems in the world.
Hopefully I can get to meet the country side. Not only Provence, but Lyon, Bordeaux, Dijon. And hopefully by the next time I don't have mental blocks and can at least say some basic things in French.

All in all the country I liked the most was Germany. The simply seem to be like 10 years ahead of the rest of Europe (Except the nordic countries) and maybe 50 years ahead of Brazil.

1 comment:

  1. programa uma viagem próxima do final do campeonato europeu, ou da eurocopa ou liga dos campeões, e aproveita pra assistir a final \o/

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