A friend (well, an acquaintance, really) recently asserted that Europe is no more socialist than we are here in the United States, and that citizens there have no less freedom than we. “They’ve got capitalism, don’t they?” he asked. This particular person has never lived in Europe, so all he sees are the Mercedes and Ferraris that we import and assume it’s just like it is here.

Well, I’ve lived in Europe for at total of 10 years, and while I love it, I would never want to live there permanently. An American blogger who is leaving Germany after 15 years explains what rubs Americans the wrong way about Europe (this applies not just to Germany, by the way) when they have to live there for any length of time:

The rules. Frankly, there are about forty thousand rules to living your life in Germany. Don’t wash your car on Sundays. Don’t mow grass between 1400 and 1600. Walk your dog only in these locations. I could go on and on. I’m surprised the base doesn’t have a 4-hour lecture on German rules to keep guys out of trouble as they arrive for the first time. I came to hate the massive list of rules. Some did make sense….the other fifty percent….didn’t. I won’t miss this kind of atmosphere.

It sounds a bit like Chapel Hill.