Dreams of a European vacation
I just spent 27 days on a European vacation. Here are a few random observations, which you may want to skip:
1. How should we think about the utility derived from a major European vacation? I see a number of factors:
a. The utility derived from planning the vacation—dreaming about what you will do.
b. The utility derived during the vacation. Some of that is the direct experience, some is daydreaming about how you’ll report the results to those back at home (which I’m doing now).
c. The utility derived from reminiscing about your vacation after the fact. In some cases, such as my Australian adventure of 1991, that’s almost all of the utility. I honestly don’t know whether I even enjoyed that vacation at the time, but I get massive utility out of recalling the events, over and over again. Even more than 30 years later.
d. The utility derived from extra vivid during the vacation. When not on vacation my life is boring and my nighttime dreams are dull. On vacation, time slows down and my life becomes full of novel events, and this triggers much more intense and vivid dreams at night. I have a hard time estimating the importance of this factor, but it might well be more important than all of my daytime utility during the vacation.
To summarize, when it comes to vacations the utility is mostly in dreams, with relatively little in actual events like sightseeing and dining out.
2. Thinking back to my first trip to Europe in 1985, I’m struck by how much more complicated things are today. My travel bag is now full of pills, medical devices, various chargers for iPhone, laptop, etc. Life used to be so simple and carefree.
I’m getting old and more cautious, but so is the world. We arrived at the Orange County airport and were told we needed a vaccination certificate. Not from Germany (where I was headed), rather from Amsterdam, an airport I would merely pass through. No problem, I have a picture right here on my phone. It turns out that that is not good enough—I needed the actual paper vaccination card. I’m not sure what is more absurd, the fact that Amsterdam airport would want proof of my vaccination (why?), or the fact that they thought the physical card would prove something the iPhone picture would not. It’s not a tamper proof item like a drivers license of passport, it’s just a crude little piece of cardboard with Pfizer and Moderna scribbled on it. So it was all the way back home again, and then race back to the airport before my flight leaves. A few days later I received some satisfaction, as I read that the head of the Amsterdam airport was fired.
3. The Germans are really good at museums. The new Humboldt Forum in Berlin is great. My one complaint is that almost all of the best paintings in the Gemäldegalerie were unavailable, as they were fixing the lighting in about 1/3 of the galleries–the best galleries. My primary motivation for going to Europe is to sightsee, especially art and architecture. I was especially looking forward to seeing their two Vermeers. Why couldn’t they temporarily put them in another gallery while they remodeled? Oh well, I’ll still catch The Allegory of Painting in Vienna. . . .
No such luck. The magnificent Vermeer in Vienna was being cleaned. That painting is half the reason to visit the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Unfortunately, I’ll never get back to Germany or Austria. Hopefully I’ll eventually see a good image of the cleaned copy on my OLED TV. I had to make do with Dresden’s subpar Vermeer–still a borderline masterpiece.
3. After Berlin, we visited Dresden, Prague, Budapest and Vienna. Some good art nouveau architecture, but otherwise mostly what I expected. I am about 30 years late on Prague. If you are an art lover, don’t miss the Friedrich paintings in Berlin and Dresden—some of them look overly romantic, but the 5 or 6 best examples of his work are extremely good.
The one revelation for me was Austria, especially rural Austria. At first I wondered if what I was seeing was an unrepresentative sample—tourist areas that looked richer than usual. But no, the whole of rural Austria looks extremely impressive—like a Swiss travel poster. It’s makes America’s built environment look shoddy by comparison.
Everything looked high quality and attractive. The trains, trams and buses all looked brand new. The roads had no potholes and were well designed. The drivers were all skilled and the traffic flowed smoothly. Doors and windows seemed as solid as a bank vault, not the flimsy Home Depot crap you get in America.
Yes, I know that America is richer than Austria. I know that there is more to GDP than the quality of the built environment. Services matter (don’t ask about their food). Size of houses matters. But I’d also argue that quality counts for something, and probably gets overlooked in GDP comparisons. If an Austrian (or German) told me that America seemed poorer than their home country, I would not argue with them. It’s all subjective.
The residential buildings in rural Austria were quite attractive, quite unlike the ugly new houses being built in America. I can’t blame America for lacking the beautiful baroque buildings of Vienna and Salzburg; we are too new to have any of those. But why is even the modern architecture in Austria so much better. What’s our excuse?
Salzburg had a beautiful new public building with several large swimming pools. Everything seemed super high quality. As an aside, the changing room had men, women, and children all mixed together. I suspect that many puritanical Americans would be horrified. You cannot let children see naked bodies! They should be home watching action films with hundreds of bodies being blown to pieces.
Speaking of children, my favorite experience on the trip was standing on a subway platform in Vienna and watching a roughly 8-year old girl in a ponytail skipping right along the edge of the platform in a scooter. An American parent that allowed their little girl to do that would be imprisoned for child abuse. In Austria, the kids still roam free, often taking public transport without parents. Life seems much healthier there than here.
PS. It should be Wien and Salzburg or Vienna and Salt Castle. Americans need to make up their minds. Do we want to use their names or ours.
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15. October 2022 at 21:49
[…] Dreams of a European Vacation […]
15. October 2022 at 22:09
I recommend the movie Tim’s Vermeer if you haven’t seen it already.
16. October 2022 at 01:45
“Unfortunately, I’ll never get back to Germany or Austria.”
What is the opportunity cost here?
16. October 2022 at 05:49
I never remember my dreams so I don’t get that benefit from vacations. In college I read that remembering dreams is a skill you could build up by journaling, but every morning the moment I’d sit up with a pen and pad to write down what I dreamed about I’d already forgotten it all.
16. October 2022 at 07:16
Todd, I saw that one. But the premise of the film is wrong. The brilliance of Vermeer’s art has nothing to do with technology.
Garrett, I only recall fragments. But I recall enough to realize that dream life is more meaningful than real life (at least for me.)
16. October 2022 at 07:35
Vaidas, I’ll be too old to travel before I get to all of the other places I’d like to visit.
16. October 2022 at 08:03
[…] 5. “When not on vacation my life is boring and my nighttime dreams are dull. On vacation, time slows down and my life becomes full of novel events, and this triggers much more intense and vivid dreams at night. I have a hard time estimating the importance of this factor, but it might well be more important than all of my daytime utility during the vacation.” Link here. […]
16. October 2022 at 09:10
Scott
That’s what I thought. But what are those places that are better vs the second visit to Germany and Austria? Just an idea for a post.
16. October 2022 at 10:40
I am from Toronto but moved to Berlin 10 years ago. After 8 years in Berlin I moved to Kiel.
Your claim about quality mattering for GDP is clearly true. It’s not just roads, building and well maintained landscapes. The quality of health care (universal as it is in Canada, but paid for differently) is clearly much higher in Germany than Canada: wait times, inclusiveness of care (dental and physiotherapy included), maternal health provision. Not to mention free university and vocational education.
Crime and violence numbers also much lower.
Far better public transit.
It is quite surprising when Americans (Canadians much less so if not never) just matter of factly claim that the US is richer than a place like Germany; what they should say is GDP per capita is higher. Those are not the same things.
That said, if you refer to my linked article you’ll still see that for an immigrant a place like Toronto (or many major US cities) is likely stil desirable to move to. That is another story altogether though.
16. October 2022 at 10:41
The above mentioned article: https://joethinks.home.blog/2019/10/19/multiculturalism-immigration-the-canadian-election-reflection-fueld-by-the-onpoli-podcast-with-independent-senator-ratna-omidvar-and-eric-kaufmann/
16. October 2022 at 10:46
Consider https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/whats-on/exhibitions/vermeer/story/the-largest-vermeer-exhibition-ever
16. October 2022 at 11:05
Vaidas, There are many places in Europe, Asia and South America I’d visit before returning to Germany or Austria. Too many to get to in the remaining (healthy) years of my life.
Joe, Those comments seem right.
I think for upper middle class people like me (in Orange County) the US offers the highest living standards (except perhaps Switzerland and Norway.) But on average, it wouldn’t surprise me if many parts of Northern Europe (and maybe Australia) were ahead of us when you take into account the entire population, not just the upper middle class. It’s also partly a matter of taste. I don’t see great value in huge cars and huge houses, but many Americans do. I put a lot of value on the quality of things in Germany and Austria.
Yes, for immigrants the US is especially good, probably better than Europe. That’s the perspective of Chinese people I speak with. Not sure why.
Thanks Richard.
16. October 2022 at 11:22
Hopefully you had a nice trip!
I just got back from 16 days in Europe (Spain and France), and a lot of this resonates.
Curious what your next trips are and how you think about what next places to go to and build out itineraries. 16 days felt like too long and I think 10-14 is probably the ideal length, depending on location/itinerary of course.
16. October 2022 at 11:35
I would have expected someone with a PhD (?) to be better informed than this. The Amsterdam Airport requires a Covid vaccination card because under the European Union’s Schengen agreement that is where foreigners pass through customs. If your flight had landed directly in Frankfurt, then the German officials would have checked for Covid vaccination compliance.
Also, given everything that we have been through since 2020, isn’t it fairly well-known that proof of Covid vaccination is required for international travel?
16. October 2022 at 11:58
Glad you enjoyed the vacation time in Europe. I feel the same way as you that when I am on vacation time seems to slow down and I have many novel experiences. I especially enjoy the recent cuisine and wine experiences while traveling in Europe.
I do have to differ somewhat on your experience with Schiphol. I am not sure which airline you flew but when I flew recently I was able to upload all my vacaccine info before check in and got an OK to fly into Schiphol before I even showed up at airport. I never read or heard of inconveniences regarding vaccine card at Schiphol before your recent experience. (Not that it couldn’t happen but I just didn’t come across it before.). We also appreciated the efficiency of Schiphol when we left, as it was overflowing with people and clearly understaffed, but we got through security and passport control much more quickly than in US.
I also would recommend Rijksmuseum for Vermeer. The paintings I saw of earlier Vermeer (like the street scene in his home town) were so realistic that it’s almost like looking at a color photograph depicting that era. (The Rembrandts at Rijksmuseum are great too.). I feel as a city Amsterdam is underrated for its museums. The Van Gogh museum is great and makes you really feel closer to Van Gogh than any other exhibits for other artists. The Moco and Stedelijk were great too.
Something I noticed recently is the perceived differences in life quality between Americans and Europeans seem to have disappeared. 10 or 15 years ago, when I ventured into Europe, I thought these people looked old or rugged or unhealthy, probably due to their smoking and drinking habit. Now, when I go to Europe. I notice reduced smoking (though some places surely still have smokers) and people seem to be generally healthier, to that point that it’s hard to notice the difference between an American and European of similar ages. Both seem energetic, well rested and well taken care of. It probably means Europeans are catching up despite the per capita GDP gap.
Finally, I have also wondered what draws people to Europe. In the US, it’s easy to see why because we share a general culture background, but even for tourists from Asia it seems Europe is more approachable than many other destinations. Part of it has to do with the infrastructure and general well being of society (as reflected somewhat in GDP), but I also believe Europeans in general are more friendly and open. I have seen people travel to places like Russia or China complain the places seem alien and intimidating, and some of that is due to under developed infrastructure, but some of that is also due to a feeling of alienation to a culture that’s not well understood or widely disseminated.
Anyway, when I look back on the experiences in these vacations, I certainly feel richer and happier than if I had not taken these trips at all.
16. October 2022 at 13:21
We don’t want to admit it but Europe has higher quality public infrastructure than the U.S. because of our racial divide. Before the Civil Rights acts of the mid-1960’s, American public infrastructure was the best in the world. But much of America decided that they wouldn’t pay for quality infrastructure for the new group of Americans who would now be able to use it. Before you roll your eyes, look critically at what happened, and look at when it happened. Look at when community centers were built, pools, etc., and look at when – and why – they closed. We remain a petri dish for free market and lifestyle innovation but Europe – and much of the rest of the world that don’t share America’s past – have taken a different approach.
16. October 2022 at 13:27
JMCSF, I did too much on this trip–next time I won’t try to do 4 countries. We take long trips to Europe because it takes a long time to get over the jet lag from California. But there was too much moving around for an old guy like me.
Bikeround, “I would have expected someone with a PhD (?) to be better informed than this.”
I would expect commenters at my blog not to be such jerks. There is utterly no reason to require such a card in 2022, and I naturally assumed that having the card on my phone was sufficient.
You need to look in the mirror and re-evaluate how you are living your life. Why say such obnoxious things to someone you’ve never met?
LC, I love wine, but for health reasons I’m mostly stuck with zero alcohol beer. I really like the Netherlands (especially the people)—it’s one of my favorite European countries. Both Amsterdam and the Hague have great Vermeers. But for art, no one comes close to Madrid.
I thought the Austrians I saw looked healthier than Americans. Didn’t see much of Hungary, as I was sick. But the country looked much poorer (not surprisingly.) Czechia was somewhere in between.
China is not at all tourist friendly, but Japan is probably the single most tourist friendly place I’ve visited. (Although language is an issue.) I’ve never been to Russia.
Why go to Europe? It has more culture than the rest of the world combined. And good food and good scenery.
16. October 2022 at 13:32
Bob, That might be part of it, but not all. It doesn’t explain why our modern architecture is uglier, or why our doors and windows are flimsier, or why we have more potholes. And this is even true in places like Wyoming, which have few blacks.
And even before the 1960s, blacks could use mass transit in the northern states.
16. October 2022 at 17:37
Brexit was always a good idea but unworkable due to geography. Disconnecting to Europe is a recognition that Europe isn’t being managed well – but it’s impossible to be that far away from America or Asia and suddenly plug into those supply chains.
16. October 2022 at 17:51
Thanks Scott for your insight and for sharing European highlights. I want to check out the new Salzburg pool place next time I go there.
16. October 2022 at 19:24
“Everything looked high quality and attractive. The trains, trams and buses all looked brand new. The roads had no potholes and were well designed.”
Ok but you’re in California.
I moved from Texas to California. California is shoddy and old looking.
16. October 2022 at 20:03
Great post. A few things:
1. To add to your point on city names don’t forget the name of the country itself: Osterreich (Eastern Kingdom).
2. While I am also a huge fan of the Eastern Kingdom, I always think it unfair to compare holiday and day to day living. I know you were trying to point to things not related to being on holiday but there’s more to life than sturday windows.
3. Why isn’t there more immigration from the US to Europe? I don’t mean this in bad faith. I honestly am curious when people claim a European life is so much better than an American one. Immigrating is not easy, but it’s also not THAT hard. Especially compared to the points that people try to make.
4. Have you spent significant time in Europe after the 1st of Jan and before mid March? It can be pretty brutal if you’re not a skiier.
16. October 2022 at 20:15
GDP per capita is a flow.
The quality of the built environment is a stock.
If you own it, the stock is something you’d like to have and maintain. But if you need to earn it anew… You’d much rather have a higher, even if flimsier, more flexible flow.
17. October 2022 at 00:06
I thought a “burg” was a market town, not a castle.
17. October 2022 at 03:45
I was sorry to read that much of the Gemäldegalerie was unavailable. It is a wonderful museum. We also travel largely for art and architecture and hate when galleries are closed or cathedrals are covered by or filled with scaffolding or the like, especially when they don’t include that information on their websites. Now that you’re retired, couldn’t you travel more often?
https://skyteam.traveldoc.aero/ is a good place to check travel requirements. These days I also check the travel forums on flyertalk and tripadvisor. I can understand why you’d think a picture of a vaccine certificate would work – European countries use a QR code on a phone to show vaccination.
17. October 2022 at 07:36
Bobster, The roads around my house (Orange County) are very good, but when I drove all across America I saw bad roads almost everywhere. So no, that doesn’t explain it. (LA county has bad roads, I’ll give you that point.)
I spent most of my life in the Midwest and East Coast, so I know something about areas other than California.
Physecon, Oddly, Austria is to the west of the Middle Kingdom.
I’ve been to Vienna in the winter, and agree it’s not pleasant. But ditto for Cleveland and Detroit. I prefer living in America, but I can see why an Austrian might view our country as being poorer. It’s a valid perspective. In contrast, it would not be reasonable for a Greek or Italian to have that view. Or even a British or French person.
And America is clearly better for immigrants from third countries like China and India.
BTW, Vienna was rated the number one city in the entire world for livability, FWIW.
Doug, I thought so too and was going to say “Salt City”. But Wikipedia says otherwise.
Foosion, I am retiring in order to travel more. But I’m 67, slowing down, and there’s lots of places I’d like to get to. The world is a big place.
17. October 2022 at 08:18
Scott, FWIW, we also retired in order to travel more, are similar ages and are trying not to slow down (and for another point of similarity, I went to college in Madison). We’re particularly fond of Italy, France and the UK for travel, with the occasional Japan or China trip. Florence may be our favorite combination of art, architecture and food.
Cardio and strength training help keep us fit for travel.
17. October 2022 at 16:19
Foosion, The Mediterranean is my favorite part of Europe, but I’d also like to visit other areas I’ve never been to, such as the Nordic area. I love Japan, and enjoy visiting China as well. There are many other places I’d like to visit, all over the world—too many to name. My recent trip was not an enjoyable as my previous three (New Zealand, China and Japan), but that’s partly because my health wasn’t as good this time.
For art, I’d say Madrid is far ahead of anywhere else. But for the entire package, Florence and Venice are near the top.
I do exercise, but feel like it’s one step forward and two steps back. But I’ve been a bit sickly my entire life (except 2021–not one illness!), so I’m used to it.
17. October 2022 at 16:47
The Michael Frayn novel “Headlong” has a stunning 2-page description of the 6 Bruegels in the Kunsthistorishces Museum. Wish I could link to it, but “Hunters in the Snow” would surely be worth a trip by itself. Or was that being cleaned, too?
I think those two pages are the best writing on art I have ever read.
17. October 2022 at 23:51
Scott,
many things that resonate. The vividness of experience and focus that travel brings, was always amazing to me. Though age has diminished that effect on me. And strangely, anticipating it and reporting on it (or dreaming of reporting about it) were a big factor in my youth and are now no factors at all. I seem to have become so solipsistic (and maybe “living in the moment”) that only the moment counts when I experience things. I even nearly stopped travel photography (which is a form of reporting) save for a few immediate social media posts.
Quality: This is so spot on. For me it was the reverse experience, going to the US from Europe. I found that the US gives a great experience on space, but a poor experience on quality. The first thing to note for me were the houses too, something to do with lumber vs brick for sure, lumber buildings just sound so hollow, but it’s the little things too. The quality of the doors, windows, even just door handles – in Austria / Germany / Switzerland they’re rock solid and in the US everything seemed like cardboard / sheet metal to me. As another commenter said, this is where GDP is misleading. America (and Asia might I say) is a place of endless construction, demolition, and reconstruction anew. High turnover = high GDP. Europe is conservative, built stuff once but to last, preserves existing structure, therefore less turnover = less GDP. But that does not need to mean, less quality, oftentimes it means more of it.
Another thing my economist wife remarqued on Austria specifically. The beauty of the landscapes is due in part to a preservation of inefficient lifestyles, through subsidies. It is agricultural and other rural subsidies that allow small farms and small fields to survive, and the small towns and cultural monuments that come with them. And she says, as much as as an economist I’d have to advocate against inefficiency, as a human being, I’m all for those subsidies and all that inefficiency. It makes for better landscapes, better living environments.
Salzburg: the castle (Burg) on top of the hill gives the town its name. Salt (Salz) because the mountain, and entire region, is one of historic rock salt mining.
18. October 2022 at 00:17
@ssumner – sounds like you’re a prime candidate to take up a lucid dreaming practice! Just log dreams upon waking and perform some reality checks (looking at your hands during the day, into mirrors, doing small jumps – with the intention of telling whether or not you’re awake). Eventually you’ll repeat the checks in a dream and become lucid there. Dream lucidity gives you dream control and you can crank that utility way up 🙂
18. October 2022 at 08:31
Copans, Yes, I saw that masterpiece–it’s great. There are also some great paintings by Velasquez, Rubens, Titian, and Tintoretto, among others. But (IMO) The Allegory of Painting is in a class above.
mbka, Thanks, that’s very informative. I imagine the same is true of Switzerland.
18. October 2022 at 10:01
We were in Italy earlier this year and needed to get a COVID test the day before returning. Someone I know (not going to say who) was flying back the morning after a national holiday. There were no testing places open that day or earlier enough on the day of his flight. He resorted to getting tested two days before his flight and used the result document as a template to forge a more timely testing document. It worked and he was able to get home. It was a good life lesson for him about how bureaucracies work.
18. October 2022 at 17:51
Scott,
re:Switzerland, I suppose you’re talking about how the structure of the country and landscape is preserved by the preservation of historic economic structures. Yes, I hear that Switzerland seems to be divided into a highly efficient international and a highly protected domestic sector. The multinational sector is your Nestles et al. Your domestic sector is your strawberry producer and regulations protecting them. It’s not always subsidies, it’s often just protection from external competition. My friend used to say in Switzerland he often rather buys oranges and bananas rather than strawberries and raspberries. Because the domestic produce is protected from competition and much more expensive than the imports. So the quality is there, but at a high price. And all of this preserves the small, inefficient farms in an unfavorable mountain climate that we find so charming to look at. The whole country of course works as a system – like Austria, it becomes what you’d call in German a “Gesamtkunstwerk”, a holistic piece of art.
Just to nerd out a little more on landscapes. Landscapes in Europe and Asia are generally not natural environments. They are heavily dominated by man. They are cultural environments. The English rural countryside is often mentioned in this context as well. The economic structure creates the landscape. And historic small farms and structures in Europe created distinct, highly diverse and differentiated cultural landscape structures. It so happens that this also created and preserved very diverse man-nature biological ecosystems, with much higher species richness compared to the more intensive monocultures practiced in efficient countries, e.g. US, Canada, but also all Eastern European countries with their more efficient farm designs left over from collectivization. If you look at just the field sizes and how they differ between Austria and Czech Republic, in the exact same climate and soil, you can SEE the border. See this, some random border are I picked out in Google Earth: https://earth.google.com/web/@48.7618149,16.37539318,182.24147597a,29830.44704554d,35y,-0h,0t,0r
(if the link fails, look up the area of “Laa an der Thaya”)
Communism destroyed small scale structures for the sake of efficiency. And so did efficient capitalism outside of Europe, say in the US. The more efficient landscapes just look a lot less interesting, and have much less biodiversity, than the fine grained inefficient ones. One interesting consequence is that the green parties in Europe have fought for small farmers and against big agrobusiness not just for reasons of leftism (protect the poor farmer) but also for reasons of ecosystem diversity (which is genuinely much higher in the traditional cultural landscapes). Translate the same thing to economics: many small restaurants and shops (Vienna) just look a lot more interesting than 5 measly chain stores repeating themselves as identical clones in an endless chain (Los Angeles). They are also, as a rule, less efficient.
Hence Europe is cuter but has less GDP than the US, and always will have. I would argue that this is to some significant extent the actual will of the voter.
19. October 2022 at 02:59
Congratulations on a well-deserved retirement trip! Austria is an amazingly rich country in both natural beauty and culture, but I don’t regret for a second that my Lutheran ancestors from there were kicked out by the Catholics in the early 1700s and have been ensconced in Pennsylvania ever since.
19. October 2022 at 08:08
Mark, That’s what’s great about Italy—there’s always a way.
Beware of efficient northern European countries.
mbka, Interesting. The US has a few areas with that sort of landscape, such as Vermont. However Vermont is much more thinly populated than Austria.
I don’t think any land use rules would make Kansas look like Austria.
Thanks Peter.
19. October 2022 at 13:24
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20. October 2022 at 08:23
“I’ll still catch The Allegory of Painting in Vienna.”
It’s the most amazing painting I have ever seen. I had the urge to run a comb though the painter’s hair, it’s so realistic.