Cultural Observations

The following are Mindy's Highly Subjective and Possibly Erroneous Observations about life in Ireland vs. USA:

Things Ireland Does Better:

-Recycling. I'm not sure if it's legislated or what, but everyone here has two rubbish bins, one regular and one for recyclables, and you have to wash out anything that can be recycled and put it in the appropriate container. Also, bags at the store cost money, encouraging the purchase and reuse of the durable fabric grocery bags. A pain at first, especially when you've left yours at home, but you get used to it quickly. It makes sense.
-Squash. In the USA most fruit beverages come either fresh or frozen, but here it comes either fresh or in "squash" form, which is in a room-temperature bottle of concentrated syrup that you just add to water. Some of it is actually quite healthy as well. It's nice in that it's one less thing I have to try to fit in my freezer.
-shopping cart returns. You have to insert a one-euro coin in to free a shopping cart, ensuring that you return it to get your coin back. Makes sense - the grocery store doesn't have to pay someone to round up loose carts.
-switches on the electrical sockets - makes it so much easier to not waste power! You have to turn on the socket for it to provide electricity. Very handy.
-electric kettles - love them! Need one at home.

Things I Like Better in the USA:

-Food - it has taste! Irish food we found to be heavy and bland. We heard a joke that Irish food was bad English food. It's kind of true. I don't really understand their passion for soda bread, flavorless scones, and pig products. Even their salt and vanilla flavoring is substantially weaker. That's why we really didn't eat out much... luckily I found some of my favorite Himalayan salt at a specialty food store!
-Cleaning supplies. Irish window cleaner leaves amazing, greasy streaks, as does the counter cleaner we bought.
-Laundry! To this day I don't understand how people (mostly the older generation) in a cold, rainy country would ever choose to line-dry their laundry. Even when presented with the option of a dryer. Nope, it still baffles me. Every penny I spend on drying my clothes is a penny well spent in my humble opinion!
-Disposals! Get them, use them, love them Ireland!
-hot water heaters always on so I don't have to wait for a warm shower. Also, our heating systems keep houses much warmer, even if they are more expensive. I'm not a big fan of radiators.
-how they bag your groceries for you at the grocery store, and even take them out to you car for you free of charge! Lovely!
-Parental and technological involvement in the school system. In the USA, parents are invited, encouraged, almost begged to be involved in their children's academic experience. In Ireland, you drop your kid off and then parents are pushed out the door. The State has them until 2:40 every day. And no email addresses or online progress reports are to be had to facilitate parent-teacher communications. As far as I know, official parent teacher conferences are not a regular thing here. I like knowing, and participating in, what's going on in my children's classrooms. Overall, I think my kids' schools in Idaho (to and from which they happily get bussed each day) are better than their school in Ireland, academically and organization-wise. I do love that they get to go to school here though, just for the sake of experience!
-Cleaning supplies. Three wipedowns later and my windows are still streaky here in Ireland.
-Not a great fan of socialism. I don't mean to criticize a system I don't fully understand, but from what I've seen, it does not make a happier, cleaner, more educated or content population. Seriously, the country's bankrupt yet everyone still insists on their age 60 retirement age, 6 months paid maternity leave and two months of vacation every year? And the nationalized medical care has really high co-pays even for a basic doctor's visit (50 euro) and we were warned by tons of people to avoid the hospitals at all costs. My friend had ovarian cysts (she thinks) but had to wait 4 months to see a specialist and to get an x-ray. BUT, as I said, I don't know all the details I've only seen a small sampling. I'm just, not impressed with what I have seen.

Just Different:
-Proportion. In Ireland everything is on a smaller scale - the cars, the houses, the kitchen appliances, the fast food serving sizes. Due to the latter possibly, the people are in general more slender as well -really hugely obese people are not numerous here (that I've seen). If you see a large person walking around here, chances are it's an American tourist. This issue of scale is in the "Different" category because there are pros and cons. The pros - less impact on the environment, I suppose. The cons, everything is so much smaller! How do people do their food storage here? and feed large families without going to the store every other day?
-school uniforms. I'm ambivalent about them. On one hand it makes it so easy to dress the kids every day, but they still get clothes dirty when they put on their play clothes after school so laundry hasn't gone down much.
-Religion in schools. All Irish public schools are under the patronage of the Catholic church, and daily prayers, hymns and lessons are to be found in every class. This I personally really like, because it's been such a springboard for religious discussion in our family, but I'd imagine that if we were atheist or Muslim or something somewhat radical, all the in-class prayers, greetings and music might worry me.