Germany vs. USA

I have been to Germany many times, spent about 2 years there total. On my recent trip to Germany (and then Denmark) I took note of the major differences in lifestyle and culture. Though some of these things only occur in Germany, many apply to most of Europe as well.

1. Toilets use a press-and-hold water feed, which can be very annoying and may not even save water.
2. In cities, people bicycle everywhere, even while wearing business casual attire.
3. Sales tax is already included in store price tags and restaurant menus.
4. Tips are also included in restaurant prices (though you may still tip additionally).
5. Gas costs about $7.50/gallon.
6. Cars are much smaller, nearly ALL manual transmissions, usually diesel, and speed limits don't exist on many highway stretches.
7. Obtaining a drivers license costs around $1000 and requires training courses/tests. Must be 18+.
8. Solar panels can be seen on houses in almost any direction you look.
9. Most people younger than 60 will speak English (as a 2nd language) pretty well.
10. Movie theaters have restaurants in them, offering a huge selection of food/drinks for the movie. They sometimes also have assigned seating like in an airplane.
11. Almost EVERY plastic/glass bottle has a deposit value on it. This encourages people to return empty bottles and/or rummage through trash to profit from recycling.
12. Usually bottles are purchased in a crate of a dozen, and returned to receive around $3 back. The bottles are then washed and reused (even better than recycling).
13. Garbage is collected only every other week, and the typical home only gets about a cubic foot of volume for trash (There are separate containers for compost and paper/plastic which are about 3 times in volume each.)
14. Their elected chancellor is female.
15. The average birth rate is 1.38 children per mother, one of the lowest in the world. They have huge incentives such as mandatory maternity leave for both parents.
16. No one drinks tap water, they drink bottled water instead (sometimes bubbled), and ordering tap water at a restaurant usually costs a small fee.
17. Smoking cigarettes is very common still.
18. Healthcare is centralized and regulated by the government, making prices very affordable and covering everyone.
19. High quality beer is almost always cheaper than soda/water.
20. The drinking age is 14 for beer/wine (with adult supervision), 16 without adult supervision, and 18 for hard liquor.
21. Prostitution is legal and regulated.
22. Free speech is not the same, i.e. holocaust denial is illegal.

Technology

I thought this was a joke when I first saw it, but nope. It's real. Religion is still managing to infiltrate new technology mediums. And here I was hoping it'd fade away in the near future along with many of its outdated methodologies.

That electronic tablet device represents everything that religion is not. Do you know how many centuries of scientific and engineering struggle it took to create this masterpiece? Testing and questioning our understanding of the laws of physics and chemistry to progress us out of the dark ages of religious stagnation? This is a slap in the face to some of the greatest minds who came before us, such as Galileo, who sacrificed and suffered from religious persecution just to point out some observable scientific truths.