Je voudrais que quelqu'un....

My new pet peeve has become: upon someone finding out I’m American, they immediately ask “have you voted yet?” to which I reply, “I’m still waiting for my ballot.” To which they hysterically screech “but you need to VOTE!!!” As if I had any effect on my ballot not being there. Yes, I damn well KNOW I have to vote—you think I want a repeat of the last time around? You Europeans seem half convinced I voted for Bush the last time…

Americans find it off-putting abroad that pretty much everyone and their grandmother wants to know your voting preference. Money, religion and politics are not subjects openly discussed, I suppose, and I would never consider asking another American how they voted / are going to vote. Germans have no problems asking that, nor how much we earn, nor what religion we are (though the concept of religion in Germany has less serious connotations than in the States, excepting Bavaria…). It also perturbs most Americans that your average European knows more about American politics than the Americans do…

Other new pet peeves include:
- paying ridiculous amounts of money for nearly everything;
- the cleaning ladies who absolutely have to clean our kitchen at the exact same time as I need to make my sandwich for lunch, regardless of what time of the day or night;
- the crackheads at cité at 2 AM on weekends (explanation: the seediest club in Geneva—where people go when nothing else is open or they can’t get in anywhere else—is located under my residence, conveniently right next to the bicycle room in the basement. That means I have to pass through clouds of weed smoke and drunk kids to put my bike away if I come home on weekends);
- people who automatically switch to English when we start to speak and think they’re doing me a favor
- 6:30 AM plus Garbage men = me not much sleep
- not having enough coffee (am sadly back to being coffee dependent… welcome to grad school)
- having the linguistical ability of your average eight-year-old—if that.

Mais en effet, ca va. Parfois.