Culture Differences

On Monday night we walked up to a tower that lets you see the whole city. After climbing up a huge hill and icy stairs, we find that the tower is closed on Mondays.
My roommates mom sent her a package yesterday with a bunch of stuff in it. It had some boxes of Mac and Cheese and Hamburger Helper. We showed some of our friends today who had never heard of either one and were totally disgusted by the idea of "dinner in a box". Although, one girl did say that mac and cheese sounded like it would be okay if it had ketchup on it (kinda strange, but I did eat it that way when I was little). Everything in Europe is made from scratch. We all know that hardly anyone in North American makes anything from scratch anymore; but most Europeans won't touch processed food.
Today was interesting. In the morning I attended 2 Gerontology seminars, there are about 14 seminars all week for students from Finland, Sweden, and Iceland. I just went to sit in because I want to see the differences in the interpretation and study of the aging process and I just really like Gerontology in general. Anyways, the lecturer asked me what I was studying at home then asked me to explain exactly what it is because they do not have Recreational Therapy over here. She then tells me that no, I am studying Occupational Therapy. I explained that Occupational Therapy is for fine motor/small muscles, not recreation/leisure/daily living like Recreational Therapy is. She then tells me that she is an Occupational Therapist and she does what I say a Recreational Therapist would do. We realize there is obviously a culture difference, then a student from Iceland (also an occupational therapist) heard us talking and said she went to the US and looked at some Occupational Therapy stuff and found it so strange that it was simular to Physical Therapy and not daily living. I just found it really strange that popular jobs like that could vary so much between countries. I also noticed that over here the word 'occupation' is used to mean activity instead of how we use it as a profession or a job.
After class I went into the city center with 2 of my friends, Deirdre and Merel (from Ireland and the Netherlands) to show them were I got snowpants for 15EUR because we need them for Lapland next week. Little did I know that I would actually have to show them what snowpants were exactly and how they are supposed to fit. Then I had to show Deirdre what snow boots looked like because she had never needed to buy those either. When she first asked me what snow boots looked like I responded with "they look like snow boots..", it was when she held up snowboarding boots and asked if they were what she was looking for that I realized Ireland doesn't get much snow, so she has never needed to buy them before. It is really interesting when something is so common to you, you naturally assume that everyone else knows it too, until you encounter someone who doesn't because they have never needed it. Also, like the mac and cheese.
Tonight I will book a trip to Southern France for next month. We will be going to Marseille, Nimes and Montpellier. And thanks to some lengthy layovers, we also have a night in London and a day in Frankfurt.