Europe Wrap-up

Here's a quick wrap-up on Europe:

Observations:
1) There is a much stronger Middle Eastern connection in Europe (and particularly in Eastern Europe) than in the US.
2) The Cold War. Its quite surprising how scared we were of a lot of the Eastern European and former Communist countries just 15 years ago. While they might have had nuclear weapons, people in Eastern Europe still seem like good people and do not seem like they should be feared. This seems to show the power of propaganda on both sides.
3) Ethnic identity. Europeans have very strong ethnic identities. It was very surprising to me all over Europe how people could readily point out people who were different than them (although still Caucasian) within their countries without even hearing them speak to know they had a slight accent. In Latvia, there was a strong distinction between Lats and Russians. In Germany, there were Germans and any type of Eastern Europeans. In Croatia, people seemed to be able to identify other Slavs who were not Croatian even. Many people's ability to correctly identify people's ethnicity was quite surprising to me and seemed to belie some sense of skepticism of outsiders.
4) Language differences cause a lot of difficulty between European countries. None of the countries I went to shared a common language so people seemed to

Best places I've visited:
Hungary and Sweden. These two countries are certainly the places I am most likely to visit although they are very different. Hungary was far more exotic and different than the US and there was much more to do than I expected. Sweden did not have nearly as much to do as Hungary and was not very exotic, but it was the nicest, cleanest, most beautiful place I have been and the people there seemed to have a nice, relaxed, lifestyle that included spending lots of time outdoors and partaking in outdoor sports. I could see myself living there and enjoying it. Both countries also had the best food of the places I've travelled thus far.