Aren't we so alike!?

Sometimes, I love watching people. Now that it's dark early in the evening, I get to peer into people's homes and watch them go about their business- like reading a book or eating their dinner. Yesterday, I was riding the bus home from the halloween party I went to. It was a ceroc dance party (similar to swing dance without the difficult footwork) at a community center, where my friends and I were paired with dance partners who were 20-40 years older than us (so cute). During the bus ride back, I was observing the jovial mood of the trick-or-treaters while trying not to get poked in the eye by the butterfly woman next to me. Later, I passed by pirates talking on cell phones, superheroes drinking coffee, fairies serving food, and lions pushing pumpkins in strollers. I thought to myself: "Isn't this a funny scene!? Only one day in the year, do people dress in bizarre costumes and act like it's completely normal."

When I got home, I glanced over at the apartment across the street from me, and saw the lady who lives there washing dishes. I had to smile, for no matter where I am in the world, people all do the same things. Whether it is dressing up for a national holiday or simply washing dishes, people behave so alike. 

Whenever I go back to Germany, I find myself standing on the right side of the escalator, speaking more softly in public places, and waiting like everyone else for people to exit the U-Bahn (the subway) before entering. It is the way the Germans expect people to behave. Here too, I find myself falling in step with the way people do things. I use cloth napkins, bring my own grocery bags, sign my name on "help the ___" petitions, and scrape my food into the compost pile in our garden. It is fun to watch people's manners and to realize how similar we are to each other. Each culture is different, but at the end of the day, we all take showers, do the dishes and have to work to put food on our table. 

Anyway, just some random thoughts of mine.