By Eva Ciabattoni

Vienna combines old and new forms of transportation.

As fellow first-worlders, Europeans and Americans aren’t all that different - or are they? A third-grader from Austria was fascinated that we had moved to his native land from California. He asked me what weapons we had back in America. I wasn’t sure what he meant. Iraq? Star Wars? The nuclear arsenal? No - he meant us personally. “Doesn’t every American carry weapons?” he asked. “Oh, no,” I answered after a moment.

In our first two months living abroad, we discovered some similarities and some differences.

Europeans do:

• Cars. But most of them are small. I bought a tiny, used, cyber-green, three-cylinder Daewoo that somehow fits five people. It’s like driving a motorized tricycle, but parking is easy.

• Personal relationships. My check from America hadn’t cleared yet when I needed cash to buy the car. The staff at the bank said that since they knew my family, they’d cover me until the check cleared. No paperwork, just a handshake.

• Titles. The person who approved the money for the car was Mr. Bank Director. I hear people being introduced as “most esteemed (professional title) Mr. or Mrs. (last name)” as a matter of course.

• Craftsmanship. I needed a carpenter, electrician and plumber to do some work on our apartment. Since schoolchildren have the choice of leaving

formal schooling at the age of 14 to learn a trade while apprenticed to a master, there are many qualified craftsmen to choose from. It has been easy to get highly qualified people to do the work I need - and they do it very well.

• Music. My mother’s guitar is being repaired at the cozy workshop of a guitar builder who sells his handmade guitars at a Santa Monica music store. The piano guy in town understood the urgency of having music in the house and found us a great-sounding piano within a week of our arrival (no payment necessary until next year). The opera season has begun.

• Internet, cell phones and television. People do seem more shut away now than before the age of satellites and 24-hour-a-day programming. It used to be that there was only cyber-snow until 6 p.m., then four hours of evening programming (mostly ski conditioning, news and old movies). I don’t see many of my neighbors, but I hear their TVs going all day.

• Yappy dogs. Tornadoes on leashes.

• Grains. The quality and variety of bread here is incredible. White flour comes in different grinds depending on whether it is to be used in pastries or bread. The whole-wheat bread is delicious, packed with grains and fiber, yet moist and chewy.

• Meat. I asked for ground beef from the local butcher and watched the woman behind the counter cut off a slab of red meat. Had I said the German word “faschiertes” wrong? But no, she cut it into chunks and fed it into the grinder. From this, I made the best Bolognese sauce ever to emerge from my kitchen.

• Family farms. I discovered heaven in an apple called the Crown Prince Rudolf. I bought two crates of the Rudi for 5 euros from a woman who had picked them herself from the gnarled old trees that grow on her small farm.

• Wine. My cousin married into a family that has been bottling local wine for the last 300 years. She keeps me stocked in familiar varietals from California and others that are local: Gradenthal and Blauer Portugieser.

• Hikes. People walk for hours along the miles of trails that surround every town. Nordic walking is popular and encouraged by the national insurance offices. On the other hand, most walks end at one of the many:

• Pastry shops. The famous Konditoreis are everywhere, ready with gleaming precision coffeemakers to serve up just what the customer ordered (my favorite is the kleine schwarze, or “little black one,” a super-strong dose of hot caffeine in a teeny-weeny cup) along with an amazing assortment of desserts. • Smoke. A lot.

• Fashion. The trend for women is scarves - folded in half along their short side, wrapped around the neck, with the ends pulled through the loop made by the fold. The ends can hang straight down or, to be really au courant, a bit off-center.

Europeans don’t do:

• California cuisine. I miss it. I traveled back to California for a week in September, and the salmon with fava beans and fennel from Oakville Grocery almost brought tears to my eyes.

• Dryers. Most people I talk with say dryers consume too much energy. They have washers but hang their laundry to dry. (I went American on this one and ordered a dryer to be stacked on top of my washer in the only space available in the bathroom.)

• Mayonnaise in jars. Mayo comes in tubes with a star-shaped opening, so you can squeeze out every last drop - and in a pretty pattern, too.

• Answering machines. They use their cell phones.

• Norton antivirus. The word on the street here is that Symantec is prevented from trapping all computer vermin by the FBI, which is itself a virus-spreader in the line of duty. This may be similar to the weapons myth, but now I have a Czech antivirus system called NOD32 - with a 100-percent virus-busting track record.

• The drive into the heart of Vienna. Public transportation is abundant, frequent, convenient and easier.

• Tips over 10 percent. When I handed the cashier five euros to give to my pedicurist, he refused to take it and asked, “Don’t you have a 2-euro coin?” He added that workers in Austria make enough to live on their wages and the tips truly are a little extra.

• Modesty. I sashayed into the sauna only to find a clothing-optional male already there. For a moment, I had that walking-into-the-men’s-room-by-mistake feeling, but then I remembered I had been escorted to the sauna door.

• Worry. The social safety net is strong here, which allows many people to be self-employed. When my son fell off his bike and went to the hospital, I never saw a bill. (The dog, on the other hand, cost 250 euros for various tick-borne illnesses.)

• American English. In December, I began teaching English classes for teens and elementary schoolchildren. They want to learn to speak the cool American way.

Eva Ciabattoni is a Los Altos resident and freelance writer living on the outskirts of Vienna for one year. Her family roots go back generations in Baden, Austria.