Why is it so difficult to flush the toilet and turn on the light?

We enjoyed an amazing four week trip back to the U.S. over the holidays (more to come on our fun adventures while we were there). However, while we were back I noticed several silly little differences that I hadn't anticipated. Here's a look at a few of the differences that took me by surprise...

• Flushing the toilet: I caught you with this one right. Well the majority of toilets in Europe (and the ones in our apartment) are flushed with a button instead of a handle. It must have taken me a good four or five days of being back home before I stopped looking for the button everytime I flushed!
• Turning on the lights: Many light switches over here are buttons as well, not switches. Well just like the toilet I repeatedly found myself trying to push a button before successfully flipping the switch on!
• Disappointing food: Don't get me wrong I was happy to eat many of the foods I had missed eating for the last year (several of which I had craved while I was pregnant!), but I must say overall I was disappointed. We had a list of several restaurants and things we wanted to be sure to eat while we were back, and it must have been all the anticipation (and Steve might say different) but most things I did not find to be as good as I remembered them to be! Still good, just not what I had remembered.
• Grocery stores and shopping carts are huge: I expected this one, but it still caught me a little off guard by just how big our grocery stores are and how big shopping carts are! I don't ever use a push shopping cart when I go to the store in Zurich because if I do then I know I will buy more than I can carry home. So when we went to Target the first day we were back and got a shopping cart I found it massive and almost difficult to steer!
• Driving a car wasn't all that strange: It had been over a year since I drove a car, so I was a bit intimidated when I got behind the wheel for the first time! To my surprise it wasn't quite as scary as I expected (ok well maybe except for parking). However it is still so bizarre that after thirteen years of driving a car often multiple times a day I went an entire year without ever driving one!
• I don't know anything about car seats: There probably aren't many American moms out there that don't know how to operate their car seats with their eyes closed, well not me! It was a learning experience for both Steve, Emma and myself.
• Talking to strangers: I don't normally carry on lengthy conversations with people I don't know - I mean I think I'm friendly but I don't tell someone my life story that I don't know. Well maybe that is changing. The first time while I was home and walked into a coffee shop the man taking my order asked me how my holidays were. I found myself about to tell him every detail of my holidays simply because I could and he could understand me since we spoke the same language!

There are probably so many other things, but these stuck out to me right away. Now that we're back home I'm back to our new normal way of life and am no longer having trouble flushing the toilet on the first try!