Day 1
Culture shock of the day.
There are free-standing cigarette machines throughout the city. The weirdest thing is that their distribution seems to be random, and not associated with any retail outlet, although I’m unsure if they’re also present in residential areas.
The buyer’s age is checked by inserting a debit card. Not sure how valid that is.
I googled some data (take that for what it’s worth) and discovered that the teen smoking rate in Germany (14 to 17-year-olds, 2024) is 14.9% and shows signs of increasing. The rate in the U.S. is 1.7%, though the rate for vaping is much higher at 5.9%.
There are about 300,000 of these machines nationwide, mostly in areas of high pedestrian traffic. They started requiring age verification in 2007, usually with a debit card or national ID, but really, how hard is it to get your older sibling or cousin to cooperate?
Does the ease of purchasing tobacco have anything to do with these disparate rates? No idea. I suspect there are other variables that have a greater effect, like lower prices (tobacco prices in the U.S. are among the highest globally) and greater social acceptance of smoking.
It rained all day, and it wasn’t very tourist-friendly. I spent much of the day learning how to shop for groceries. There are as many differences as similarities between shopping in the U.S. and Germany, but one thing remains constant: Shopping for only one person is a pain in the patootie. Tomorrow I’ll move in with the host family, and meals will become both more complicated and easier.
Memoirs of an Earthling 
In Austria, it is definitely the social acceptance of smoking. Until 2009, smoking was allowed indoor in restaurants. It had been quite a political battle to dictate isolated smoking rooms as a first step, and then to prohibit smoking in restaurants completely.