text: It's fascinating to compare my own experiences, having lived now 3 years in Germany, to those of an American from 125 years earlier.  I've been learning to speak German, and his Appendix on the "awful" German language was hilarious.  In poking fun at German grammar (e.g., long sentences), he purposely commits the same errors in his own writing.  The scene "riding" the glacier down the Alps was so funny I had tears running down my face.  It's amazing to think that it was written in 1879, when America was barely a century old, and the insights and perceptions then can be incredibly, eerily similar to either my or "typical" American's attitudes today.
  
  I'd recommend it to anyone, but particularly to anyone visiting or living in Europe.  It's way funnier than his "Innocents Abroad", which is also a good read on travel in Europe
  