Desert air, turns out, is a lot wetter than airplane air.
I buy milk (in the UK) in 6 pint bottles.
The OP’s observation may come down to two factors: (i) waiters outside the US don’t tend to hover at your shoulder refilling drinks and generally being a pain in the arse;* and (ii) it seems to be a US-centric custom to throw down litres of carbonated beverages at meal times. (Whereas the custom here is inhale litres of beer, or bottles of wine. ;))
- I can see why you’d like this, but some of us prefer to talk to our dining companions without the waiter coming in all the time. Also, the US-style seems to be to strictly assign one waiter to a table/group of tables (“Hi, I’m your waiter for the evening!”) This is possibly a feature of the mandatory-tipping system. Elsewhere, it’s common to have several waiters alternately serve the table.
The last time I went to Europe, via British Airways, the flight attendants were pushing bottled water on passengers. (And that was in “World Traveller” aka coach class.) I think they came around offering water every hour or so, and when they were turned down, they made sure to ask “Are you sure? It’s important to drink enough on a long flight.” They also encouraged people to get up and walk around and stretch during the flight. Does BA just have a greater interest in the health and wellbeing of their passengers?
British Airways is, unquestionably, the nicest airline I’ve ever flown (all others have been American liners). The food was great, the people were great, the seats and entertainment were great… the socks were great 
Flying across the ocean on any other liner is painful. With BA, it’s almost a joy.
Ugh. Thare have been several stories lately about the poor water quality aboard ariplanes. “Fecal contamination” was mentioned frequently. Stick to bottled…
I think that’s part of the “super-size it!” culture isn’t it? I notice even crossing the border from Canada (and we’re pretty super-sizery too), that portions served to me in American restaurants are immense. And your non-alcoholic beverage comes in glass that holds about a litre. Here I don’t see that as much here except in fast food chains and at the movie theatre where the regular size soft drink cup exceeds the size of my stomach by about a threefold.
I often feel guilty because I can only eat about a third of what’s served to me – perfectly good food going to waste if I can’t take the leftovers home with me.
I couldn’t possible FIT all that liquid into my stomach, let alone my beverage and a meal on top of it.
Of course waitstaff in the US comes back and asks you what you want - they’re working for tips! This leads to a whole series of different behaviors that I’m sure have been covered on these boards many times. I’ve never found this to be the least bit annoying (checking in once in a while for a few seconds at a time bothers people?!), and I pretty much always want a water refill. If you want to be left alone, just ask for the check, which obviously means you won’t want anything else… if you REALLY want to be left alone, go back to the same place and eat, because Europeans never seem to tip… I’m sure any staff who remember you will be happy to oblige. 
I noticed that in Cambodia my friend and I went to some places where the waiter would literally stand next to us the whole meal, asking how pretty much every bite was. It was amusing enough, and the waiters were pleasant enough company, that it didn’t irk us, although it was a little odd.
I have a friend, another American, who was flying back to the States on a European carrier about 8 years ago. His stewardess bascially reprimanded him with a scowl for requesting a drink of water when he felt dehydrated because if she brought him water then “everyone would want some!” :rolleyes: :eek: I’ve never found this to be the case flying to or in Europe, but I’ve only flown that particular airline once. Our circle of friends still laugh about the incident, especially as it was a German airline and it invited comparison to certain involuntary train routes the we assumed the same corporation must have been running a half century ago. :eek:
I think that Europeans in general know that no-one actually needs to ingest litres of fluid with a large meal.
I would normally have 1 pre dinner drink (eg gin &tonic), half a bottle of wine, 2 or three small glasses of water and a cup of coffee when I eat out. That would be for a 3 course meal in a nice restaurant.
Once they’ve brought your wine and a carafe of water, they’ll assume you’re satisfied.
And Europeans tip 10-15 %, just like everyone else…but only if they feel the service was adequate, not automatically. That’s why it’s a tip.
Just to be clear (and we’ve argued this point ad infiniteum on the boards), but most Americans would only give 10% for subpar or marginally acceptable service. 15% for good service and more than that for excellent service. To not leave a tip indicates a major problem or problems with your experience.
So you see, tipping behavior is really fairly different. It’s a difference based in part on the way servers are paid in the US. No need to go into that now. But if you are in the US, and generally leaving 10% if the service was quite good, you are giving the waitstaff less than they expect.
My brother-in-law manages a restaurant in England and he vehemently disagrees. Even though tipping 10% is supposedly the norm in England, he says that many people do not tip and many will just leave a pound or so no matter what size the bill.
Mainland Europe seems to tip a bit more than Britain. But yes, there’s some people who just don’t do it at all, ever. And when you’re waiting, those people stick in your memory far more than the regular tippers.
(You’ve checked that your brother-in-law isn’t just suffering the consequence of bad sevice? 
)
Having spent lots of time with my european relatives in my home and theirs, I can say that people in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and England drink just as much as Canadians do-- it’s just that portion sizes at restaurants are smaller in Europe, and the default option in Europe is to skimp on water because it’s not free.
As for tipping-- in most places I go in Europe, nobody throws down more than a euro or two. Never would anyone dream of giving a waiter a 15% tip.
Concerning tips :
I couldn’t tell for other countries, but in France for instance, the fact is that there isn’t any widely agreed upon “rule” about tipping.
Some people will essentially always tip, except if the service was awful. Others will essentially never tip, except if they found the service outstanding. Some people will just leave spare change. Some people will always leave roughly the same amount, regardless of the cost of the meal. Some people will tip more if the meal is more costly. Very few people will tip a %age of the bill. People will just leave as tip the amount that feels right to them, and it varies widely from one person to another.
Which doesn’t prevent some people from believing they know what is the proper amount to tip (A couple ot times, for instance, someone eating with me just took part of the tip I had left and handed it back to me later because they thought it was too much ). Generally, it merely falls down to what they saw their parents, or their friends, doing.
A french waiter just can’t have any expectation of what tip he could get from a specific random customer, though I assume it averages out, and he can predict roughly how much he will get on a busy evening.
From my mainly German experience people don’t neglect fluids with a restaurant meal. Typical consumption for people I have had dinner with at lower-to upper-medium-level restaurants would be either 0.25 l of wine, 0.2-1 l of mineral water or 0.2 l-1 l of beer. That would be for a medium-length dinner of perhaps 1-2 h - if we continued to sit and chat for hours more would be ordered.
A bit less, perhaps, with a restaurant lunch - people tend to avoid drinking much alcohol with lunch.
I have also noticed in the last years that more and more people carry small bottles of water - particularly the backpack-carrying part of the population, but also middle-aged outdoor-concert-going types. Especially in the few weeks of high summer when you need to sweat a lot you see people drinking water all the time.
With the elderly dehydration is a publicly recognized problem - the media often tell them to drink even when they don’t feel thirsty. Older peoples’ lack of thirst may be excerbated by reduced bladder capacity and control which makes them deliberately drink less. But for everyone else it’s not an issue.
It’s perhaps much of what people perceive as the necessary level of fluid ingestion. I have lately begun to drink a lot of mineral water at work (fortunately it’s supplied by our employer for free) in order to support losing weight, and my colleagues joke that with drinking some four 0.7 l bottles within 8 hours I must be running to the pissoir and back all the time.
Some other things that might figure into this difference in perception:
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my understanding of restaurant/bar economics here is that these businesses live mainly on their margin on beverages; food is much lower-margin and sometimes even a loss-leader. In fact most bars and quite a few restaurants are owned by breweries and leased with a condition that certain beverage-sale targets are to be met. [note: breweries are also in the non-alcoholic-beverages business in Germany]. So proprietors don’t want to spoil their beverages sales with free water or all-you-can-drink offers. Result: people buy beverages, don’t get them unasked-for.
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also most of the US is south of most of Europe - the latitudes of the contiguous part of the US reach from south of Morocco to barely the north of Germany. Might have something to do with fluid intake.
It can’t have been Aryan Air\\Lufthansa, they push the beverages at you constantly, and seem to get off when you actually ask one for a drink when it isnt being offered…
<hijack> Does Lufthansa require that their flight attendant staff all be tall thin blonds with blue eyes? Every attendant I have ever seen from Lufthansa has looked like a clone :eek: </hijack>
It wasn’t Lufthansa. (Yes, there actually at least one other German airline…or there was in '96 in any event.) I’ll pass on naming names, that was 8 years ago, things may have changed…