I lived in Germany for a couple years, about a decade and a half ago, and was hard-pressed to find automatic cars anywhere. My German neighbors all told me there was no point in paying for that "luxury" when the standard manual cars do just fine. So I guess that drives home the point that us Americans are lazy and willing to pay more for the convenience.

I exclusively drive stick-shift, so it was great to have options in Germany (and most of the EU I traveled through), but moving back to America made it difficult to find manual cars. I didn't realize the 5-speed manuals were going out of style. I actually drive a 6-speed right now, the first I've ever owned, but it's a touring edition so I thought it was just part of the upgrade. Didn't realize 6-speed is standard for almost all manuals in the US now.