For those who have travelled abroad, what are some of the little cultural differences that stood out to you?
For example in Paraguay there are numerous stray dogs around the city. In the day they just lay around but apparently they roam around at night. It is difficult to go to sleep for the first couple of night due to the incessantly howling and barking. The Paraguayans seem not to notice at all, but this would never be tolerated in the US.
The first time I visited Paris I noticed dogs in restaurants and cafes. We generally don’t have that in the U.S. I love dogs, so it was great! 
Dominican Republic
Peurto Plata to be exact. Cows walking around loose in the city eating garbage.
Same place - 5 people on one sub 250cc motorcycle.
I recall strolling down a street in Quito, Ecuador. On one side was a hospital that been in operation since something like the 1700’s. On the other side, the street was lined with funeral homes. Not sure if it was a cultural thing, but it sure says something about the efficacy of old-time medical practices, I guess.
Further down that same street, I found a guy selling food from a brasier on the street corner. At first I thought he was selling nuts, but when I looked closer, I noticed the nuts had legs. Turns out they were some sort of crispy fried beetle.
At first I thought this was going to be about foreign objects in strange places
On par with the 5-people on a motorcycle example, I noticed the rules for common-sense travel safety are pretty much a 1st world idea. On my travels in South America I would routinly see buses with people clinging to the sides, on the front fenders, on the roof (I hung on the side once, for a thrill-- damn near got scraped off by oncoming traffic!). It was amazing! You would hear about minor accidents where 55 people were killed or injured!
Also, when in Lima, the corners of the pedistrian bridges were clearly identified as places to urinate by huge, greasy brown stains and a funk you could taste a mile away!
In Rio, you would find a slum with tin shacks right next to a huge, white mansion with big high fences. And the real strange thing was that the tin shacks had cement floors and electricity!!
And right here in the good old USA: When I lived in Vegas years ago, there was still some open desest area right in the middle of developed areas, and damned if they didn’t always find dead bodies in them! I lived in a real nice gated apartment complex, and directly across the street they found a corpse decomposing under an old sofa! I would hear about one being found just about every month or so around the valley. Weird!
Damn! I have forgotton to not become drunken again!
You should try the town of Harar, Ethiopia. Stray dogs roaming all around at night, lots of barking and howling. But they actually have a purpose there: they stubbornly defend the walled town against the nightly intrusion of wild hyenas in search of scraps. As a traveler, you soon learn that hyenas have an amazing range of vocals–you have all night long to study! Hopped up on chat one night and unable to sleep, I watched gangs of dogs and patient, lumbering hyenas wage warfare back and forth across the football field beneath my hotel window. If you’re going to be up all night, you might as well have more entertainment than killing malarial mosquitoes…
The locals told me that you actually start to get used to turning the corner of a narrow street at night and coming face to face with a hyena (made my knees go a little weak myself–they look like pure muscle attached to a monster jaw). They are actually very cautious and usually won’t bother you. Oh yeah, this nightly ritual probably wouldn’t be tolerated in the USA.
Bangkok also has lots of stray dogs, it’s actually against the law to kill a dog. Many have only three legs. These roving scavengers can get a bit aggressive and they can be quite scary if you are in dark alley somewhere.
But something more bizarre to me was the occasional elephant and mahout walking through downtown, weaving through the traffic. The odd bit was that it really wasn’t long before you took it for granted.
Also there are a lot of itinerant vendors, who all have distinct sounding horns, chimes, etc to let their customers know that they are in the vicinity. The most interesting of those was the dried squid vendor on a bicycle. There was a sort of a square rack on the back of the bike, about 3 feet by 3 feet, with wire strung horizontally across the frame. Hanging from the wires by clothes pins were the full dried little squids. Second place would have been the pan-fried bug cart, full of giant water bugs, crickets, grasshoppers, large ants, scorpions, etc. Chock full of chitinous goodness!
I almost got run over by an elephant in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I was crossing an alley on a major street and the elephant came out of it, generally you don’t stop and look down an alley thinking"I wonder if an elephant is going to come out of there…"
Squat toilets with “American Standard” logos stamped on them I found rather humourous…American Standard? I don’t think so.
I’m used to seeing street musicians in Europe–a guy out on the corner with a guitar or bagpipes, and a blanket in front of him for change.
But one time in Glasgow, I found an entire string quartet dressed in full tuxedoes. It was surreal and impressive all at the same time.