# Things you didn't expect to miss in a foreign country **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 13, 2009, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672 "2009-10-13T17:45:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/41 "2009-10-15T01:40:49Z")
> [@Imasquare](#): > > I have been in South Korea all year and I really miss stylish architecture. > > All the buildings here look the same - they are all concrete tower blocks with very little to distinguish them. In fact everywhere I have been in Korea looks pretty much like everywhere else. I lived in Chicago before I moved to Seoul and I really miss the skyline. Seoul is a great city but for the most part the buildings look like they were designed by some bored kid with a pencil and a ruler. And an obsession with rectangles. But there are a lot of rural areas and islands in Korea that are beautiful. ETA: I miss Kraft’s macaroni and cheese. ---
**Author:** ![maplekiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@maplekiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maplekiwi)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/42 "2009-10-15T02:25:16Z")
I’m a Canadian New Zealander. Away from Canada I miss root beer (hard to get here) maple products like maple cream & maple butter. & Kraft Dinners although Diamond now make anacceptable substitute. Away from New Zealand I missed New Zealand steaks, tomatoes & a New Zealand soft drink called Lemon & Paeroa. When I came back to NZ I was surprised to find I no longer like the latter. Tastes like soap (& is owned by Coca Cola now) ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/43 "2009-10-15T02:46:55Z")
1. Pay phones. I think in the whole time I was in Europe I managed to successfully use pay phones nowhere but in France and Denmark, and that was it. Folks, the pay phone problem has been _solved_. Canada has successfully unveiled a payphone where – gasp – you put in money and then you can talk to people! 2. When in Rome, I was looking for a box to mail my junk to myself back home. So I looked for a stationery store and _they don’t exist!_ Where the hell do people in Rome buy office supplies? I finally - after days of looking - found a UPS store where they had one. WTF? I had an absolutely fantastic time, in large part due to the differences from back home, but these were the only two things that really got up my nose. ---
**Author:** ![Imasquare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Imasquare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imasquare)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/44 "2009-10-15T02:57:08Z")
> [@HazelNutCoffee](#): > > ETA: I miss Kraft’s macaroni and cheese. You can buy it online from EZShopKorea - 5,300 Won per pack. [http://ezshopkorea.com/shop/step1.php?number=42262](http://ezshopkorea.com/shop/step1.php?number=42262) ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/45 "2009-10-15T03:55:53Z")
Water! I see I’m late to the party here, but I don’t know how those Spaniards get drunk every single night and wake up refreshed the next morning without any water. It’s got to be expensive to keep buying bottles of it. ---
**Author:** ![Omgalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/41988e/32.png) [@Omgalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omgalion)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/46 "2009-10-15T04:18:35Z")
I miss salt and vinegar chips when I’m away from home (anywhere but England). I was in the US a couple of weeks ago and I couldn’t find that flavour anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Kesamet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@Kesamet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kesamet)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/47 "2009-10-15T04:23:59Z")
I miss fresh milk - milk with a three week sell-by date is not fresh!! I need milk with a short shelp life and that wonderful creamy taste. I used to miss bread too until I bought a bread maker. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/48 "2009-10-15T04:35:06Z")
> [@ellere](#): > > I miss salt and vinegar chips when I’m away from home (anywhere but England). I was in the US a couple of weeks ago and I couldn’t find that flavour anywhere. Really? Salt and vine…oh wait. You mean salt and vinegar _fries_. Yeah, I’ve never heard of such a thing. If you wanted salt and vinegar _potato chips_, that’d be easy enough to find. ---
**Author:** ![Audrey\_Levins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Audrey\_Levins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Audrey_Levins)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/49 "2009-10-15T04:37:14Z")
> [@ellere](#): > > I miss salt and vinegar chips when I’m away from home (anywhere but England). I was in the US a couple of weeks ago and I couldn’t find that flavour anywhere. Odd; I see that flavor frequently. At convenience stores and at grocery stores. I don’t like it or buy it, but I see it. 😛 One of my friends who married a Brit and moved overseas has a list of things she has to enjoy the moment she arrives on US soil for a visit: drive-thru fast food, cold beer, a bar with comfortable bar stools wherein you can smoke, Mexican food and heavily iced beverages. Tea/soda, etc. She’s also a huge fan of large American bathrooms and long hot showers with what she calls “actual water pressure.” Late night options for food/entertainment are also high on her list. And well lit, well paved roads. Good thing she loves her husband because she misses her homeland quite terribly. 😛 On edit: good call, **Kyla,** I was thinking he meant American chips. Although I do see “chip” vinegar as an option at seafood restaurants, I’ve never used it… ---
**Author:** ![Imasquare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Imasquare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imasquare)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/50 "2009-10-15T05:09:58Z")
> [@ellere](#): > > I miss salt and vinegar chips when I’m away from home (anywhere but England). I was in the US a couple of weeks ago and I couldn’t find that flavour anywhere. I guess you mean hot chips rather than potato chips / crisps. We have salt and vinegar on hot chips in Australia, so its anywhere but England or Australia. And maybe New Zealand. If you were in the US I suppose you could always add the vinegar yourself but then again the chips are different from English ones - they’re much thinner. And it would be a hassle to carry a bottle of vinegar around when you went out for fast food. ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/51 "2009-10-15T05:16:26Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > Along the lines of things you didn’t _expect_ to miss, I’d say advertising. Like most Americans–hell, probably like most people in the _world_–I feel like lots of advertising is ugly, intrusive, and overdone. > > But when you go to the other extreme–no billboards, no logos on buses, no come-ons in shop windows–it’s amazing how dreary and lifeless a city can look. Such was the Soviet Union, during the bad old days of 1986. No adverts in North Korea in 2009… we’ll, one (local) car billboard near the airport. ---
**Author:** ![Omgalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/41988e/32.png) [@Omgalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omgalion)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/52 "2009-10-15T05:17:02Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Really? Salt and vine…oh wait. You mean salt and vinegar _fries_. Yeah, I’ve never heard of such a thing. If you wanted salt and vinegar _potato chips_, that’d be easy enough to find. No, I meant chips; what the English call crisps. I can never seem to find salt and vinegar flavoured chips anywhere but home (Australia) and England, but it sounds like I was just looking in the wrong stores in the USA. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/53 "2009-10-15T05:48:47Z")
> [@ellere](#): > > No, I meant chips; what the English call crisps. I can never seem to find salt and vinegar flavoured chips anywhere but home (Australia) and England, but it sounds like I was just looking in the wrong stores in the USA. Okay, thanks for the clarification. Yeah, they’re fairly common in the US. I love 'em. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/54 "2009-10-15T07:03:22Z")
Chocolate!!! Or more specifically, Maltesers Real proper rot your teeth stuff, not that crappy stuff they sell in the USA masquerading as chocolate ---
**Author:** ![Enuma\_Elish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5e9695/32.png) [@Enuma\_Elish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enuma_Elish)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/55 "2009-10-15T08:05:31Z")
OMG I went on a semester in England (and toured the continent for a month) in 1983. The first thing I did upon getting off the plane in Chicago was run to a bubbler (drinking fountain). There was one in Europe. One. It was overlooking some park in Rome and when I went to drink from it was warned off by a police officer who kept saying : “No drink, water no good!” I trusted him and walked away, but not without a few lingering looks back. In the years after getting home, though, I have consistently missed fish and chips, good dark chocolate sided digestibles, calling for another Guinness Stout when I am only half done with the one I have, and good public/national/continental transportation. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/56 "2009-10-15T17:44:05Z")
> [@ellere](#): > > No, I meant chips; what the English call crisps. I can never seem to find salt and vinegar flavoured chips anywhere but home (Australia) and England, but it sounds like I was just looking in the wrong stores in the USA. They’re everywhere in Canada. They’re one of the standard flavours. ---
**Author:** ![aesop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f8ce5/32.png) [@aesop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aesop)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/57 "2009-10-15T20:11:37Z")
> [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](#): > > I lived in Budapest for 4 months in 2001 (hence the username). I missed ice cream. They had this fagyi (gelato, basically), but it wasn’t cold. I missed cold ice cream so much that I would actually go to McDonalds just to get a chocolate shake. Ironically, I don’t eat as much ice cream these days, so I probably wouldn’t even miss it now. I’m having trouble parsing this, as I live in Budapest and fagyi is everywhere, it’s cold, and it’s delicious…ymmv, I guess. But you’re spot on about the public transport. It rocks. As for what I miss about the US: precious little. Others have pointed out the awesome scenery of the canyonlands, cheddar cheese, and Mexican food. Ditto to all those. I guess if I had to pick one product it would by Nyquil. When I’m really suffering from a miserable cold, Nyquil (and Dayquil) fix me up better than anything else. If I had to pick one intangible it would be customer service. The US really does shine in this regard. Hungary, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/58 "2009-10-15T22:45:04Z")
Well there are a few things that I miss from home, but I really _expected_ to miss them. Per the OP, the things I miss but didn’t expect to miss are these (in Mexico currently): [ul] [li]Levi’s jeans for real people. All of the Levi’s stores have the stupid, trendy, mode-ish styles that the kids wear. I just want my 560’s. Oh, yeah, the retailers only carry up to size 38 and a short little 30" inseam.[/li][li]Peanut butter with chunks of peanuts in it (only creamy here). Seems like I recall being able to buy it before, but all I can find lately is the creamy stuff.[/li][li]Chicken shawarma. C’mom. There’s supposedly a large Arab and Lebanese population here. Where are their bloody restaurants? And when I find one, where’s the shawarma?[/li][li]Lighting on the freeway. Toll roads usually are awesome in this country, but I don’t understand why an urban toll road wouldn’t be lighted.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![kimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f0a364/32.png) [@kimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/59 "2009-10-16T02:01:00Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Underline mine. I don’t know where were you, but in Liberia we were lucky to find anything other than seedless green grapes, mangos and Washington apples; same for the fish, yes there was fish in the company’s cafeteria every day, but they only used two species with an occasional show by a third; there wasn’t a single fishmonger in town, nor did the supermarkets have a fresh fish section. The weird thing is that Costa Rica exports berries and fish… I’m in Guanacaste, so I go to Liberia to get stuff we can’t get in my little town. They have a HUGE fruit section at the Jumbo in Liberia (the big supermarket there). And there are always the people on the side of the bus selling fruit. My coworker made a fruit salad last night with tons of different fruits in it and whenever I go on vacation, I always buy fresh fruit to take on the bus. My favorite fruit is from the jungle though. Nothing like wild passion fruit! We can’t let the monkeys see us eating fruit, but if I see something good and no monkeys are in view, I take it. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672/60 "2009-10-16T03:42:07Z")
> [@maplekiwi](#): > > I’m a Canadian New Zealander. > > Away from Canada I miss root beer (hard to get here) maple products like maple cream & maple butter. & Kraft Dinners although Diamond now make anacceptable substitute. > > Away from New Zealand I missed New Zealand steaks, tomatoes & a New Zealand soft drink called Lemon & Paeroa. When I came back to NZ I was surprised to find I no longer like the latter. Tastes like soap (& is owned by Coca Cola now) Hmmm…it used to be owned by Schwepps right? I hope they didn’t change the recipe… What about Hokey Pokey ice-cream, can’t get it here ☹ I miss a good New Zealand chop and our New Zealand sausages - the only ones you can get here are all those gourmet-y things that sell for like $20NZD a kilo…crappy bloody things.. oh - and proper steak and cheese pies…mmmm And I miss Fish and chips, and mussel patties… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-didnt-expect-to-miss-in-a-foreign-country/513672.md?page=4)