In the early seventies, at the age of about 12, I went to Austria with brief stops in Germany, France, and Luxembourg.
Back home in Chicago, virtually all boys, most girls, and many adults wore tennis shoes full-time.
In the parts of Europe I visited that was not at all the case. I don’t think I saw three pairs of tennis shoes on the entire trip. It was jarring and deeply weird.
Soon after starting our first drive from Arizona to Central America, we stayed in Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua. Parral had been a major mining town; Pancho Villa was assassinated there. Parral is now known for producing very fine footwear. When encountering someone in much of the world they may give you a head-to-foot-and-back glancing appraisal. In Parral, eyes go immediately to your feet. If you display sneakers or other substandard footwear you will be disregarded as just another ape-like creature.
My first overseas jaunt was from Aus to London, via Bali in 1995, aged 35. Flight return cost $1500.
I can fly from Aus to London for much the same price today in 2020.
I’ve known Paraguay to be referred to in this respect: attributed to the country’s horrific war between 1864 and 1870, against nearly all of its neighbours. I believe it’s true enough that at the end of that war, only one in ten male Paraguayans – excluding the very young and the very old – remained alive. But… the after-effects of that situation still affecting the behaviour and demeanour of the local ladies, a century and a half later; that idea, feels a great deal like a wish-fulfilment fantasy on the part of guys who can’t get much back home…
I noticed the “she” when you referred to your taxi driver - I have only experienced one female taxi driver (not Uber or similar) in my numerous travels. Are they common in certain countries or cities?
You want interesting, you may have to shop around ahead of time online, but there is no lack of smart, educated, and beautiful once you skim off the 50% scammers and spammers.
Good God. I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this:
But it looks like an interesting country. After independence from the Spanish empire, one of the leaders forbade members of elite social groups from marrying among themselves to deliberately mix the population and break down barriers:
There are quite a few in the Philippines, most Ive seen are better drivers than men, I think modern cars are better suited to “a woman’s touch”. Men still drive like they are fighting the car. Saw female drivers in Guyana, Moldova, I think even in Ethiopia, not sure of them all.
My experience is far too thin to draw any conclusions. This was the only one in our European trip. My main taxi experiences have been in Japan, and I have yet to see a woman taxi driver there.
By the way, woman taxi driver is a good example — No matter your travel expeerience, there is something new every day. Something on the spectrum curious-to-awesome around every corner, It never gets old.
Being Pakistani, I was horrified by just how soon shops closed in the UK.
Even in Melbourne.aus, I wouldn’t trust a taxi driver from an international airport. And international train stations are the same.
Personally, I was very happy with our Paris taxi drivers. And outright impressed by Shanghai taxi drivers. But even in the best of countries, any dodgy, dishonest, ignorant or migrant driver with no language skills and his cousins taxi licence is going to prefer picking up from or delivering to the airport.
I wouldn’t trust anyone at an international train station in Australia, either,
My first trip to London, as a teenager, with a local family to stay with and learn the language, end of the 70’s. I had been before to Germany (family, often) and Austria (Summer camp, a couple of times) and had driven with my father often from Germany back to Spain through Switzerland (so clean!) and France (nothing to report there). Two things struck me in England as unexpected: how poor the families were that took kids from the rest of the world to learn the language, many took four or more kids from different countries organized by different agencies to make more money (I thought before arriving that they did it out of curiosity, to get to know us, some kind of hobby… I was very naive). They calculated that if the kids came from different countries they would have to speak English among themselves, so no danger of not learning. And how horrible the food was. Of course, to make money they gave us the cheapest gruel they could mix. I remember the salad leaf sandwich (one leaf between two slices of bread, no butter, margarine or mayo, no salt, no pepper), the cucumber sandwich (four slices of cucumber, thinly cut, two slices of bread), the baked beans sandwich (you get the general idea…), the small tin of tuna I had to open myself for lunch. Without bread this time, but with a slice of lemon.
The second shock: I did not understand half of what was said. Working class English had very little in common with the stuff they tought at school in Spain in the 70’s.
I went to France and Germany on a student tour as a teenager in 1969. I was amazed that so many people did NOT speak English.
No matter how loud I shouted at them. 
I am American and was surprised so many people in Montreal spoke to me in English. I guess I looked American.
My first time abroad was in the Army when they shipped me to Korea. The first thing that hit me when I got to my duty station was just how similar it was to where I grew up. I had spent my entire life wayyyy out in the sticks in various farm towns nestled away in mountains. Korea is a mountainous country with a lot of rural areas, including the area I was stationed, and in spite of being thousands of miles away from my state in a small village in Asia, I just immediately felt right at home.
I was amazed that school kids would come up to me and other Americans and just start talking and practicing their English. I’ve read and heard a lot about small town friendliness, but believe me, that never seemed to reach the people I grew up around. We were insular, provincial, and we distrusted the shit out of newcomers, which made the fact that my family moved around so much real fun. 
These kids–and not a few adults–had no qualms about walking up to you and basically adopting you right there on the street. I had a friend who was blonde, and one kid actually came up behind her and plucked a hair right out of her head.
It worked to my advantage, because I had no trouble finding someone to teach me the hangul alphabet, which was the third thing that surprised me. As hard as Korean is to learn for a Westerner, the alphabet is easy as shit. On that note, I had no trouble finding textbooks, because every village, no matter how small, seemed to have a well-stocked bookstore; Koreans, like the rest of the Asians, treat education as a second religion. I learned a fair bit of the language in my downtime, and from time to time, almost 30 years later, I still try my hand at it.
Oh, and I’d gotten it into my head that every single Korean in the world followed either Taoism or Buddhism. I never met a Taoist, and I met less than five Buddhists. The vast majority of Koreans I ran into were Christian. That kind of surprised me, too. I was such a rube.
Montreal is very bilingual. I highly recommend Quebec City, which is more French-Canadian and IMHO more charming.
What struck me on my visit to Vietnam a few years back was just how much taller I am than…practically everyone. I’m pretty tall (74"/188cm), and it’s something I’d known on an intellectual level, but it was still weird, and slightly uncomfortable, to be amongst people who almost never came above my shoulder.
On the other hand, it did make it easy for my wife to find me in a crowd.
In countries with Christian minorities, the Christians latch onto westerners to try to form a kind of solidarity. You hate being rude to them, at least they are not proselytizing. Mostly decent friendly people looking for kindred spirits.
It also bothers me how sloppily westerners dress when traveling. And how much they complain about travel’