I found that wine is actually cheaper in the UK than the US in some ways; at least bang for your buck is a LOT higher, because the cheap table wine is usually fairly decent French or Italian wine, not bargain-basement E&J Gallo or the like from California. Not that all California wine is bad, more that cheap Italian or French wine is better than cheap California wine.
Beer is actually cheaper overall- it’s about the same price per pint (or was when I was last there), but it’s an imperial pint (20 oz), not a US pint (16 oz). So it’s larger for the same price. Plus, it’s fresher and there is a myriad of delightful brews you can’t even get here.
As for stuff I found weird… I definitely found it weird that the UK kind of rolls up the sidewalks at about 5-6 pm, with only pubs and entertainment venues open after that time.
I was amazed at how pleasant the Netherlands is- both the public spaces and the people themselves. I haven’t been anywhere cleaner on a trip before.
The other countries I’ve been to (Belgium, France, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy and the UK) all have varying degrees of grunge that the Dutch just flat-out don’t allow.
I was amazed in Rome just how pervasive the Church is; it seems like every third building is a church or cathedral of some kind in central Rome. And if it’s not a church, it’s some kind of Roman thing. Awesome place if you’re interested in history. Florence was… underwhelming to me. Beautiful art, but that’s pretty much all there was to see.
I was surprised and gratified to find out that in the Czech Republic and Hungary, Americans were welcomed (13 years ago anyway) by locals. Also, I was surprised by just how pretty of a city Budapest is.
In December of 1983, I was vacationing in London. I had seen the important sights, so a day before I was to leave, I was just out wandering around London, enjoying the city, finding nice little surprises.
I found myself outside of Harrods. Their windows were nicely dressed for Christmas, and I spent some time looking into them all. There were beautiful displays of toys and clothes and all kinds of wonderful things, all with a Christmas theme. I quite enjoyed Harrods’ windows, and I was glad that I took the time to see them.
The next day, I flew home to Toronto.
The day after that, the Provisional IRA blew up a car bomb outside of Harrods. Right where I had been enjoying Harrods windows, just two days earlier. :eek:
First time I travelled overseas outside Africa was to the UK, and I was simultaneously
a) amazed at how incredibly comprehensive and efficient the public transport was; and
b) amused at how Londoners seemed to think a 2-minute Tube delay was the end of the fucking world.
Also, all the men taking their tops off in the parks at just a hint of sun was amusing.
When I was about 16, I was among a group that toured through Europe, consisting of about 40 fellow high school students and a handful of adult chaperones. The tour was put together through a company that specialized in shuffling teenagers through Europe on the cheap.
Our first night was in Torremolinos, Spain. Two things shocked me to the core within hours of getting off the bus.
The first was that the elevator to our floor did not have an inner door. I had never seen or heard of such a thing – indeed, I doubt such a thing would have even existed anywhere in the US in 1986. It has “lawsuit” written all over it.
The second was that absolutely no one in Spain gave a rat’s ass about teenagers drinking. A guy in my group was too afraid to buy a beer, and so he sent me to buy one. I asked the bartender in my best (terrible) Spanish for a Heineken. He didn’t bat an eye; grabbed the beer from the cooler, said, “Cien pesetas, por favor,” I have him the money, he gave me the beer, he went back to work, my compatriot drank the beer.
Japan: the lack of public trashcans. I’m in a baby changing room, holding a poopy diaper, and no place to dispose it. I learn later you’re expected to carry the trash home with you.
Czech Republic: I scrawl my signature in a messy line. The cashier compared it to my credit card signature and did not accept it. I figured it was a one-off, but it happened several more times until I learned to carefully sign.
Norway: non-accented perfect English. Everywhere I went, from stores to restaurants (not just tourist attractions). It was jarring enough to feel like I wasn’t in a foreign country
Austria: cannot buy aspirin in a convenience or grocery store. Only in special drug stores. Learned this was much of Europe.
Re: pay toilets, while this wouldn’t really be an issue in Europe, in less developed parts of the world I’ve come to realize pay toilets are a good thing. The fact that you pay for them means someone is actually cleaning them regularly. In those parts of the world I would definitely choose a clean pay toilet over a filthy gas station toilet if given the choice.
Norway: The thing that really surprised me there was the large number of old American cars on the road. I had always assumed everyone in Europe drove smaller, more fuel efficient cars because gas was a lot more expensive. And a lot of people did, but I also saw people driving old Cadillac Eldorados, and Chevy Impalas, and El Caminos. I later learned that there’s a whole subculture in Scandinavia that’s really into classic American cars.
While in the line for security at the airport in Berlin, the 17 year old kid in front of me asked me a question and we got to talking. Like you said, perfect unaccented American English. He was also so damned ambitious, had his whole life planned out. He had just graduated high school and was enrolled to start at university in the fall. He was going for an engineering degree before a career in either mining or petroleum exploration and I have no doubt he did just that. Very charismatic and uncharacteristically warm toward a stranger, not something Northern Europeans are known for.
Elsewhere in Germany, a travel companion had sore knees and insisted we find Tylenol. “It’s the only thing that works on my bad knees!” “Why didn’t you bring some, then?” So, we find a little shop and were greeted by four women working. Like you said, it appeared to be for OTC meds and balms. We didn’t speak each others’ languages and had one of those funny gesture and loud, slowtalk conversations. They were shaking their heads no. Luckily, I knew it was acetaminophen which one of them looked up and found it cross referenced to paracetamol, the European term. We all enjoyed an international chuckle at the realization. I have no idea how they make enough money with all that staff and selling €4 bottles of pills.
How to know if a foreigner is a newcomer to rural Thailand, or has been here for many months? Serve him beer!
“Ice in beer?!?? Funniest thing I’ve ever heard of!” — newcomer
“Where’s the ice? I can’t drink it like this.” — been here a while
(This is a slight exaggeration. But we always put beer in the freezer when expecting guests.)
Several years ago the nearest(*) place to buy aspirin was 36 miles from my home. Dengue (hemorrhagic) fever is the big threat here — not malaria — and aspirin is contraindicated for dengue fever. (Dengue fever is also called “breakbone fever.” It probably won’t kill you, but it will make you wish you were dead.)
Notes:
(a) A hospital 23 miles away has aspirin. But they won’t sell it unless you wait for a doctor’s visit, so driving the extra 26 miles round-trip is faster.
(b) Rural Thailand is changing fast. A drugstore recently opened 2 miles from my home that has all my regular meds!
Umm, what? I moved out of the UK a few years back but the potential for terrorists stashing bombs in densely traffic public areas certainly wasn’t “less of a concern”, that problem stayed firmly on the list of security problems even after ‘suicidal loons with rucksacks’ was added. The endless recorded announcements to ‘please report any suspicious items to a member of staff’ are all about the potential for any random bag, box or container to be full of explosives.
There’s still plenty of terrorism threats, but there has been less of a focus on stuff in bins in recent years, and they have been coming back to most busy areas, if in clear bag-onna-hoop form. When I worked in an airport we did still have to block the ones on site off -literally taping a bit of plastic over the holes- when we had a bomb threat though, which was always a pain to clear up after.
My first trips abroad were all within Europe, and I can’t honestly think of things that really shocked or surprised me from them, if I’m honest. There were minor cultural differences, but nothing that really stood out. It was my first trip off the continent, the trip to Kenya with the children sleeping in groups on the street, and the seemingly endless slums on the way out from Nairobi that was the shock.
On the subject of cultural expectations and being surprised by people talking to you - not my first trip abroad, but my first to the US - back in 1988 or 89. We stayed with friends in upstate NY, and they took us on a trip to Pennsylvania; specifically to Lancaster County - Amish country. The movie Witness had just been a big hit - this was the first time we had heard of Amish people and we were intrigued enough to visit the area* (it’s beautiful - been back since). Anyways, at one point we found ourselves at Zimmerman’s Store, which appears in the movie (image). For some reason I was standing outside the store with our friends’ two young children whilst the others were looking round the store. As I was thus minding my own business, a young Amish woman walked up, took a look, and said “Nice Kids”.
Of course, a major theme of Witness is the Amish keeping themselves to themselves, and really not interacting with non-Amish. And in those pre-internet days, there was no easy way of fact-checking that sort of thing. So I was completely taken aback. All I managed to say was: “Oh. They’re not mine!” - which kind of killed any conversation stone dead. If you needed any reason to be mistrustful of “the English”, that was probably enough.
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Yeah, somewhat tacky behaviour. Sorry - those were different times.
Hm, I was about a month old the first trip out of the US, so I have no idea if I found anything odd =) I did find moving back at the age of 5 strange [I did pre-K in a German Catholic nursery school, with a bunch of German kids with a couple of us US Army brats mixed in. ] The food was pretty much the same [Mom being Amish old school German cooking was what she did best =) I still make a mean sauerbraten and heavenly hasenpfeffer =) though my strudel pastry is now sort of lacking from lack of practice =( ]
I find I like the German groceries - in the US we have 50 brands of soup with 20 flavors [exaggerated for humor] and there they have 20 brands with 50 flavors [cream of carrot, yum =)] The pre hard boiled eggs already dyed different colors by the palletload sitting around, the variety of meat [duck, deer, boar =)] with the ability to buy enough for one person for one meal =) The overall friendliness in Germany was great, I was stuck waiting for a train in teh Frankfurt airport, and a table full of Germans bought me breakfast so I would hang out with them and practice english. Though I did get rousted by a guy in the German Army bomb squad while I was napping in a corner while waiting that same trip [bomb scare apparently] but he did end up buying me a coffee =)
France was fine, I did a year in a boarding school, so traveling later with my mom and a group of kids was fun, I was the default translater. Did find it hysterical when the theater we were going to watch Silver Streak in accidentally changed reels to the third reel of a porno [Bilitis Sings, going from what I can remember] which shocked the nuns herding around their school group. My mom found it hysterical.
Randomly Spain, Italy, England - as long as one tries to be polite in the local language, no matter how badly you mangle it, they laugh and get helpful. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Bermuda [I sound like a crappy 80s beach tune =) ] All fun, all nice and warm in place of a cold New England winter. They are a main reason I like cruises as vacations.
Canada is very familiar, my Grandfather had a summer house there - it is why I also speak French =) I think milk in a bag is actually a great idea if you don’t have access to a dairy that does glass jugs that are returnable . Much less waste, though one can compost the waxed cardboard [you have to tear it up to expose the cardboard]. Lovely people.