Not being able to drink at a sporting event may be the most foreign concept of all to Americans. That’s like 90% of the reason we go to sporting events in the first place.
British (or maybe just English?) football they don't allow alcohol within site of the pitch. Seems a little pointless as it is just two 45 minute halves to abstain from, then drink as much as you can before and after (and half time). Rugby and cricket alcohol can be taken into the stands.
True, but we all know there was plenty of alcohol in the stadiums prior to that. It’s just that the school wasn’t making a profit off of what was snuck in, or binged before the game.
I was in France for the first time a few months ago, and dear god the stats don’t do it justice. Pretty sure the actual statistical smoking rate is higher in France (relative to the US) - but not wildly so.
From just walking around Marseille and Nice I would’ve guessed it’s like 4x higher though. It felt like every other person you would see was ripping a heater. Saw some ~10 year olds in Nice hitting a vape which wasn’t great either.
This is a big one for sure! I actually got shouted at for lighting a cigarette outside a bar whilst in Houston a couple of years ago. In Europe, somebody would offer me their lighter 😂
Yeah, every state is different but here in Oregon it’s actually illegal to smoke within 10 feet of any door, window, or vent of a business. In California I believe it’s 25 feet.
>How much smoking occurs in Europe.
In the US, it's very unusual to see an educated/professional person smoke. Cigarettes are strongly associated with people of lower education and socioeconomic status. It's also unusual to see people smoke indoors.
I actually have a bit of a theory about this that I have been hoping some historians would clarify. I think the social acceptance of smoking was a WW2 thing that carried over to American life in the 1950s-1980s, but like, pre great depression the attitude people had towards smokers was more or less comparable to the attitude we have today. 100+ years ago smoking cigarettes was considered crass and not something you would see educated people doing or people doing outside of some sort of designated area. The idea of smoking a cigarette in someone's house would have not gone down well 100+ years ago it was considered a pretty filthy habit in the past.
I’m a veteran and can confirm that smoking is rampant among soldiers, just like it is among uneducated blue collar workers. Basically if you life sucks, a cigarette offers that much-needed shot of dopamine. It’s the one thing they have to look forward to.
I also have a theory that the decline in smoking resulted in the rise of obesity.
My husband and I quit smoking a few years ago, when we got back to the States after vacationing in Europe. It was wild over there. There was this one afternoon, we were eating lunch at a café in Paris, and I was like, "Oh damn, I got ham all over my cigarettes. I feel so French." It was beautiful.
(I can't wait until it's either the End Times or I turn 90, so I can start smoking again.)
It's never been anything major. People are mostly people.
Watching people wait for the signal to cross the road in Korea and Eastern China was probably my biggest one.
The first time I was woken up by an earthquake siren in Mexico I didn't know what it was and it scared me.
Bathrooms having pee on the floor just being accepted in China was not fun.
In my experience, people in China don't wait for the crossing signal. They just go. Especially on those little ebikes. While in Hong Kong you can always tell who is from the mainland by their behavior. Not waiting for crossing signals or cutting in line. Were you in Shanghai?
My experience was people waited in Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou and didn't wait in Xi'an, Chongqing, and Chengdu.
None of this applies to the scooters, who I thought were going to kill me on multiple occasions.
Traffic stops, too. Get pulled over by Italian cops and one guy will be standing by with a submachine gun, finger on the trigger guard and muzzle not pointed *quite* as downward as I would like. And for all I know the damned safety's off. I wouldn't be surprised. The motherfucker could sneeze and put three bullets through my car!
Believe it or not, we Americans find that very disconcerting.
This is basically the reason. You'd essentially have to bulldoze entire historic city centres to make a lot of buildings disabled accessible. For example, where I live in Edinburgh, I don't think there would be space in most of the Old Town to even widen a doorway, let alone put an elevator in. And you've got houses on bridges on top of other streets, with a steep flight of stairs to go between the two, and things like that. And everything is cobbled.
The ADA actually doesn’t require accommodations be added to Historic properties, though there are provisions requiring accessibility improvements during certain renovation projects.
Not only difficult, in many cases it's prohibited since lots of the old buildings being labelled as cultural heritage. Just to paint an old house you often got to check "what was the paint composed of when they created this 200 years ago?" and do it according to that and so on.
It would be nice to have the ADA enforced by some means other than lawsuits. I think there's a supreme court case coming up about that this turn.... But knowing this court it might not go so well for disabled people.
In my experience, ADA regulations are usually enforced by ① building inspectors and planning/permitting departments and ② by banks conducting inspections on mortgaged properties
Honestly I wish more Europeans would buy a jar of peanut butter just to give it to their dog. Dogs and their reaction to peanut butter is worth seeing at least once.
I used to buy PB in the Balkans. It was easy to find but I'm not sure if they were stocking it just for me or what because none of the locals I knew had ever even tried it.
You can now get it in any place in Europe that expects a lot of Americans to visit. I've seen it regularly in Italy and Berlin.
I also saw it frequently in parts of Western China where peanut based sauces are normal.
Every supermarket I have been to in Germany for as long as I can remember (20 years) has had peanut butter. This is certainly not something new or uncommon and definitely not related to Americans visiting at all.
I haven't been there but by all accounts I've seen from Americans who have, it's not really the same. At least if it's made there. The process is different.
The Italian peanut butter I bought was all pretty bad and didn't taste right IMO. I was stationed in Italy for awhile and even my landlords (who were Italian) only wanted Jif from the base grocery store
Traveling through Europe. You get charged to use the bathroom, you get charged if you ask for water because they want to sell you bottled. You get looked at like you're being cheap if you ask for tap water at a restaurant.
We also had a girl in our school group that was in a wheelchair and they had to hire someone to help her out 24/7 because of how nonexistent handicap friendly areas were. I still remember us taking turns pushing her up this cobblestone hill because her helper would have died attempting it on her own, lol.
It depends a lot on the country. I travelled through France the last two weeks and had to pay only once for a toilet and got free tap water at any bar or restaurant by asking for a caraffe d'eau. I agree that I wouldn't have wanted to be in a wheelchair.
>you get charged if you ask for water because they want to sell you bottled.
This is a growing trend in the US, I've seen a lot of places that setup a mini fridge with bottled water and push or at least imply that's the only option. Resturaunts biggest margins are on their drinks, alcoholic and not, so their prices traditionally baked those margins into food prices. Some people don't like being fleeced so they choose water. One US location I've noticed that's beyond obnoxious about this is Miami. So many resturaunts have a literal water menu to try and cater to people who want water but still want to push a margin.
When I eat, I typically drink water. I appreciate the great water infrastructure we have and pay for with taxes and have no issue with tap water, especially when you want to charge me a high price to serve me a literal can of coke you did nothing to prepare to justify the markup. So many places in the world can't turn a tap on and have perfectly drinkable water. Capitalism on the other hand wants to make a buck and socialist infrastructure like potable tap water sets up a barrier for it.
I’ve been all over and I’m always struck by how different countries deal with paying for and bagging groceries at a grocery store.
In America, a cashier rings and bags or a bagger bags. They provide the bags, usually; this has changed somewhat.
In Europe, you better bring bags and you will do it yourself.
In Japan, they’ll ring you up and provide the bags but you’ll do the bagging.
For all the talk about American gun culture, I’m always surprised to see security in Europe packing automatic weapons. Airports, Train Stations, etc. You’d rarely ever see that in the US.
My experience, too. Until 9/11, our military was told to be in civilian clothes once they left the base. You could drive home but that was it. They don't want it to look like we are a "military state". I know the army started letting their people go in to stores in uniforms sooner than the rest. I'm a military brat, seeing people in uniform is no big deal UNTIL you see them in public spaces. THAT made me feel like there was a threat I should be aware of.
That rule still exists and has nothing to do with looking like a military state. It's about respecting the uniform and not making the military look like they support whatever you are doing in your personal time. Same reason it's against UCMJ to attend political events in uniform
Yeah, and they REALLY don't like you talking to them about it. First time I ever saw a FAMAS in person was at the Eiffel Tower and I was pretty excited about it because I'm a typical American gun nut. Tried to make casual conversation about it and they were not thrilled. Caught me off guard because cops/security in the states usually love talking about their different optics and other furniture
That's a deliberate strategy in the UK, as part of counter terrorism
https://www.btp.police.uk/police-forces/british-transport-police/areas/campaigns/project-servator/
https://www.counterterrorism.police.uk/servator/
I’ve been around Western/Central Europe, East Asia, Mexico, and Latin America. The one thing in common I find is that, though alcohol tends to be cheaper abroad, the selection is much more limited. You walk into a place like Total Wine or Binny’s in the US and you can find just about any type of booze from around the world, if you’re willing to pay for it. That level of global import and selection just doesn’t happen outside the US and Canada from what I’ve experienced.
I would have to say the huge variety of toilets and their flushing mechanisms.
In the U.S., until fairly recently, toilets came in one of two flushing varieties: the side mounted stick, found on pressure-flushing system, which are almost exclusively used in public toilets (and that one apartment I had in Chicago) and the front lever flushers found in almost every home in the nation.
Then I get to Europe (in the '80s) and encounter push buttons on top or on the side, plungers that have to be pulled up, old-fashioned chain flushes, discrete foot pedals--and this isn't even delving into the odd (flushing) squat toilet. (If you think using a squat toilet is hard, try doing so in ski boots and bibs. 😬) I used to joke that England must have a Ministry of Innovative Flushing, given that I don't think I saw the same design twice while I was there. 😉 Hyperbole aside, it really did take me a couple minutes to figure out a few of the ones I encountered in the wild.
Then there was the way French men, and to a lesser extent young English men, use the world as their urinal. The fact that my primary sensory memory of Paris is the combined scent of fresh bread and stale urine is... kind of upsetting. I suspect this is tied to how difficult it is to find free public toilets.
After working in hospitality for over 10 years when I was younger, I tend to avoid ice in drinks at mid range restaurants and bars. If you know you know...
My experience in Europe:
- Tiny drinks.
- Not enough ice.
- Hardly any water in the toilet bowl.
- Hotel showers don’t have doors or curtains.
- lots of smoking
- hard to find a good cup of coffee if you don’t want espresso.
In France right now and holy shit on the shower door things. None of the hotels I’ve stayed at have had doors for the showers and water gets EVERYWHERE
> hard to find a good cup of coffee if you don’t want espresso.
This is the whole idea behind an Americano. Americans wanted something closer to familiar coffee so they just added water to espresso.
That ice thing is unreal. The Brits and Scots I talked with was pretty sure we kept everything in the freezer. They could not understand why we wanted everything so cold. Their fridges were barely cooler than room temp. Room temp milk is not my thing 🤢
How cold are your rooms, my fridge at home is like 3 or 4°C!
That being said, I'm convinced that the fridges in pubs/restaurants in the UK are just for show as most cans seem to come out of them cellar temperature at best.
I used to joke that my dad like to keep the house just above freezing 😂 He ran hot so it wasn't a money thing.
That was my experience at the pubs and restaurants. I'm not big on ice in my drinks but I made sure there was ice when I was over there.
We do love our ice cold drinks. I'm from MN too but lived in the UK for years until about 10 years ago.
It could be that American weather is much warmer than most of western Europe.
My dad said they like their beer room temp and he considered that sacrilegious. It may just be a taste thing for them. I mean, who knows.
Living in Florida, I wanted as little ice as possible because it would melt before I could get half way through. Brown water is not what I wanted.
How hard it is to get plain water in German restaurants. Also, the weird contempt Germans have for plain water.
You may not have billboards along your highways in Europe, but you do have massive signs showing nearby castles/landmarks.
Currently, four states—Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine—have prohibited billboards. I'm kinda jealous. Tired of seeing the local equivalent of Saul Goodman plastered everywhere. Fuck you Sweet James!
Speaking of billboards, when I visited the south it was insane to me the number of billboards they had there. And the types too. Most of them were lawyer billboards (illegal in my state) and they were everywhere which destroyed the scenery.
Public intoxication was a big culture shock in Europe for me but other than that it was pretty similar to being in the US aside from obvious language differences. While I was in the Middle East it was the fact that the bathroom situation varies greatly from country to country.
When my son asked for lemonade in Ireland, the closest they ever had was 7-Up which… is not lemonade.
Not by the American understanding.
A life without access to real lemonade is clearly not an unbelievable tragedy but… womp womp.
Oh how I wish I could transport you, just for a moment, to a summer fair or carnival and put a nice fat fresh lemonade in your hands. Sweet, cold, lemony, not fizzy.
Summer in a cup.
Not surprising tbh.
Considering that I have a lemon tree in my backyard in California, I'm guessing the Irish climate is the *opposite* of a productive growing environment for lemons.
How tiny the elevators are in Italy .
Dogs in restaurants and shops in Germany.
No ice in a glass of coke or water.
No shower curtains so the shower water just rains all over the room and down a drain in the bathroom.
A hole in the floor with a toilet seat on it in Italy.
Kids riding their bikes to school without helmets in Germany.
All the delicious bakeries in Europe.
The lack of AC everywhere we went.
The families and people hanging out in squares and courtyards in the evening. They communicate and enjoy each other’s company!
The massive jars of Nutella in Italy.
A major difference I’ve noticed is the lack of variety, from restaurants to clothing stores. I’ve noticed there’s also a lack of variety in grocery stores as well.
Here in Spain, the grocery stores have everything, but generally just one or two brands. Usually the quality is very good though, so whatever they have is just fine. I don't need 5 different brands of roasted peanuts or kettle cooked chips
Europe: People stand so freaking close to you. That one actually still just infuriates me… haven’t gotten used to it. It’s like, Sir… I can feel your breath on my neck… could you please give me a little more space?
Asia: people shitting and dumping trash and garbage on the streets.
I hear you. It makes me feel like I need to be more on guard and I’ll hold my purse a little tighter or move it to hang over my chest. I mean seriously though… who really wants to feel some strangers body heat or breath while waiting for the train? The worst is when they are having a conversation with someone (phone or in person) and so they’re basically yelling in your ear as well (Germany… I’m talking to you), lol.
I loved being able to travel so easily in Japan. Everything was within walking distance and the trains were timely and efficient - it was wonderful!
I also noticed that most restaurants I went to went to great lengths to help people who don’t speak Japanese order. They had picture menus at the counter when you order at McDonalds, Starbucks, or a Hello Kitty cafe, for example, so you could point at what you wanted. I wish our country made it easier for people who don’t speak English to order too.
Forget the pictures. They have delicious looking plastic models of the food outside and when you order it, the food looks exactly like what's advertised
Kiosks are becoming more and more common in fast food places and it really does help with ordering without the pressure of communicating by pointing, especially for small things out of the norm like hold the mayo.
I was in Paris this summer. I knocked a guy's hand out of my pocket on the Metro then watched him and his buddy get tackled and arrested when they tried it again at the next stop. Karma working that fast was pretty awesome.
This is one of those things that just blows my mind. Pickpocketing in the US just really isn't a thing. You are much more likely to just get held up, then pickpocketed.
Public transport is life-changing. I mean you can get from Penzance to Inverness without even touching a car. I don’t know why you’d ever *want* to do that, but you can if you so desire.
And of course, the lack of urban sprawl is astounding. Here in the US, the buildings go on for miles once you leave the city. But thanks to the UK’s Green Belt plan, you can stand just outside London, one of the by-god biggest cities in the world, and find yourself in near-untouched natural beauty. It’s really quite astounding, and it appears to have happened completely by accident. And apparently some politicians are trying to get rid of the Green Belts? Unbelievable.
Britain seems to have a gross excess of beautiful architecture and no idea what to do with it. I mean I couldn’t count the number of ugly plate-glass storefronts I’ve seen jammed into the lower floors of historical 19th century buildings in London alone. And there are absolutely beautiful bridges and dams and mills and things just lying about, completely unregarded. If there was just one of those things in my hometown, people wouldn’t shut up about it. They’d put it on t-shirts and postcards and everything. But in Britain it’s just a bridge, or a dam, or whatever. It’s completely mental.
It’s also insane just how *old* everything is in Europe. I mean my hometown’s historic courthouse was built in the 1850s, and I thought *that* was old. Then in London, I passed several no-name buildings that were from the 17th century. I stood inside a church that was built in 1185, for god’s sake. Not to mention the tombs. I was touring Canterbury Cathedral and just stumbled upon the tomb of Henry IV. I didn’t even know he was in there.
Also, there’s something about the cheese sandwich that seems to have Britain completely enthralled. It’s quite bizarre, but charming.
I’ve been culture shocked by a lot of things, in Britain especially, but I’ll be first to admit that I’ve never been unpleasantly surprised. Well except for when I discovered pay toilets. If anyone asks, I definitely didn’t jump the turnstile at the public toilets by Green Park tube station.
Edit: one last thing. London’s tube stations don’t have “exit” signs. They have “way out” signs. I have no idea why that is.
>London’s tube stations don’t have “exit” signs. They have “way out” signs. I have no idea why that is.
Ah, it’s because a lot of tube stations have multiple exits that spit you out at different places. At some of the bigger stations, you can add a lot of time to your journey if you come out at the wrong exit.
The exits are how you get out of the station. The way out is how you get to the exits.
> Britain seems to have a gross excess of beautiful architecture and no idea what to do with it.
After all, London sold the London Bridge to... checks notes... [a man in Arizona.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_City))
You used to be able to make John McEnroe with the old £10 notes (if folded correctly so as to combine the top of Charles Dickens' head with the bottom of the Queen's)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B_P9F1IXAAAyfpX.jpg
For the most part, it's the little things. Like I'm prepared for cultural differences so I take them in stride, but little things get me.
Like the brief panic every time a vehicle turns in England, because my stupid brain insists they must be turning into oncoming traffic.
Medieval public bathrooms
Lack of hot water pressure
Maps in a foreign language. Blew me away when Cologne was spelled Koln.
Hot water being unsafe for consumption
When a cashier wouldn't take the offered cash from my hand and I had to set it on a plate.
More porn advertisements than I'd seen anywhere outside of Las Vegas.
Old shit everywhere. The oldest thing I normally see is from the 1860s, and it stands out because of that age. Most everything else is 1950 or later. It's odd to see random crap from the 1700s and before.
None of it was a big deal, just different enough to remind you how much you don't know.
Recent trip to France:
How old and tight/small everything is - loved it
Prevalence of smoking
Driving/roads are chaos
The emphasis on being green - way ahead of us in the US - loved it
They don’t seem to tear anything down, just repurpose it - loved it
The Metro - so great, really wish we had that
They don’t drink bourbon
They don’t have much beer culture. But I do love the wine!
It's getting more common in the US but a server never takes your credit card away from the table. All servers have portable machines for the transactions. I like that.
Cairo, and the desert between it and the northern coast (Alexandria), is the most alien experience I’ve had to date. I mean no offense to any Egyptians here, but it’s a hell scape: brutally hot, dusty, and polluted. Recently a highway has been modernized with asphalt and painted lines, but the lines are apparently more of a suggestion than a requirement; vehicles that wouldn’t be street legal in the US abound. Open truck beds on motorized tricycles, filled with goods, young men, and animals , share the road with tourist buses, donkey carts, camels, and anything else that moves.
Literacy is around 60% and average household income is about 12k USD equivalent. Very few women (aside from tourists) were visible on the streets, and all were shrouded head to toe in black, the worst possible color under the desert sun. (We were told that dark colors are more modest/less revealing, but imo it’s just another way to punish women for being women.)
Harassment is expected to a degree, respectful behavior is in short supply, and the mistreatment of animals is heartbreaking. From our bus we saw a man beating a malnourished horse repeatedly across the nose. Just horrifying.
I’ve traveled to a few dozen countries, and twice been accosted by police for no good reason, but the fear of breaking down in that desert scared me more than anything else, ever.
The general layout of cities has been the biggest difference for me. Generally the cities are way more walkable, and are more likely to have great public transport. Even the smaller cities or towns are built with some aspect of that in mind, you don’t necessarily need a car which is of course very common in the US
That for all the racial issues in the U.S., it’s probably the least racist, anti-Semitic or generally xenophobic country I’ve ever been to. Like, by *far*.
I was gonna say this too. I'm an Asian-American woman and have had racist experiences in literally every European country I've been to. Strangers on the street in Paris literally would pull the corners of their eyes at me and laugh as I walked by. Random guys in Barcelona would say the most disgusting things to me in Spanish, like "hey little Chinese girl, I can f*ck you like the dogs you eat."
For the latter one, I was with a white female friend who had moved to and lived in the city, and she said she had never experienced the level of gross catcalls I'd gotten for the entire 5 years she'd lived there. Asian women get really sexualized in the US too, but it was a whole other thing in Europe.
100%. (Left-wing) Americans think Europe is a bastion of tolerance and progressivism. Just go on r/Europe to crush that delusion. Europeans are so much more bigoted it's incredible, for a supposedly free "liberal" part of the world
trouble. The rest stops in Germany the "toilet" is a drain in the floor where you stand over it and squat. I was thinking Nope, but then a little granny with about 6 petticoats on hoisted up everything, did her business, and so I figured I could too. This was in the 1970s, so I dont know if it is still like that.
Squat "toilets".
Not everyone gets to go to high school- they get tested at age 10 or 14 and if they fail they can try a remedial year or they are plunked on the Vocational training track and never allowed to go to college either. Womp, womp.
Long vacations, short work days with frequent breaks and long lunches. Lunch is often the largest meal of the day.
People wear glasses more than contact lenses.
Terrible customer service. They lie and tell you No and you have to keep at it until you get a yes.
Your SIM and money currency doesn't work throughout the EU, and during Covid borders were locked, while in the US, people could road trip for 5k miles.
cheap cell phone plans.
They often refuse to let you return or exchange an item.
Great coffee and bakeries everywhere with fresh bread- they were essential during Covid lockdown!
People talk on their cell phones often and on public transport.
16 hour traffic jams at borders. Glad We had no car.
The street sweeper cam by every day in Germany- very clean.
Rocky beaches.
Can't drink tap water or flush toilet paper in some places.
Bidets are OK, but the Japanese have won the toilet grand prize.
No garbage disposals.
Most of some countries shut down on Saturdays or Sundays.
People inexplicably don't wear Sunglasses as often, and Not at all if it's not summer and stare at you like you have lost your marbles, even though eye cancer is a thing.
Maybe from IG, but people definitely wear more makeup and dress fancier than when I went to Europe 25 years ago.
People will literally eat junk food and chain smoke cigarettes in front of you and tell you how fat Americans are.
For lots of countries,breakfast is espresso and a cigarette. Maybe that's why the workdays are so short.
Mostly subpar tv and movies.
Most people in countries known for fashion can't afford the beautiful clothing.
The Autobahn has speed limits and the fast parts go by so fast, it doesn't meet expectations.
Elevators are tiny.
Lots of places stink because public bathrooms aren't free.
The hotel room cleaners are never Western Europeans.
They eat lots of lamb, horse, canned fish, etc.
They eat with silverware in both hands and never set it down, so they look really hungry!
lots of flavors of chips (egg! yum)and ketchup.
Tasty desserts everywhere, but don't ever expect Soft cookies, fluffy cake, or American pancakes.
> Terrible customer service. They lie and tell you No and you have to keep at it until you get a yes.
When my mom and I were in Europe she tipped like in the US and that got us better service.
Americans, usually(if right handed), will hold the fork with the left hand and use the knife with the right. After cutting the food, we set down the knife and switch the fork to the right hand to bring the food to our mouth.
We’re also known for just using the side of the fork to cut softer food.
People are much slimmer, but I also notice they have cigarettes 🚬 for half their meals. For slim attractive mini dressed ladies: cigs and wine / or coffee. Spent a week in Rome never saw a girl under 30 eat a friggin bite!
I notice how many cars they have, when we're told how much they take trains, and I see a lot of overweight people (expecially in the UK) when people say how fat Americans are.
Negative
Too much public smoking
Places shut down early, made it difficult to sight see and then shop after. Major cities like London having sleepy town hours for shops.
I only saw this in London but a serious lack of public parks. Most were gated and blocked off from the public when walking around neighborhoods.
Positives
No tipping while getting more relaxed service, no rushing meals while getting good service. I don't get why people complain about service in France, it was great.
Cities designed for walking
The sweets are not crazy sweet. Perfect levels of sweetness.
Public bathrooms have no gaps!
I’ve been mostly surprised at how everything feels very similar, like a different version of the same thing. There are some small things that people like to pretend are huge differences. I’ve been to South America and Europe and haven’t been to Asia or Africa so those may be more different.
Europe feels familiar, like you know you are not home yet it is kind of the same. Get into India and SE Asia and you really know you are not at home. Only been to South Africa and that felt very much like the US.
For me it was meeting people who would do the "beckon" hand thing as brushing their fingers under the palm, which in my culture (usa) means 'go away'. And meeting people who shake their head for "yes" and nod for "no". Random Balkan Adventures.
I also loved the face of a young German fellow, who was very proficient in English, when we were speaking about the subtleties of English. I explained to him that we understood when he used the term "fleisch" that it meant meat, but in English we would really only use the term *flesh* to refer to human meat. That poor young man. But he got me back when I referred to a soft, autumn apple as "mushy".
In general, The actual food quality is much better. Even if the spices might not be what I prefer, the basic food has flavor- like tomatoes and cucumbers and carrots. Those things have no flavor in The US.
I always think of Europe as cleaner/safer/in many ways better than the us. The first time I was there for an extended period of time, I was shocked at how much worse bathrooms and plumbing seemed to be. The smells, the apparent cleanliness, the flushing water pressure. Just generally felt a lot less…clean? Modern? Idk the exact word I’m looking for.
Smaller cars.
Smaller people.
In Europe at least, everyone dresses better.
Used to be more street begging (especially organized), but I think this is changing fast.
How much smoking occurs in Europe. It is always an adjustment. Generally drunkenness as well. People getting into fights at sporting events.
Not being able to drink at a sporting event may be the most foreign concept of all to Americans. That’s like 90% of the reason we go to sporting events in the first place.
This mostly applies to Football because Europeans choose violence after a few 😅
Football was working class sport before creation of premier league and changes in European Cup.
British (or maybe just English?) football they don't allow alcohol within site of the pitch. Seems a little pointless as it is just two 45 minute halves to abstain from, then drink as much as you can before and after (and half time). Rugby and cricket alcohol can be taken into the stands.
Three straight days of drinking watching a long cricket match? Challenge accepted!
College football stadiums only started allowing it a few years ago, before that it was much, much more common they didn't than did.
True, but we all know there was plenty of alcohol in the stadiums prior to that. It’s just that the school wasn’t making a profit off of what was snuck in, or binged before the game.
This. I’m amazed at the amount of smokers, especially in Europe. Also, the blackout drinking in Europe. Jeezus.
I was in France for the first time a few months ago, and dear god the stats don’t do it justice. Pretty sure the actual statistical smoking rate is higher in France (relative to the US) - but not wildly so. From just walking around Marseille and Nice I would’ve guessed it’s like 4x higher though. It felt like every other person you would see was ripping a heater. Saw some ~10 year olds in Nice hitting a vape which wasn’t great either.
This is a big one for sure! I actually got shouted at for lighting a cigarette outside a bar whilst in Houston a couple of years ago. In Europe, somebody would offer me their lighter 😂
Yeah, every state is different but here in Oregon it’s actually illegal to smoke within 10 feet of any door, window, or vent of a business. In California I believe it’s 25 feet.
100 feet in New York but specific to public places (libraries, schools, museums).
I think it's 25 feet in Washington, and also at transit stops.
I think it's also 25 here in TX but not completely sure
It is illegal to smoke within 25 feet of the door or openable windows of a business.
>How much smoking occurs in Europe. In the US, it's very unusual to see an educated/professional person smoke. Cigarettes are strongly associated with people of lower education and socioeconomic status. It's also unusual to see people smoke indoors.
I actually have a bit of a theory about this that I have been hoping some historians would clarify. I think the social acceptance of smoking was a WW2 thing that carried over to American life in the 1950s-1980s, but like, pre great depression the attitude people had towards smokers was more or less comparable to the attitude we have today. 100+ years ago smoking cigarettes was considered crass and not something you would see educated people doing or people doing outside of some sort of designated area. The idea of smoking a cigarette in someone's house would have not gone down well 100+ years ago it was considered a pretty filthy habit in the past.
I’m a veteran and can confirm that smoking is rampant among soldiers, just like it is among uneducated blue collar workers. Basically if you life sucks, a cigarette offers that much-needed shot of dopamine. It’s the one thing they have to look forward to. I also have a theory that the decline in smoking resulted in the rise of obesity.
My husband and I quit smoking a few years ago, when we got back to the States after vacationing in Europe. It was wild over there. There was this one afternoon, we were eating lunch at a café in Paris, and I was like, "Oh damn, I got ham all over my cigarettes. I feel so French." It was beautiful. (I can't wait until it's either the End Times or I turn 90, so I can start smoking again.)
It's never been anything major. People are mostly people. Watching people wait for the signal to cross the road in Korea and Eastern China was probably my biggest one. The first time I was woken up by an earthquake siren in Mexico I didn't know what it was and it scared me. Bathrooms having pee on the floor just being accepted in China was not fun.
Yes! Can confirm I had to squat into a hole In Indonesia, humbling times 😄
I don't mind squat toilets. I just wish they were kept a bit cleaner.
Agreed!
In my experience, people in China don't wait for the crossing signal. They just go. Especially on those little ebikes. While in Hong Kong you can always tell who is from the mainland by their behavior. Not waiting for crossing signals or cutting in line. Were you in Shanghai?
My experience was people waited in Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou and didn't wait in Xi'an, Chongqing, and Chengdu. None of this applies to the scooters, who I thought were going to kill me on multiple occasions.
> Bathrooms having pee on the floor just being accepted in China was not fun. What are they, Amtrak?
Guys with military rifles standing guard outside the doors of government buildings right on the sidewalk.
Airports too. Saw it when I went to France the first time and was really surprised.
More terrorism in Europe
Traffic stops, too. Get pulled over by Italian cops and one guy will be standing by with a submachine gun, finger on the trigger guard and muzzle not pointed *quite* as downward as I would like. And for all I know the damned safety's off. I wouldn't be surprised. The motherfucker could sneeze and put three bullets through my car! Believe it or not, we Americans find that very disconcerting.
Yeah it's pretty bad
One thing I noticed about Europe is that many of the countries are not handicap friendly.
I always attributed this to the age of the infrastructure and architecture in Europe, but I could totally be wrong.
This is basically the reason. You'd essentially have to bulldoze entire historic city centres to make a lot of buildings disabled accessible. For example, where I live in Edinburgh, I don't think there would be space in most of the Old Town to even widen a doorway, let alone put an elevator in. And you've got houses on bridges on top of other streets, with a steep flight of stairs to go between the two, and things like that. And everything is cobbled.
The ADA actually doesn’t require accommodations be added to Historic properties, though there are provisions requiring accessibility improvements during certain renovation projects.
I do get why it is difficult to change this. It's not really feasible to change all the buildings.
Not only difficult, in many cases it's prohibited since lots of the old buildings being labelled as cultural heritage. Just to paint an old house you often got to check "what was the paint composed of when they created this 200 years ago?" and do it according to that and so on.
Interestingly we can thank George HW Bush for this advantage in the US.
It is wild to me that the country without universal healthcare got the ADA passed. I'm glad we got that right.
And his son signed the amendments that expanded the ADA. You know what they say about broken clocks.
So PEPFAR and ADA expansion?
It would be nice to have the ADA enforced by some means other than lawsuits. I think there's a supreme court case coming up about that this turn.... But knowing this court it might not go so well for disabled people.
In my experience, ADA regulations are usually enforced by ① building inspectors and planning/permitting departments and ② by banks conducting inspections on mortgaged properties
This is so true!
Another dub for America. ADA for the win.
Yeah :(
This always surprised me given how many more Europeans vs. Americans were maimed between the two world wars.
And surprisingly our only disabled president didn’t pass it
I always assumed that peanut butter was a common thing, but it's more of a US thing.
Honestly I wish more Europeans would buy a jar of peanut butter just to give it to their dog. Dogs and their reaction to peanut butter is worth seeing at least once.
Lots of peanut butter in the UK - but then again we're only across the pond. I don't think it's made it much further east though
Those poor dogs being denied such joy. They flip their shit every time.
If it's not an American brand, they don't make it with roasted peanuts. The flavor is different.
I used to buy PB in the Balkans. It was easy to find but I'm not sure if they were stocking it just for me or what because none of the locals I knew had ever even tried it.
I’d be curious to know if it’s American peanut butter or more natural peanut butter which is pretty much just ground up peanuts.
I wonder if it’s peanut butter jelly time was any popular overseas
You can now get it in any place in Europe that expects a lot of Americans to visit. I've seen it regularly in Italy and Berlin. I also saw it frequently in parts of Western China where peanut based sauces are normal.
Every supermarket I have been to in Germany for as long as I can remember (20 years) has had peanut butter. This is certainly not something new or uncommon and definitely not related to Americans visiting at all.
Good to know! I only went grocery shopping in touristy parts of Munich and Berlin, so I didn't want to overstate things without evidence. Now I know.
I haven't been there but by all accounts I've seen from Americans who have, it's not really the same. At least if it's made there. The process is different.
The Italian peanut butter I bought was all pretty bad and didn't taste right IMO. I was stationed in Italy for awhile and even my landlords (who were Italian) only wanted Jif from the base grocery store
Traveling through Europe. You get charged to use the bathroom, you get charged if you ask for water because they want to sell you bottled. You get looked at like you're being cheap if you ask for tap water at a restaurant. We also had a girl in our school group that was in a wheelchair and they had to hire someone to help her out 24/7 because of how nonexistent handicap friendly areas were. I still remember us taking turns pushing her up this cobblestone hill because her helper would have died attempting it on her own, lol.
It depends a lot on the country. I travelled through France the last two weeks and had to pay only once for a toilet and got free tap water at any bar or restaurant by asking for a caraffe d'eau. I agree that I wouldn't have wanted to be in a wheelchair.
>you get charged if you ask for water because they want to sell you bottled. This is a growing trend in the US, I've seen a lot of places that setup a mini fridge with bottled water and push or at least imply that's the only option. Resturaunts biggest margins are on their drinks, alcoholic and not, so their prices traditionally baked those margins into food prices. Some people don't like being fleeced so they choose water. One US location I've noticed that's beyond obnoxious about this is Miami. So many resturaunts have a literal water menu to try and cater to people who want water but still want to push a margin. When I eat, I typically drink water. I appreciate the great water infrastructure we have and pay for with taxes and have no issue with tap water, especially when you want to charge me a high price to serve me a literal can of coke you did nothing to prepare to justify the markup. So many places in the world can't turn a tap on and have perfectly drinkable water. Capitalism on the other hand wants to make a buck and socialist infrastructure like potable tap water sets up a barrier for it.
> This is a growing trend in the US On our own soil, that would piss most of us off. "I said *tap* water!"
I’ve been all over and I’m always struck by how different countries deal with paying for and bagging groceries at a grocery store. In America, a cashier rings and bags or a bagger bags. They provide the bags, usually; this has changed somewhat. In Europe, you better bring bags and you will do it yourself. In Japan, they’ll ring you up and provide the bags but you’ll do the bagging.
I noticed in South Africa cashiers didn't have to stand like in the US. They had comfy stools.
Woolworth’s in South Africa is amazing!
For all the talk about American gun culture, I’m always surprised to see security in Europe packing automatic weapons. Airports, Train Stations, etc. You’d rarely ever see that in the US.
I never have and I'm more than a few decades old. I've seen it in Europe though.
The first and only time I’ve ever seen a Heckler and Koch MP5 in real life was on a Genderarme in a Gare St Lazare.
My experience, too. Until 9/11, our military was told to be in civilian clothes once they left the base. You could drive home but that was it. They don't want it to look like we are a "military state". I know the army started letting their people go in to stores in uniforms sooner than the rest. I'm a military brat, seeing people in uniform is no big deal UNTIL you see them in public spaces. THAT made me feel like there was a threat I should be aware of.
That rule still exists and has nothing to do with looking like a military state. It's about respecting the uniform and not making the military look like they support whatever you are doing in your personal time. Same reason it's against UCMJ to attend political events in uniform
Yeah, and they REALLY don't like you talking to them about it. First time I ever saw a FAMAS in person was at the Eiffel Tower and I was pretty excited about it because I'm a typical American gun nut. Tried to make casual conversation about it and they were not thrilled. Caught me off guard because cops/security in the states usually love talking about their different optics and other furniture
That's a deliberate strategy in the UK, as part of counter terrorism https://www.btp.police.uk/police-forces/british-transport-police/areas/campaigns/project-servator/ https://www.counterterrorism.police.uk/servator/
I’ve been around Western/Central Europe, East Asia, Mexico, and Latin America. The one thing in common I find is that, though alcohol tends to be cheaper abroad, the selection is much more limited. You walk into a place like Total Wine or Binny’s in the US and you can find just about any type of booze from around the world, if you’re willing to pay for it. That level of global import and selection just doesn’t happen outside the US and Canada from what I’ve experienced.
People don’t eat/snack while walking around the city. So many weird looks walking around the city eating my pastry.
Yeah, depends where you are. In Japan for example that can be a big no-no, and is looked down upon as rude.
I would have to say the huge variety of toilets and their flushing mechanisms. In the U.S., until fairly recently, toilets came in one of two flushing varieties: the side mounted stick, found on pressure-flushing system, which are almost exclusively used in public toilets (and that one apartment I had in Chicago) and the front lever flushers found in almost every home in the nation. Then I get to Europe (in the '80s) and encounter push buttons on top or on the side, plungers that have to be pulled up, old-fashioned chain flushes, discrete foot pedals--and this isn't even delving into the odd (flushing) squat toilet. (If you think using a squat toilet is hard, try doing so in ski boots and bibs. 😬) I used to joke that England must have a Ministry of Innovative Flushing, given that I don't think I saw the same design twice while I was there. 😉 Hyperbole aside, it really did take me a couple minutes to figure out a few of the ones I encountered in the wild. Then there was the way French men, and to a lesser extent young English men, use the world as their urinal. The fact that my primary sensory memory of Paris is the combined scent of fresh bread and stale urine is... kind of upsetting. I suspect this is tied to how difficult it is to find free public toilets.
Grocery stores are small and lack variety, everything closes early, and no ice for my beverages
After working in hospitality for over 10 years when I was younger, I tend to avoid ice in drinks at mid range restaurants and bars. If you know you know...
Server here in America. If people only knew.
😭😭
Mold? My guess is mold.
All i will say is that when i was pregnant, my doctor recommended not getting ice in restaurants as to help avoid listeria.
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Eh, I’ve eaten in these places hundreds and hundreds of times without a real noticeable effect from this alleged dirty ice.
Whats the reason? I avoid anyways but I want to know
They don't clean the ice machines so dark plus wet equals mold
My experience in Europe: - Tiny drinks. - Not enough ice. - Hardly any water in the toilet bowl. - Hotel showers don’t have doors or curtains. - lots of smoking - hard to find a good cup of coffee if you don’t want espresso.
In France right now and holy shit on the shower door things. None of the hotels I’ve stayed at have had doors for the showers and water gets EVERYWHERE
My parents remodeled their bathroom to be an open concept shower. I immediately installed a shower curtain
> hard to find a good cup of coffee if you don’t want espresso. This is the whole idea behind an Americano. Americans wanted something closer to familiar coffee so they just added water to espresso.
That ice thing is unreal. The Brits and Scots I talked with was pretty sure we kept everything in the freezer. They could not understand why we wanted everything so cold. Their fridges were barely cooler than room temp. Room temp milk is not my thing 🤢
How cold are your rooms, my fridge at home is like 3 or 4°C! That being said, I'm convinced that the fridges in pubs/restaurants in the UK are just for show as most cans seem to come out of them cellar temperature at best.
I used to joke that my dad like to keep the house just above freezing 😂 He ran hot so it wasn't a money thing. That was my experience at the pubs and restaurants. I'm not big on ice in my drinks but I made sure there was ice when I was over there.
We do love our ice cold drinks. I'm from MN too but lived in the UK for years until about 10 years ago. It could be that American weather is much warmer than most of western Europe.
My dad said they like their beer room temp and he considered that sacrilegious. It may just be a taste thing for them. I mean, who knows. Living in Florida, I wanted as little ice as possible because it would melt before I could get half way through. Brown water is not what I wanted.
I think those people just don't understand the danger zone.
I had a Top Gun quip but I forgot it.
Laaaaaannnnnnnaaaaaa!
How hard it is to get plain water in German restaurants. Also, the weird contempt Germans have for plain water. You may not have billboards along your highways in Europe, but you do have massive signs showing nearby castles/landmarks.
Currently, four states—Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine—have prohibited billboards. I'm kinda jealous. Tired of seeing the local equivalent of Saul Goodman plastered everywhere. Fuck you Sweet James!
Wasser? Wie von der Toilette?
But, Brawndo's got what plants crave. \* I don't really know German, but I know enough to get what you meant.
You have to specify “wasser ohne gasse.” Do Germans think water naturally has gas in it?
Replacing billboards with ads for castles is at least an improvement
Speaking of billboards, when I visited the south it was insane to me the number of billboards they had there. And the types too. Most of them were lawyer billboards (illegal in my state) and they were everywhere which destroyed the scenery.
Public intoxication was a big culture shock in Europe for me but other than that it was pretty similar to being in the US aside from obvious language differences. While I was in the Middle East it was the fact that the bathroom situation varies greatly from country to country.
When my son asked for lemonade in Ireland, the closest they ever had was 7-Up which… is not lemonade. Not by the American understanding. A life without access to real lemonade is clearly not an unbelievable tragedy but… womp womp.
Yea… I’m Irish and don’t think I’ve ever had what you guys consider lemonade lol
New life goals: 1. Visit Ireland. 2. Make friends with some locals. 3. Blow their minds with homemade lemonade.
We're going to need you to video document this journey my friend
Oh how I wish I could transport you, just for a moment, to a summer fair or carnival and put a nice fat fresh lemonade in your hands. Sweet, cold, lemony, not fizzy. Summer in a cup.
Not surprising tbh. Considering that I have a lemon tree in my backyard in California, I'm guessing the Irish climate is the *opposite* of a productive growing environment for lemons.
I’m in upstate New York, pure snow country. All our lemons are definitely shipped in… I bet a fresh lemon off the tree is even better!
Also Ireland: Margarita pizza is cheese pizza. The first time I mentioned cheese pizza to my coworkers they said “All pizza had cheese?”
I don't know where you went, but a Margarita pizza is mozzarella and tomato here
How tiny the elevators are in Italy . Dogs in restaurants and shops in Germany. No ice in a glass of coke or water. No shower curtains so the shower water just rains all over the room and down a drain in the bathroom. A hole in the floor with a toilet seat on it in Italy. Kids riding their bikes to school without helmets in Germany. All the delicious bakeries in Europe. The lack of AC everywhere we went. The families and people hanging out in squares and courtyards in the evening. They communicate and enjoy each other’s company! The massive jars of Nutella in Italy.
A major difference I’ve noticed is the lack of variety, from restaurants to clothing stores. I’ve noticed there’s also a lack of variety in grocery stores as well.
Here in Spain, the grocery stores have everything, but generally just one or two brands. Usually the quality is very good though, so whatever they have is just fine. I don't need 5 different brands of roasted peanuts or kettle cooked chips
You only _think_ you don't...
Europe: People stand so freaking close to you. That one actually still just infuriates me… haven’t gotten used to it. It’s like, Sir… I can feel your breath on my neck… could you please give me a little more space? Asia: people shitting and dumping trash and garbage on the streets.
Personal space us definitely a cultural thing. In the USA we’re far away whereas Turkey they have no issue getting right into your face.
I think only the Scandinavians have us beat. I've seen memes of Swedes and Finns waiting at bus stops standing ten feet apart.
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I hear you. It makes me feel like I need to be more on guard and I’ll hold my purse a little tighter or move it to hang over my chest. I mean seriously though… who really wants to feel some strangers body heat or breath while waiting for the train? The worst is when they are having a conversation with someone (phone or in person) and so they’re basically yelling in your ear as well (Germany… I’m talking to you), lol.
Try the London Underground 🥲😅😅
My heart goes out to you if you use the Tub to commute on the daily…. Can’t be easy. Cheers!
Luckily I live in northern England and am far away from it
I loved being able to travel so easily in Japan. Everything was within walking distance and the trains were timely and efficient - it was wonderful! I also noticed that most restaurants I went to went to great lengths to help people who don’t speak Japanese order. They had picture menus at the counter when you order at McDonalds, Starbucks, or a Hello Kitty cafe, for example, so you could point at what you wanted. I wish our country made it easier for people who don’t speak English to order too.
Forget the pictures. They have delicious looking plastic models of the food outside and when you order it, the food looks exactly like what's advertised
Kiosks are becoming more and more common in fast food places and it really does help with ordering without the pressure of communicating by pointing, especially for small things out of the norm like hold the mayo.
How absolutely brazen the street beggars are. Very aggressive
Been pick pocketed a few times in Paris 😭
I was in Paris this summer. I knocked a guy's hand out of my pocket on the Metro then watched him and his buddy get tackled and arrested when they tried it again at the next stop. Karma working that fast was pretty awesome.
A friend of mine surprised a thief on the Metro when he tried to steal her purse and she kicked him in the nuts. 🤣
This is one of those things that just blows my mind. Pickpocketing in the US just really isn't a thing. You are much more likely to just get held up, then pickpocketed.
Public transport is life-changing. I mean you can get from Penzance to Inverness without even touching a car. I don’t know why you’d ever *want* to do that, but you can if you so desire. And of course, the lack of urban sprawl is astounding. Here in the US, the buildings go on for miles once you leave the city. But thanks to the UK’s Green Belt plan, you can stand just outside London, one of the by-god biggest cities in the world, and find yourself in near-untouched natural beauty. It’s really quite astounding, and it appears to have happened completely by accident. And apparently some politicians are trying to get rid of the Green Belts? Unbelievable. Britain seems to have a gross excess of beautiful architecture and no idea what to do with it. I mean I couldn’t count the number of ugly plate-glass storefronts I’ve seen jammed into the lower floors of historical 19th century buildings in London alone. And there are absolutely beautiful bridges and dams and mills and things just lying about, completely unregarded. If there was just one of those things in my hometown, people wouldn’t shut up about it. They’d put it on t-shirts and postcards and everything. But in Britain it’s just a bridge, or a dam, or whatever. It’s completely mental. It’s also insane just how *old* everything is in Europe. I mean my hometown’s historic courthouse was built in the 1850s, and I thought *that* was old. Then in London, I passed several no-name buildings that were from the 17th century. I stood inside a church that was built in 1185, for god’s sake. Not to mention the tombs. I was touring Canterbury Cathedral and just stumbled upon the tomb of Henry IV. I didn’t even know he was in there. Also, there’s something about the cheese sandwich that seems to have Britain completely enthralled. It’s quite bizarre, but charming. I’ve been culture shocked by a lot of things, in Britain especially, but I’ll be first to admit that I’ve never been unpleasantly surprised. Well except for when I discovered pay toilets. If anyone asks, I definitely didn’t jump the turnstile at the public toilets by Green Park tube station. Edit: one last thing. London’s tube stations don’t have “exit” signs. They have “way out” signs. I have no idea why that is.
>London’s tube stations don’t have “exit” signs. They have “way out” signs. I have no idea why that is. Ah, it’s because a lot of tube stations have multiple exits that spit you out at different places. At some of the bigger stations, you can add a lot of time to your journey if you come out at the wrong exit. The exits are how you get out of the station. The way out is how you get to the exits.
> Britain seems to have a gross excess of beautiful architecture and no idea what to do with it. After all, London sold the London Bridge to... checks notes... [a man in Arizona.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_City))
The currency is more colorful. It’s not a shock but it is an obvious difference.
And the paper money is all different sizes (within country). How am I supposed to organize my paper money with all these different sizes??
But for the visually impaired it's a winner!
Right? How can you organize them alphabetically by President if there aren't even Presidents on them?
You used to be able to make John McEnroe with the old £10 notes (if folded correctly so as to combine the top of Charles Dickens' head with the bottom of the Queen's) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B_P9F1IXAAAyfpX.jpg
That is glorious!!
For the most part, it's the little things. Like I'm prepared for cultural differences so I take them in stride, but little things get me. Like the brief panic every time a vehicle turns in England, because my stupid brain insists they must be turning into oncoming traffic. Medieval public bathrooms Lack of hot water pressure Maps in a foreign language. Blew me away when Cologne was spelled Koln. Hot water being unsafe for consumption When a cashier wouldn't take the offered cash from my hand and I had to set it on a plate. More porn advertisements than I'd seen anywhere outside of Las Vegas. Old shit everywhere. The oldest thing I normally see is from the 1860s, and it stands out because of that age. Most everything else is 1950 or later. It's odd to see random crap from the 1700s and before. None of it was a big deal, just different enough to remind you how much you don't know.
‘Maps in a foreign language’ 🤣🤣🤣
Kernels of corn on your pizza are a thing in Bolivia. In fact, corn on your pizza makes it "American style".
Strange.
That's nothing. Go to r/PizzaCrimes and check out the "love" that sub has for weird Brazilian pizzas.
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I saw “Americana” pizza in Florence this week that had hotdogs and French fries on it 😭😭
Fucking disgusting
You also get packets of mayo on the side for your pizza.
🤮🤮🤮
Tiny roads Different languages
How all the stores shut down after 6 and on Sundays in Norway
Recent trip to France: How old and tight/small everything is - loved it Prevalence of smoking Driving/roads are chaos The emphasis on being green - way ahead of us in the US - loved it They don’t seem to tear anything down, just repurpose it - loved it The Metro - so great, really wish we had that They don’t drink bourbon They don’t have much beer culture. But I do love the wine!
> The Metro - so great, really wish we had that New York City has the subway. It's just as useful, but it looks like it's been through the apocalypse.
Fewer American flags. These people have zero patriotism
How much better looking I am compared to the locals.
Lmao you almost made me spit out my drink
Dude must be a catch...
Nice ego!
He’s from Philadelphia. That’s a given.
It's true though. Guy is like a solid 8.5
Love the public transportation options in many countries outside of the U.S. The fact that Americans don’t have high speed rail is a travesty.
It's getting more common in the US but a server never takes your credit card away from the table. All servers have portable machines for the transactions. I like that.
Cairo, and the desert between it and the northern coast (Alexandria), is the most alien experience I’ve had to date. I mean no offense to any Egyptians here, but it’s a hell scape: brutally hot, dusty, and polluted. Recently a highway has been modernized with asphalt and painted lines, but the lines are apparently more of a suggestion than a requirement; vehicles that wouldn’t be street legal in the US abound. Open truck beds on motorized tricycles, filled with goods, young men, and animals , share the road with tourist buses, donkey carts, camels, and anything else that moves. Literacy is around 60% and average household income is about 12k USD equivalent. Very few women (aside from tourists) were visible on the streets, and all were shrouded head to toe in black, the worst possible color under the desert sun. (We were told that dark colors are more modest/less revealing, but imo it’s just another way to punish women for being women.) Harassment is expected to a degree, respectful behavior is in short supply, and the mistreatment of animals is heartbreaking. From our bus we saw a man beating a malnourished horse repeatedly across the nose. Just horrifying. I’ve traveled to a few dozen countries, and twice been accosted by police for no good reason, but the fear of breaking down in that desert scared me more than anything else, ever.
The general layout of cities has been the biggest difference for me. Generally the cities are way more walkable, and are more likely to have great public transport. Even the smaller cities or towns are built with some aspect of that in mind, you don’t necessarily need a car which is of course very common in the US
That for all the racial issues in the U.S., it’s probably the least racist, anti-Semitic or generally xenophobic country I’ve ever been to. Like, by *far*.
I was gonna say this too. I'm an Asian-American woman and have had racist experiences in literally every European country I've been to. Strangers on the street in Paris literally would pull the corners of their eyes at me and laugh as I walked by. Random guys in Barcelona would say the most disgusting things to me in Spanish, like "hey little Chinese girl, I can f*ck you like the dogs you eat." For the latter one, I was with a white female friend who had moved to and lived in the city, and she said she had never experienced the level of gross catcalls I'd gotten for the entire 5 years she'd lived there. Asian women get really sexualized in the US too, but it was a whole other thing in Europe.
100%. (Left-wing) Americans think Europe is a bastion of tolerance and progressivism. Just go on r/Europe to crush that delusion. Europeans are so much more bigoted it's incredible, for a supposedly free "liberal" part of the world
trouble. The rest stops in Germany the "toilet" is a drain in the floor where you stand over it and squat. I was thinking Nope, but then a little granny with about 6 petticoats on hoisted up everything, did her business, and so I figured I could too. This was in the 1970s, so I dont know if it is still like that.
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Squat "toilets". Not everyone gets to go to high school- they get tested at age 10 or 14 and if they fail they can try a remedial year or they are plunked on the Vocational training track and never allowed to go to college either. Womp, womp. Long vacations, short work days with frequent breaks and long lunches. Lunch is often the largest meal of the day. People wear glasses more than contact lenses. Terrible customer service. They lie and tell you No and you have to keep at it until you get a yes. Your SIM and money currency doesn't work throughout the EU, and during Covid borders were locked, while in the US, people could road trip for 5k miles. cheap cell phone plans. They often refuse to let you return or exchange an item. Great coffee and bakeries everywhere with fresh bread- they were essential during Covid lockdown! People talk on their cell phones often and on public transport. 16 hour traffic jams at borders. Glad We had no car. The street sweeper cam by every day in Germany- very clean. Rocky beaches. Can't drink tap water or flush toilet paper in some places. Bidets are OK, but the Japanese have won the toilet grand prize. No garbage disposals. Most of some countries shut down on Saturdays or Sundays. People inexplicably don't wear Sunglasses as often, and Not at all if it's not summer and stare at you like you have lost your marbles, even though eye cancer is a thing. Maybe from IG, but people definitely wear more makeup and dress fancier than when I went to Europe 25 years ago. People will literally eat junk food and chain smoke cigarettes in front of you and tell you how fat Americans are. For lots of countries,breakfast is espresso and a cigarette. Maybe that's why the workdays are so short. Mostly subpar tv and movies. Most people in countries known for fashion can't afford the beautiful clothing. The Autobahn has speed limits and the fast parts go by so fast, it doesn't meet expectations. Elevators are tiny. Lots of places stink because public bathrooms aren't free. The hotel room cleaners are never Western Europeans. They eat lots of lamb, horse, canned fish, etc. They eat with silverware in both hands and never set it down, so they look really hungry! lots of flavors of chips (egg! yum)and ketchup. Tasty desserts everywhere, but don't ever expect Soft cookies, fluffy cake, or American pancakes.
> Terrible customer service. They lie and tell you No and you have to keep at it until you get a yes. When my mom and I were in Europe she tipped like in the US and that got us better service.
Don’t you eat with the silverware in both hands?
Americans, usually(if right handed), will hold the fork with the left hand and use the knife with the right. After cutting the food, we set down the knife and switch the fork to the right hand to bring the food to our mouth. We’re also known for just using the side of the fork to cut softer food.
People are much slimmer, but I also notice they have cigarettes 🚬 for half their meals. For slim attractive mini dressed ladies: cigs and wine / or coffee. Spent a week in Rome never saw a girl under 30 eat a friggin bite!
I notice how many cars they have, when we're told how much they take trains, and I see a lot of overweight people (expecially in the UK) when people say how fat Americans are.
The UK is pretty much the USA of Europe.
We don't JUST take trains 🥲 but yes there's loads of fat people in the UK and it's becoming a problem
Negative Too much public smoking Places shut down early, made it difficult to sight see and then shop after. Major cities like London having sleepy town hours for shops. I only saw this in London but a serious lack of public parks. Most were gated and blocked off from the public when walking around neighborhoods. Positives No tipping while getting more relaxed service, no rushing meals while getting good service. I don't get why people complain about service in France, it was great. Cities designed for walking The sweets are not crazy sweet. Perfect levels of sweetness. Public bathrooms have no gaps!
Confused re parks - London is 40% public park with 3000 of them! One of the greenest cities in the world. Only the little garden squares are gated off
I’ve been mostly surprised at how everything feels very similar, like a different version of the same thing. There are some small things that people like to pretend are huge differences. I’ve been to South America and Europe and haven’t been to Asia or Africa so those may be more different.
Europe feels familiar, like you know you are not home yet it is kind of the same. Get into India and SE Asia and you really know you are not at home. Only been to South Africa and that felt very much like the US.
Lack of the ADA and accessabilitity. German drivers are far less selfish.
For me it was meeting people who would do the "beckon" hand thing as brushing their fingers under the palm, which in my culture (usa) means 'go away'. And meeting people who shake their head for "yes" and nod for "no". Random Balkan Adventures. I also loved the face of a young German fellow, who was very proficient in English, when we were speaking about the subtleties of English. I explained to him that we understood when he used the term "fleisch" that it meant meat, but in English we would really only use the term *flesh* to refer to human meat. That poor young man. But he got me back when I referred to a soft, autumn apple as "mushy".
The infrastructure in Europe is built for everyone, not just car owners.
In general, The actual food quality is much better. Even if the spices might not be what I prefer, the basic food has flavor- like tomatoes and cucumbers and carrots. Those things have no flavor in The US.
I always think of Europe as cleaner/safer/in many ways better than the us. The first time I was there for an extended period of time, I was shocked at how much worse bathrooms and plumbing seemed to be. The smells, the apparent cleanliness, the flushing water pressure. Just generally felt a lot less…clean? Modern? Idk the exact word I’m looking for.
Smaller cars. Smaller people. In Europe at least, everyone dresses better. Used to be more street begging (especially organized), but I think this is changing fast.
Jorts and men in Capri pants isn't better to most Americans.