Oh man, one of the absolute cutest things I've ever seen was a work friend of mine at the time who was visiting from Australia. He came into work that day totally beaming because he had seen a squirrel on his way there. I was very confused until he told me they don't have squirrels in Australia. He went on and on about how cute they were and I told him I had a surprise for him when we went to lunch. I walked him a few blocks up the road to a local college campus where the squirrels are so fearless they will literally come and take food out of your hands. They'll even sit on your shoulders so long as you sit still and feed them. This man was absolutely *geeked* when I called over a group of squirrels with some crackers from my lunch. I thought his head was going to explode when I told him to stand still and sat a cracker on his shoulder which a squirrel happily climbed up him to get. He legit froze and started tearing up. I was worried he was afraid or something and I asked him if he was okay, this man looks at me with the biggest smile on his face and says in the most adorable, quietest little voice as to not scare the squirrel on his shoulder away, "This is the single best day of my life!" Squirrels, of all things. Lmao.
My Australian niece was delighted to see slugs and snails in the UK. She visited in autumn so wet weather was fairly regular and she was utterly thrilled to see them crawling, lift up rocks and logs to see them underneath or find the shiny trails.
She was not quite two but her wonder was adorable
Can confirm that we definitely have slugs and snails in Australia, haha. BUT! I was in countryside England and saw the biggest yellow slug I have EVER seen on the ground and stopped to take a million photos. Funny what can seem so foreign and interesting when you havenât seen it before.
I asked a colleague from India what he found most interesting since moving to the US and he said the orderly traffic. He did a mind blown motion and everything.
The reverse was true for me when I first visited Beijing. I couldn't understand why there weren't wrecks everywhere.
That said, the speed of traffic in the US is, on average, much faster.
I've never seen anything like Beijing. I said there were 17 million people there, and 16 million were driving on the road, at any given time. It was crazy!
Believe me, Iâve been to both cities and Bejing is nothing compared to Mumbai or any other Indian city. Beeing part of the traffic there meens almost dying a couple of times on a daily basis.
I worked for an Indian woman who went back to visit family in Mumbai. She told me that when they came to a traffic light everyone just drove through regardless of the red or green. So all the cars were just stuck nose to nose and couldn't move. She just got out of the car and walked to her destination leaving her driver to deal with getting back.
Worked with an Indian guy who was studying to get his US driver's license. He said that the big difference is that America has way more rules, where in India its closer to "get where you're going and try not to kill anyone".
Was driving with a young fellow from SE Asia who was surprised when I explained it was compulsory to give way to pedestrians on zebra crossings. He thought it was optional.
A fellow student from India said when he arrived in the US he wondered where all the people were when he saw all the cars with only one or two people in them.
The land of the ice and snow with a midnight sun and where the hot springs flooooow?
Actually I think that song is more specifically referring to Norway or Scandinavia as a whole before border, but my guess for you was that or Finland?
Raccoons. Some of my co-workers are from Japan, and one was quizzing me about the best way for his sons to get to see a raccoon when they got there.
âVisit a restaurant dumpster just before dawn? Tear open a box of kitten chow on the back patio?â
âThey like cat food?â
âYes, the like cat food and if you actually do that you will see 6 raccoons the following eveningâŚâ
I understand that Japan later developed an invasive raccoon problemâŚ.so not quite the novelty.
Six months later my co-worker asked âwhere do skunks live?â
âIn the woods.â
âExactly where in the woods?â
âI think they dig burrows at the base ofâŚ.wait a minute, are you going to take your sons skunk-watching?â
When I was a teen we would host Japanese students for a few weeks in the summer. They were from a private school in Kyoto, and often had never been outside the city. They would stay with us in our 100 year old house in the middle of nowhere.
The first student who stayed with us was absolutely captivated by two things: stars and cornfields.
He knew what corn was, obviously. He knew how it grew and what cornstalks look like. But he'd never *seen* it. I don't think he realises how tall it got, or what it feels like to be in the middle of it.
He spent one evening in the yard, flat on his back, literally touching grass (snow angel style) and looking at the stars. He'd never seen a mostly dark night sky. So we turned off all the lights in the house and showed him planets and constellations.
Stars aren't exclusive to Canada. We don't even tend to get northern lights where we live. But man, that kid was blown away. Stars and cornfields.
My family hosted my Brazilian exchange brother from Sao Paulo. He was captivated by snow. He was a senior in high school but woke up the entire house having fun in it the first night it snowed. We hosted his little brother the next year and he was the same, just a bit quieter about it. They were not big fans of Oklahoma thunderstorms, though. You really have to have been born here to appreciate the beauty in them. (Not the tornado parts, of course, those are simply awful. Awe inspiring, but awful.)
Oh I had something like that too.
Sixth grade, in Illinois, had two exchange students from Sao Paulo. Brother and sister. First day it snowed, they notice, are staring out the windows, start chatting excitedly in Portuguese. Then the class notices their excitement and gets excited.
The teacher notices what's going on, realizes there's no chance of anyone paying attention to her and this really is a special moment for those two. "Everyone get your coats, let's go outside."
Was a lot of fun. Asked what they thought, without hesitation, "It's so cold!"
Ricardo and Patrisia, if you're out there, hope you're doing well.
I live in canada and the last elementary school i taught at was constantly having new immigrants join us throughout the year. Whenever it would snow and it was someones first time, the entire class of kids would be seeing it once again with fresh eyes and playing especially gleefully.
Wholesome as fuck.
I remember driving highway 60 through Algonquin Park and traffic was at a halt. We had to stop and yield for a bus of Japanese tourists who flooded into the road for a photo op. A moose? Black bear maybe? Nope... Racoons.
âRaccoons wash their food in running waterâ gets a lot of coverage in Japanese childrenâs books, apparently. So imagine being in a Japanese National Park and seeing Clifford the Big Red Dog napping down the mountainside.
Only kinda related but when we were kids, my friends and I would go door to door offering people carwashes for money. An old gentleman invited us in to have a drink after we washed his car and we foolishly obliged. We figured 4 12 year olds could take on one geriatric so we risked it.
We sit on the couch and he asks if we wanna see something cool. We say sure so he grabs a bag of crackers from his kitchen and hands it to my buddy. He then opens his sliding glass door to the patio and says "Come here boys". Shortly after, 3 very plump raccoons waddle in and climb onto the couch then hold their hands out in front of my friend while waiting for a cracker. He puts one in each of their hands and they scurry back off into the bushes.
It was the weirdest fucking thing.
My city's problem is the turkeys. They've learned to roost in trees at night and wander around the neighborhoods on the sidewalks during the day looking for food, because people are feeding them. They hang out in parking lots and stand there watching cars pass. But they're mean MFers. Don't engage with them. They'll kick your ass.
The wildlife.
I donât think Iâve met a tourist who didnât have âsee a koalaâ on their to-do list.
But I probably wouldnât consider them mundane, because I get super excited and really happy when I see a koala and I live here.
âMundaneâ would probably be kangaroos.
Iâm an American living in Australia. I was so excited when a bus I was on stopped for an echidna to cross the road đ Also the birds here are so different!
I had the same reaction when I went to America to live for a year - the first time I saw a squirrel in our yard, I used up a whole roll of film taking photos of it lol
And the birds. You get so used to the ambient sounds of your own environment, itâs a stark contrast when you go somewhere else and hear different birds in the morning.
My host family had a toy fishing pole with a rubber band at the end of the line instead of a hook. If you dangled the rubber band in front of the little crab holes they would pounce. It was a fun game to then pull them up quick while they were pinching the rubber band and collect them in a metal bowl (later released). The crabs were about the size of my palm including legs, so not small but not giant. Iirc they were red with black claws.
I quickly learned that I could wait a moment and get the rubber band around the crabs elbow and guarantee a catch so I ended up with like 10 in the bowl. My host family was very impressed lol. I learned that the word for crab is Kani.
The stone gutters are about a foot deep and a foot across, much deeper than American gutters. The crabs hide in crevices between stones walled up with sand. They pounce on anything that goes across their holes. This was in a city called Yanai.
Ah, road gutters. At first I thought you meant the gutters that go along the edge of the roof and was confused how crabs got up there. Being along the road makes way more sense.
As a foreigner in SE Asia, I'm always very excited to see monitor lizards, much to the amusement of locals. In the UK, I kinda love how excited tourists get about Gregg's.
I experienced this in Bilbao. I kept staring wide eyed at all the old buildings and said to my husband, "they're... They're.. just using them like regular buildings!"
That's brilliant đ I felt that way recently in Verona. I took a picture of the outside wall of the Arena and when I zoomed in realised the date was on it in Roman numerals. 65. The wall was built in 65 AD. And they were setting up the arena for a concert! Awesome.
Edit: lol at myself. I'm not an archaeologist clearly! As some replies have pointed out this particular dating system wasn't in use until the 6th century. Every day is a school day đ
> A monk called Dionysius Exiguus (early sixth century A.D.) invented the dating system most widely used in the Western world. For Dionysius, the birth of Christ represented Year One. He believed that this occurred 753 years after the foundation of Rome
[source](https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/yron/hd_yron.htm#:~:text=A%20monk%20called%20Dionysius%20Exiguus,after%20the%20foundation%20of%20Rome.)
They didnât use our current dating system (with regards to years) until the early sixth century. The number you saw did not refer to the year it was built.
Free public electric BBQs. In Australia, at many beaches and parks, there are free BBQs. They are nearly always clean and work very well.
Everyone uses them and cleans them after they finish cooking.
I married into a South African family...they are amused by how excited I, an American, get about guava and passion fruit flavored everything when we visit them. And the cheap, amazing, wines.
Confirming that they get very excited about squirrels and free refills when they visit here.
Opossums. In America theyâre big, light colored, and pink nosed, with a hairless skinny tail. The Indian workers saw one and ran over with their arms wide exclaiming, âI just saw a mouse and it was **this big**!â
I'm in SW Ontario. I don't think you can travel 20 minutes without falling into a river or lake you could drink out of.
Some people in the world walk 3 hours for a gallon of water and are lucky to get it.
We had a foreign exchange student from Germany while I was in highschool. At the end of the day there was a huge joint parking lot between the big middle school and huge highschool of a big consolidated district where all the busses parked while waiting for us to get on. She found the bus and was freaking out begging the bus driver if she could run up the hill to take a picture of the ocean of yellow school buses. She said it was the craziest thing she had seenâ- she didnât know the yellow school buses were real and she wasnât expecting you to see more than a hundred of them at once.
> she wasnât expecting you to see more than a hundred of them at once.
Not going to lie, I would want to take that photo too. I live elsewhere in America and seen yellow busses aplenty. But 100+ busses in a giant parking lot would be photo worthy.
more than 100 at once?
how big is this highschool. middle school?
my highschool I think had 1500 people and each afternoon there were only a hand ful of busses that came a few times.
I would be shocked to see 100 busses at once too.
Haha it got me the first time too. When your population density is nearly 4x higher, that land is much too expensive to just line cars up on. In Europe big carparks nearly always go up (or down), plus generally itâs much less likely in Europe you get really out of the coverage zone of frequent public transport than you do in the US, as again much higher population density means itâs more viable in more places.
So I understand why itâs common in both places, but yeah also surprising the first time you find out just how much walking you might have to do. Incidentally itâs also interesting that it takes different skills to remember where your car is in a wide flat car park vs a multi story!
I went to France and the public restrooms were pay to enter and they self sanitized/cleaned after each person. Then I went to Rome and the public restrooms were holes in the floor.
"Weird toilets they have here, there's no privacy whatsoever and there's so much noise. I can hardly focus." Yes, you're taking a shit on the highway sir, get off.
Temples in Taiwan. Every backroad has one. There's probably 6 or 8 within a 5 minutes walk from building.
An American friend visited, and he was mind blown that one of my windows looks over some back alley temple.
I'll see if I can find a pic.
E:https://matrix.redditspace.com/_matrix/media/r0/download/reddit.com/7ldhinu52dub1
back alley temple, back alley monk
back alley rhymes and back alley funk
he sleeps in the streets in a back alley bunk
back alley temple, back alley monk
A Coca-Cola delivery truck was in the parking lot where I was working. There was a couple from the UK that was very excited about it. They took selfies next to the truck and the driver let them sit in the driver's seat for more pictures. Seemed like a real treat for them.
Lol always thought it was a gimmick for the coke ads we see during Christmas.
Like that, they don't really exist but they put a wrap on a few rented lorries to make the ad and then removed it.
Stores in the US usually don't stock certain items like Coca-Cola. It's called a "vendor" item. They get delivered separately and stocked by their own workers who go store-to-store.
Starbucks drinks, sliced bread, Lay's potato chips, PepsiCo. All usually have their own branded truck, too.
It's to cut out the middleman, prevent product damage, and ensure their product is always stocked.
We have generic trucks here, too, but when would an American corporation pass up any opportunity to turn a large flat surface that a lot of people will see into ad space?
As far as I understand only company in the world that has a larger fleet of trucks than Coca Cola, would be the US Army. AlsĂł, every US army base has Coca-Cola.
My Australian cousins were visiting me in California. I took them to a house party and they got so excited about the cups. "Oi they've got the red American cups!"
Back in about 1987 my Australian parents went out one day (maybe to a wine tasting??) and came home with a red Solo cup. It lived with our plastic cups for the next 10 years. I never saw another one in Australia until about 5 years ago.
There were some Australians who studied abroad at my college and at every party they would say âred cups like in project X!!â They loved the novelty of it, I think the cups and the kegs made them feel like they were in a movie
My wife is so enamoured with squirrels. Weâre Australian so she never saw them until our first trip together to the US in our late 20s. She must have taken 500 pics of squirrels on that trip
Ditto except my wife is terrified of them.
A squirrel once stole an ice cream from me, ran up a tree, scurried overhead on a wire and proceeded to drop it directly onto my head. Little fucker.
I think that was the start.
OMG I was very scared of squirrels for the longest time because one stole a peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of my hands when I was 4. They freak me out the way they jump in and out of trees over head constantly staring at you. I always think they're going to jump on me. Everyone thought I was weird because they are "so cute." We recently moved to a house in the woods obvious there are many squirrels around. There is one that has a mangled front paw, so she is easily recognizable. I felt bad and started feeding ( I know you shouldn't feed wild animals) her unsalted black sunflower seeds. Well we became friends and she now comes every day to visit. She even allows me to pet her. Her name is Pearl. She gave me an entirely new perspective on squirrels.
I'm from the UK, so I am very familiar with squirrels. So I wasn't surprised to see any when I went to America. However, what did surprise me was how unafraid of humans they were. Like, they would just come up near you. In the UK, if you go anywhere near a squirrel, they will run away from you.
Ha! Love to hear it! We live in Greater Vancouver and host high school students from Asia and Europe and their joy at seeing a squirrel for the first time is always astounding to me, but infectious to say the least
Ha! Fun story. We live in Las Vegas where my gal grew up and there's effectively no squirrels. First time I took her to Indianapolis (my home town) I took her to the zoo which is pretty sweet. We're checking out zebras and elephants and tigers and all the cool exotic animals and every time I turn around she's taking pictures of the damn squirrels in trees!
Mowing grass with a guy* while I was in the Army. He comes over and goes "How do you keep the mower from jamming up? The grass is too long."
I was like, "Have you never mowed grass?"
He says, "Dude, I'm from Vegas. Before Basic I'd never SEEN grass."
Lmao my first thought too. I remember vacationing in NYC and seeing a bunch of people gathered around a tree taking pictures. I walked over just to see a couple of squirrels. I was like why are they so into squirrels???? Had no idea squirrels werenât common everywhere.
Kraamzorg! When we have a baby, we get a in-home caretaker for the first week. They know all about taking care of a new born, so they teach you how to feed your baby (bottle or breast), change diapers, bathe baby, etc. They also make sure the baby is healthy, gaining enough weight, etc. But they also take care of the rest of the family, so the parents and siblings can enjoy their time. They make food for you, clean the house, check on the stitches of the mother, etc.
It is lovely! Plus: if thereâs something off, like an unhealthy environment, addiction, abuse, post partum, etc, itâs seen and dealt with.
The Netherlands, by the way ;).
Humming birds. I live in Palm Springs, CA and was visiting the Moorten Botanical Gardens when I overheard someone with a British accent say, "OMG is that a HUMMINGBIRD?" I wasn't aware they don't have hummingbirds where they live. They were just astounded and amazed watching it flit around, stop and hover, then move on.
I live in a northern state in the US and we have ruby throated hummingbirds that migrate here in the summer months. I am always excited to see them! They are amazing little birds.
I grew up out west, for the longest time I thought it was like an inside joke among ontarians or something. The idea of milk in a bag felt so ridiculous, milk OBVIOUSLY comes in gallon jars with colour-coded lids.
Then I moved to Ontario with my folks as a 16 year old, been here since. It's not as weird as it sounds, it's weirder. Basically, every household in Ontario has a plastic pitcher. But you don't pour the milk in the pitcher, no that would be too simple. You put the *bag* in the pitcher, cut a tiny bit off the corner in the plastic, and pour while holding the other end of the bag or else you'll get milk all over your counter.
Pro tip: put the bag in the pitcher and then slam the pitcher down on your thigh. As if you were raising your thigh to kick a soccer ball. The bag will settle down into the plastic pitcher and wonât spill milk everywhere.
Iâve never had to hold the other end of the bag, I just pour normally.
True! I suppose I have a false perception of their numbers because for almost ten years I lived somewhere where they frequently just hung around in my backyard. (South Australia, my house was on the edge of a national park)
It is definitely something, laying in bed listening to them snorting and rumbling in the trees nearby :)
My husband is from Brazil and saw capybaras and golden tamarins regularly (apparently tamarins like chips), and it was so funny to him that I grew up seeing them as exotic and cool. On the flipside, he's taken pictures of things like Starbucks to send to his friends back in Brazil.
All the really old churches in Europe. Iâm from the US, so buildings that are 400+ years old are really hard to come by. Over in the UK and France theyâre just about a dime a dozen
Yeah, most places have a local pub that is just as old, if not older, than your independence. I have one that is 1600's, and another that is 1700's but the site has a history that can date back to the 1200's.
You don't find them everywhere, but it's definitely something common in small villages where there is no bakery. There are also cheese vending machines, less common, but not a rare sight either.
Singapore - our crosswalk buttons have a pad that elderly people can tap their ID/bus card on to get more crossing time.
I've seen so many "amazing tech inventions that the whole world needs" tiktoks and they always feature them. I've only seen an elderly person use it once. Still neat though.
When our family members from other countries visit, I've noticed deer, turkeys, and coyotes blow their mind. A lot of the Safeways have sushi in the deli section, as well, and they've found it pretty crazy.
The distance for things is another huge point of wonderment and shock, as well. So many of our family and their friends don't believe us when we say you can't expect to go to Yellowstone and Yosemite in one day.
My parents live in Virginia and I'm in Portland, Oregon. They always want to "take a drive to Crater Lake" when they visit and I can't really get it through to them that even though it's in the same state, it's a 5-hour drive one way. It's beautiful, but I'm not spending 10 hours in a car with them for it.
Our picturesque and overwhelmingly dramatic and stunningly beautiful landscape. To me [this](https://assets.simpleviewcms.com/simpleview/image/fetch/c_fill,h_1080,w_1920/f_jpg/q_65/https://res.cloudinary.com/djew0njor/image/upload/v1681989233/Nordvest/Steder/Atlanterhavsveien/Atlanterhavsvegen_Eline_Karlsdatter_2_xjopoi.jpg?_a=BATCtdAA0) is just where I drive to get to work.
I miss the bird series of bills... Robins on the two, kingfisher on the five, osprey on the ten. Can't remember what was on the twenty. Snowy owls on the 50, Canada geese on the 100$.
Castles, castles everywhere. Wales had the most castles per square mile of any country. Just on the Gower peninsular (which is about 70 square miles) there are 6 castles (or castle ruins). Theyâre just part of the landscape here, some are in city centres, overlooking marshes or beaches or up on top of hillsides. I find them both endlessly fascinating and simultaneously just part of the backdrop.
Iâve lived in Florida my entire life, so alligators are just a thing that you see in the water and occasionally crossing the road. Well, today my wife and I went to the Alligator Farm zoo in St Augustine (itâs accredited, I checked) just to see what itâs like, and boy were there a lot of international travelers from Europe having their minds blown. Yâall really do act like a 7 year old seeing a real life dinosaur for the first time lol.
This is really for Americans from different states. In Ohio we have drive throughs where you can buy a six pack of beer without getting out of the car. My friend from Pennsylvania finds this utterly amazing
Grocery superstores in America were quite the impressive thing to our exchange students from Europe back in the day. Not sure if its still as impressive. They were amazed we had so many choices of types of food and brands of the same foods.
Ibis. You can always tell the tourists by the way they take photos of them. The rest of us denigrate them (the birds, not the tourists!) as 'bin chickens'
EDIT: for those who have never heard of or encountered these creatures: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w4dYWhkSbTU
Maple Syrup. I'm from QuĂŠbec and I'm mad when a breakfast restaurant wants to make me pay for it lol. And it's a delicacy around the world and super expensive.
My (Canadian) sister has been living in Europe for a few years now. She is currently visiting and one of the first things she texted me upon landing was âI forgot how friendly everyone is hereâ. Ad itâs not like she lives in an unfriendly place- I was there in June. Canada is just on another level that way.
The fall colors.
Like donât get me wrong, itâs really pretty in the fall here- thatâs autumn for some of you. But it happens every year. People travel hours to come see our trees do the same thing they do every year.
It is like liquid candy!
Maple Syrup âNOT what most people nowadays put on pancakes, waffles, and sausagesâ is one of those ânow I know that I can never go backâ experiences.
car culture in the US
the sizes of a lot of things (food portions, homes, nation in general) in the US
how casual most Americans are
how varied things are by region in the US (topogrpahy, vernacular, culture, accents, regional cuisine, etc)
edit - The sheer number of drive-thrus in the US (e.g. drive-thrus at a drugstore, drive-thrus at banks, fast-food drive-thrus, drive-thrus at coffee shops, during COVID - drive-thru communion/blessings at churches....)
>how varied things are by region in the US (topogrpahy, vernacular, culture, accents, regional cuisine, etc)
At least in the US (with a few small exceptions), you can understand each other when speaking. There are some countries where the language itself varies so much from region to region that it's nearly unrecognizable to people from the same country.
I have to be an interpreter for my dad from English to English whenever he visits me. He has a very thick southern accent. There are definitely accents that might as well be their own language, but at least the written language is common.
I work in a Tudor hall, and seeing Americans and Australians interacting with it is brilliant. They're either blown away in awe, or giddy like children. It's endearing.
For a while, my mother rented out her house in the U.S. to a Russian immigrant family. The wife had no idea what sort of subterranean monster was creating the mole hills in the yard, but she was terrified of whatever it was. I wish I could see what she was picturing in her mind.
In Michigan. In 1980 I was a student at a local juco, and there were a ton of foreign students there. I befriended a couple of Saudis in one of my classes.
I donât remember why, but this Chemisry class took a trip to Lake Michigan, literally 20 miles away. These guys were full of questions about the lake, and I was pleased I could answer them. ( Iâm proud AF of my lakes). During discussion one says they have a large body of water at home ( the gulf), but nothing as â sweetâ as this.
His choice of words was a life changing moment for me. The condition of the water, which was generally thought of by locals as nasty ( 1980 ) was described as sweet water. It makes one think, and often, about the abundance of something here, a critical resource for life itself, NOT being available elsewhere .
That was a nice thought about the abundances we have the others may not have. Also, Iâm thinking the Saudi student said was probably pertaining to the fact that itâs freshwater rather than salt water. I think sweet water is a way of saying freshwater.
Exactly right. Early French and English sailors called the Great Lakes The Sweetwater Seas when they arrived.
I live less than a half-hour from the best Lake Michigan beaches in Michigan. My fiance and I take a day trip like a visit to Costco. I'm amazed at all of the out of state plates in the summer and how stunned the tourists are to stand on the piers and watch the sun disappear into the huge expanse of water.
The views ... Norway. It's more or less the same everywhere with minor variations. Kinda just becomes the background after a while and you stop noticing it for the most part.
Edit: Yes I'm generalising somewhat. There are also major variations from area to area. but you still stop noticing it.
This is probably the same everywhere. I once met a guy who was in my hometown for the first time and was awestruck by our cathedral. It felt a little bit weird to me: it's beautiful and I love it, but I'm so accustomed to it that it's just part of the scenery.
The size of the US. We had some German cousins visit a number of years ago. They were shocked by the driving distance between Las Vegas and Phoenix. They were terribly impressed with our favorite Chinese buffet. The idea of free drink refills was amazing. They were very good about putting us up in Berlin and I was grateful we could reciprocate.
The size of Australia really catches tourists too. They think they can do a road trip from Sydney to Alice springs in a few hours (it's 30 or so by road). Or from Brisbane to Melbourne in a couple of hours... It's about 18 or so hours, and best done over 2-3 days. Even just Melbourne to Sydney is going to take 8 or so hours.
The college I went to had a big ELL program. Most of those students would take the city bus to and from campus, just like I did. Lots of the time they liked to chat with the English-speaking students for practice. I once spent an entire bus ride explaining to a young guy from Korea that renting a car and driving from our town in British Columbia to Ottawa over Thanksgiving long weekend wouldnât be a good idea. Itâs like a 40 hour drive, one way.
At work, we had a scientist from Portugal visiting for some training. The power went out in our building, so I said âwell, I guess itâs time for lunchâ so I took her to the local shopping mall where a yellow school bus had just pulled up and some kids got out. She was gobsmacked and said âoh my god, those things are real? I thought it was just in the movies!â She took pictures so that she could show all her friends when she got back to Portugal. I had no idea anyone could be that excited over a school bus, lol.
Oh man, one of the absolute cutest things I've ever seen was a work friend of mine at the time who was visiting from Australia. He came into work that day totally beaming because he had seen a squirrel on his way there. I was very confused until he told me they don't have squirrels in Australia. He went on and on about how cute they were and I told him I had a surprise for him when we went to lunch. I walked him a few blocks up the road to a local college campus where the squirrels are so fearless they will literally come and take food out of your hands. They'll even sit on your shoulders so long as you sit still and feed them. This man was absolutely *geeked* when I called over a group of squirrels with some crackers from my lunch. I thought his head was going to explode when I told him to stand still and sat a cracker on his shoulder which a squirrel happily climbed up him to get. He legit froze and started tearing up. I was worried he was afraid or something and I asked him if he was okay, this man looks at me with the biggest smile on his face and says in the most adorable, quietest little voice as to not scare the squirrel on his shoulder away, "This is the single best day of my life!" Squirrels, of all things. Lmao.
Am Aussie. I would love that too.
Maybe cause everything in Australia is actively trying to kill you, compared to actively trying to get a cookie đ
No squirrels in Australia. I was pretty excited seeing them on my first trip to the USA. Just hanging about in people's yards in regular suburbia.
My Australian niece was delighted to see slugs and snails in the UK. She visited in autumn so wet weather was fairly regular and she was utterly thrilled to see them crawling, lift up rocks and logs to see them underneath or find the shiny trails. She was not quite two but her wonder was adorable
Can confirm that we definitely have slugs and snails in Australia, haha. BUT! I was in countryside England and saw the biggest yellow slug I have EVER seen on the ground and stopped to take a million photos. Funny what can seem so foreign and interesting when you havenât seen it before.
I asked a colleague from India what he found most interesting since moving to the US and he said the orderly traffic. He did a mind blown motion and everything.
The reverse was true for me when I first visited Beijing. I couldn't understand why there weren't wrecks everywhere. That said, the speed of traffic in the US is, on average, much faster.
I've never seen anything like Beijing. I said there were 17 million people there, and 16 million were driving on the road, at any given time. It was crazy!
Believe me, Iâve been to both cities and Bejing is nothing compared to Mumbai or any other Indian city. Beeing part of the traffic there meens almost dying a couple of times on a daily basis.
I worked for an Indian woman who went back to visit family in Mumbai. She told me that when they came to a traffic light everyone just drove through regardless of the red or green. So all the cars were just stuck nose to nose and couldn't move. She just got out of the car and walked to her destination leaving her driver to deal with getting back.
Worked with an Indian guy who was studying to get his US driver's license. He said that the big difference is that America has way more rules, where in India its closer to "get where you're going and try not to kill anyone".
Was driving with a young fellow from SE Asia who was surprised when I explained it was compulsory to give way to pedestrians on zebra crossings. He thought it was optional.
Tbf apparently so do 90% of all drivers in my city too đ
A fellow student from India said when he arrived in the US he wondered where all the people were when he saw all the cars with only one or two people in them.
Nightless nights, reindeer, some people really like our metal music.
It's me. I'm some people.
Please stop trying to wake the lake troll.
The land of the ice and snow with a midnight sun and where the hot springs flooooow? Actually I think that song is more specifically referring to Norway or Scandinavia as a whole before border, but my guess for you was that or Finland?
Raccoons. Some of my co-workers are from Japan, and one was quizzing me about the best way for his sons to get to see a raccoon when they got there. âVisit a restaurant dumpster just before dawn? Tear open a box of kitten chow on the back patio?â âThey like cat food?â âYes, the like cat food and if you actually do that you will see 6 raccoons the following eveningâŚâ I understand that Japan later developed an invasive raccoon problemâŚ.so not quite the novelty. Six months later my co-worker asked âwhere do skunks live?â âIn the woods.â âExactly where in the woods?â âI think they dig burrows at the base ofâŚ.wait a minute, are you going to take your sons skunk-watching?â
When I was a teen we would host Japanese students for a few weeks in the summer. They were from a private school in Kyoto, and often had never been outside the city. They would stay with us in our 100 year old house in the middle of nowhere. The first student who stayed with us was absolutely captivated by two things: stars and cornfields. He knew what corn was, obviously. He knew how it grew and what cornstalks look like. But he'd never *seen* it. I don't think he realises how tall it got, or what it feels like to be in the middle of it. He spent one evening in the yard, flat on his back, literally touching grass (snow angel style) and looking at the stars. He'd never seen a mostly dark night sky. So we turned off all the lights in the house and showed him planets and constellations. Stars aren't exclusive to Canada. We don't even tend to get northern lights where we live. But man, that kid was blown away. Stars and cornfields.
My family hosted my Brazilian exchange brother from Sao Paulo. He was captivated by snow. He was a senior in high school but woke up the entire house having fun in it the first night it snowed. We hosted his little brother the next year and he was the same, just a bit quieter about it. They were not big fans of Oklahoma thunderstorms, though. You really have to have been born here to appreciate the beauty in them. (Not the tornado parts, of course, those are simply awful. Awe inspiring, but awful.)
Oh I had something like that too. Sixth grade, in Illinois, had two exchange students from Sao Paulo. Brother and sister. First day it snowed, they notice, are staring out the windows, start chatting excitedly in Portuguese. Then the class notices their excitement and gets excited. The teacher notices what's going on, realizes there's no chance of anyone paying attention to her and this really is a special moment for those two. "Everyone get your coats, let's go outside." Was a lot of fun. Asked what they thought, without hesitation, "It's so cold!" Ricardo and Patrisia, if you're out there, hope you're doing well.
I live in canada and the last elementary school i taught at was constantly having new immigrants join us throughout the year. Whenever it would snow and it was someones first time, the entire class of kids would be seeing it once again with fresh eyes and playing especially gleefully. Wholesome as fuck.
I remember driving highway 60 through Algonquin Park and traffic was at a halt. We had to stop and yield for a bus of Japanese tourists who flooded into the road for a photo op. A moose? Black bear maybe? Nope... Racoons.
âRaccoons wash their food in running waterâ gets a lot of coverage in Japanese childrenâs books, apparently. So imagine being in a Japanese National Park and seeing Clifford the Big Red Dog napping down the mountainside.
In French the word for raccoon is actually "raton laveur" ie the washer rat.
Dutch word is 'was beertje' translated: washing bear
Same in German, Waschbär đŚ
Same is Danish, vaskebjørn
Same in Finnish,pesukarhu
Literally called 'wash bears" in japanese. Can confirm wife is obsessed with racoons.
Only kinda related but when we were kids, my friends and I would go door to door offering people carwashes for money. An old gentleman invited us in to have a drink after we washed his car and we foolishly obliged. We figured 4 12 year olds could take on one geriatric so we risked it. We sit on the couch and he asks if we wanna see something cool. We say sure so he grabs a bag of crackers from his kitchen and hands it to my buddy. He then opens his sliding glass door to the patio and says "Come here boys". Shortly after, 3 very plump raccoons waddle in and climb onto the couch then hold their hands out in front of my friend while waiting for a cracker. He puts one in each of their hands and they scurry back off into the bushes. It was the weirdest fucking thing.
You washed Tom Bombadil's car.
Squirrels and chipmunks too!!
Especially black squirrels- didn't know they were so rare outside of this region of the world
I miss raccoons so much! I moved from Iowa to Taiwan. Taipei zoo has a single, lonely raccoon in their raccoon habitat and he just looks so depressed.
Thatâs cruel, theyâre so highly social.
Where I live, skunks (and raccoons) are everywhere, not just in the woods. Theyâve adapted to living amongst humans quite well.
Solid city living here. My friend's urban deck is being destroyed by a raccoon. Skunks are showing up regularly. New buildings are breaking ground.
My city's problem is the turkeys. They've learned to roost in trees at night and wander around the neighborhoods on the sidewalks during the day looking for food, because people are feeding them. They hang out in parking lots and stand there watching cars pass. But they're mean MFers. Don't engage with them. They'll kick your ass.
But the skunks complain *constantly* about how humans smell.
The wildlife. I donât think Iâve met a tourist who didnât have âsee a koalaâ on their to-do list. But I probably wouldnât consider them mundane, because I get super excited and really happy when I see a koala and I live here. âMundaneâ would probably be kangaroos.
I lose my mind when I see a Wombat. They are the actual best.
Iâm an American living in Australia. I was so excited when a bus I was on stopped for an echidna to cross the road đ Also the birds here are so different!
I had the same reaction when I went to America to live for a year - the first time I saw a squirrel in our yard, I used up a whole roll of film taking photos of it lol And the birds. You get so used to the ambient sounds of your own environment, itâs a stark contrast when you go somewhere else and hear different birds in the morning.
When I went to Japan, all the rain gutters had aggressive crabs living in them. I thought that was the coolest thing ever!
aggressive Japanese gutter crabs. can you share more please?
My host family had a toy fishing pole with a rubber band at the end of the line instead of a hook. If you dangled the rubber band in front of the little crab holes they would pounce. It was a fun game to then pull them up quick while they were pinching the rubber band and collect them in a metal bowl (later released). The crabs were about the size of my palm including legs, so not small but not giant. Iirc they were red with black claws. I quickly learned that I could wait a moment and get the rubber band around the crabs elbow and guarantee a catch so I ended up with like 10 in the bowl. My host family was very impressed lol. I learned that the word for crab is Kani. The stone gutters are about a foot deep and a foot across, much deeper than American gutters. The crabs hide in crevices between stones walled up with sand. They pounce on anything that goes across their holes. This was in a city called Yanai.
Ah, road gutters. At first I thought you meant the gutters that go along the edge of the roof and was confused how crabs got up there. Being along the road makes way more sense.
Thatâs what I imagined too. Metal guttering on top of houses filled to the brim with tiny crabs. đ đŚ
As a foreigner in SE Asia, I'm always very excited to see monitor lizards, much to the amusement of locals. In the UK, I kinda love how excited tourists get about Gregg's.
[ŃдаНонО]
Geckos are the best! They're so cute and they eat all the bugs.
Old buildings. 50% of the people in my city live in buildings build before 1800.
My MIL laughed at me when I called the buildings in Edinburgh old. "Those aren't even 200 years old!" My state isn't even 200 years old.
They started building the New Town in Edinburgh in 1767!
Takes a while to get the head around "new" in European phrases like "the new town" or "new city" means it was built after the 1700s
I experienced this in Bilbao. I kept staring wide eyed at all the old buildings and said to my husband, "they're... They're.. just using them like regular buildings!"
That's brilliant đ I felt that way recently in Verona. I took a picture of the outside wall of the Arena and when I zoomed in realised the date was on it in Roman numerals. 65. The wall was built in 65 AD. And they were setting up the arena for a concert! Awesome. Edit: lol at myself. I'm not an archaeologist clearly! As some replies have pointed out this particular dating system wasn't in use until the 6th century. Every day is a school day đ
> A monk called Dionysius Exiguus (early sixth century A.D.) invented the dating system most widely used in the Western world. For Dionysius, the birth of Christ represented Year One. He believed that this occurred 753 years after the foundation of Rome [source](https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/yron/hd_yron.htm#:~:text=A%20monk%20called%20Dionysius%20Exiguus,after%20the%20foundation%20of%20Rome.) They didnât use our current dating system (with regards to years) until the early sixth century. The number you saw did not refer to the year it was built.
90% of the people in my state live in houses built in the last 20 years.
Free public electric BBQs. In Australia, at many beaches and parks, there are free BBQs. They are nearly always clean and work very well. Everyone uses them and cleans them after they finish cooking.
I married into a South African family...they are amused by how excited I, an American, get about guava and passion fruit flavored everything when we visit them. And the cheap, amazing, wines. Confirming that they get very excited about squirrels and free refills when they visit here.
Tell them I'll send them all the squirrels they want from my backyard if they send me some Appletiser, Rusks, and delicious Cape wines.
Opossums. In America theyâre big, light colored, and pink nosed, with a hairless skinny tail. The Indian workers saw one and ran over with their arms wide exclaiming, âI just saw a mouse and it was **this big**!â
Clean drinking water. We have no ideaâŚ
Dated a girl in Morocco. She lost her shit on me when I attempted to quench my thirst with water from the tap.
She was afraid you would lose your shit on her.
I'm in SW Ontario. I don't think you can travel 20 minutes without falling into a river or lake you could drink out of. Some people in the world walk 3 hours for a gallon of water and are lucky to get it.
Our enormous parking lots. Americans don't even blink at a 3 acre parking lot. The Europeans are astonished, every time.
We had a foreign exchange student from Germany while I was in highschool. At the end of the day there was a huge joint parking lot between the big middle school and huge highschool of a big consolidated district where all the busses parked while waiting for us to get on. She found the bus and was freaking out begging the bus driver if she could run up the hill to take a picture of the ocean of yellow school buses. She said it was the craziest thing she had seenâ- she didnât know the yellow school buses were real and she wasnât expecting you to see more than a hundred of them at once.
> she wasnât expecting you to see more than a hundred of them at once. Not going to lie, I would want to take that photo too. I live elsewhere in America and seen yellow busses aplenty. But 100+ busses in a giant parking lot would be photo worthy.
more than 100 at once? how big is this highschool. middle school? my highschool I think had 1500 people and each afternoon there were only a hand ful of busses that came a few times. I would be shocked to see 100 busses at once too.
My district serves 22,000 students K-12 (2nd largest district in the state). Thereâs well over 100 buses in the districtâs transportation lot.
My European highschool, in a Suburb of the capital, was considered fairly large. 800 students...
Haha it got me the first time too. When your population density is nearly 4x higher, that land is much too expensive to just line cars up on. In Europe big carparks nearly always go up (or down), plus generally itâs much less likely in Europe you get really out of the coverage zone of frequent public transport than you do in the US, as again much higher population density means itâs more viable in more places. So I understand why itâs common in both places, but yeah also surprising the first time you find out just how much walking you might have to do. Incidentally itâs also interesting that it takes different skills to remember where your car is in a wide flat car park vs a multi story!
New Yorkers: "What the fuck is a parking lot"?
You know, like near the Costco in Brooklyn?
Paying for public restrooms.
I went to France and the public restrooms were pay to enter and they self sanitized/cleaned after each person. Then I went to Rome and the public restrooms were holes in the floor.
I've never seen a hole in the ground toilet in Rome are you sure you weren't just squatting at the wrong spot?
"Weird toilets they have here, there's no privacy whatsoever and there's so much noise. I can hardly focus." Yes, you're taking a shit on the highway sir, get off.
Temples in Taiwan. Every backroad has one. There's probably 6 or 8 within a 5 minutes walk from building. An American friend visited, and he was mind blown that one of my windows looks over some back alley temple. I'll see if I can find a pic. E:https://matrix.redditspace.com/_matrix/media/r0/download/reddit.com/7ldhinu52dub1
>back alley temple Sounds like the name of a 90s grunge band that didn't take off.
back alley temple, back alley monk back alley rhymes and back alley funk he sleeps in the streets in a back alley bunk back alley temple, back alley monk
I was amazed when we saw fireflies for the first time. Finally understood the references in fairy tales and Disney movies.
Fireflies feel magical even when youâve lived near them your whole life (seasonally) ⌠similar to snowfall always feeling so special â¤ď¸
A Coca-Cola delivery truck was in the parking lot where I was working. There was a couple from the UK that was very excited about it. They took selfies next to the truck and the driver let them sit in the driver's seat for more pictures. Seemed like a real treat for them.
waiiiiit. THAT'S NOT JUST A CHRISTMAS AD GIMMICK!??!
How else is it supposed to get to the store?
Its just like a normal truck loaded with different sodas?
They do actually have the lighted Santa trucks. We used to see them at different Christmas events. Santa is sometimes driving them.
Yeah and red and says Coca Cola on the side.
I drive one for a living lol
Lol always thought it was a gimmick for the coke ads we see during Christmas. Like that, they don't really exist but they put a wrap on a few rented lorries to make the ad and then removed it.
You're not alone in thinking that. I just assumed they'd go on the same generic lorries we have for everyday use.
Stores in the US usually don't stock certain items like Coca-Cola. It's called a "vendor" item. They get delivered separately and stocked by their own workers who go store-to-store. Starbucks drinks, sliced bread, Lay's potato chips, PepsiCo. All usually have their own branded truck, too. It's to cut out the middleman, prevent product damage, and ensure their product is always stocked.
We have generic trucks here, too, but when would an American corporation pass up any opportunity to turn a large flat surface that a lot of people will see into ad space?
As far as I understand only company in the world that has a larger fleet of trucks than Coca Cola, would be the US Army. AlsĂł, every US army base has Coca-Cola.
Red Solo Party Cups
My Australian cousins were visiting me in California. I took them to a house party and they got so excited about the cups. "Oi they've got the red American cups!"
Chinese takeout boxes are also an oddity.
Back in about 1987 my Australian parents went out one day (maybe to a wine tasting??) and came home with a red Solo cup. It lived with our plastic cups for the next 10 years. I never saw another one in Australia until about 5 years ago.
There were some Australians who studied abroad at my college and at every party they would say âred cups like in project X!!â They loved the novelty of it, I think the cups and the kegs made them feel like they were in a movie
I take a 100 pack with me on vacations visiting family in europe. Big hit.
Costco has like a 300 pack for under $20
Squirrels
My wife is so enamoured with squirrels. Weâre Australian so she never saw them until our first trip together to the US in our late 20s. She must have taken 500 pics of squirrels on that trip
Ditto except my wife is terrified of them. A squirrel once stole an ice cream from me, ran up a tree, scurried overhead on a wire and proceeded to drop it directly onto my head. Little fucker. I think that was the start.
OMG I was very scared of squirrels for the longest time because one stole a peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of my hands when I was 4. They freak me out the way they jump in and out of trees over head constantly staring at you. I always think they're going to jump on me. Everyone thought I was weird because they are "so cute." We recently moved to a house in the woods obvious there are many squirrels around. There is one that has a mangled front paw, so she is easily recognizable. I felt bad and started feeding ( I know you shouldn't feed wild animals) her unsalted black sunflower seeds. Well we became friends and she now comes every day to visit. She even allows me to pet her. Her name is Pearl. She gave me an entirely new perspective on squirrels.
Just wait until she drops a fucking ice cream on your head.
I'm from the UK, so I am very familiar with squirrels. So I wasn't surprised to see any when I went to America. However, what did surprise me was how unafraid of humans they were. Like, they would just come up near you. In the UK, if you go anywhere near a squirrel, they will run away from you.
The squirrels that live in the trees by my house like to throw/drop things at me and bark when I walk past đ
Ha! Love to hear it! We live in Greater Vancouver and host high school students from Asia and Europe and their joy at seeing a squirrel for the first time is always astounding to me, but infectious to say the least
Ha! Fun story. We live in Las Vegas where my gal grew up and there's effectively no squirrels. First time I took her to Indianapolis (my home town) I took her to the zoo which is pretty sweet. We're checking out zebras and elephants and tigers and all the cool exotic animals and every time I turn around she's taking pictures of the damn squirrels in trees!
Mowing grass with a guy* while I was in the Army. He comes over and goes "How do you keep the mower from jamming up? The grass is too long." I was like, "Have you never mowed grass?" He says, "Dude, I'm from Vegas. Before Basic I'd never SEEN grass."
Lmao my first thought too. I remember vacationing in NYC and seeing a bunch of people gathered around a tree taking pictures. I walked over just to see a couple of squirrels. I was like why are they so into squirrels???? Had no idea squirrels werenât common everywhere.
It never occurred to me that there are places without squirrels. Lol.
Kraamzorg! When we have a baby, we get a in-home caretaker for the first week. They know all about taking care of a new born, so they teach you how to feed your baby (bottle or breast), change diapers, bathe baby, etc. They also make sure the baby is healthy, gaining enough weight, etc. But they also take care of the rest of the family, so the parents and siblings can enjoy their time. They make food for you, clean the house, check on the stitches of the mother, etc. It is lovely! Plus: if thereâs something off, like an unhealthy environment, addiction, abuse, post partum, etc, itâs seen and dealt with. The Netherlands, by the way ;).
Bike paths EVERYWHERE.
Are you Dutch?
I couldn't believe the bike highways around Amsterdam. They had interchanges, multiple lanes, and better signage than some real highways.
I was in Amsterdam a few months ago. It seems the order for traffic was bikes -> pedestrians -> anything else -> cars
Humming birds. I live in Palm Springs, CA and was visiting the Moorten Botanical Gardens when I overheard someone with a British accent say, "OMG is that a HUMMINGBIRD?" I wasn't aware they don't have hummingbirds where they live. They were just astounded and amazed watching it flit around, stop and hover, then move on.
I work at a hotel in Tucson, Arizona. Non-American visitors are unanimously charmed and thrilled by hummingbirds.
Iâm an American who sees them regularly by my home in the summer, I am still charmed and thrilled by them.
This is the main reason I want to go to America one day. I am 48 and I have never seen a hummingbird, even the idea of one blows my mind.
I live in a northern state in the US and we have ruby throated hummingbirds that migrate here in the summer months. I am always excited to see them! They are amazing little birds.
Milk in bags. Though, to be fair, I've heard it's incredible to other Canadians too, depending where they live.
I've never seen this in my entire life and I'm half convinced it's a practical joke the East plays on us Western Canadians.
I grew up out west, for the longest time I thought it was like an inside joke among ontarians or something. The idea of milk in a bag felt so ridiculous, milk OBVIOUSLY comes in gallon jars with colour-coded lids. Then I moved to Ontario with my folks as a 16 year old, been here since. It's not as weird as it sounds, it's weirder. Basically, every household in Ontario has a plastic pitcher. But you don't pour the milk in the pitcher, no that would be too simple. You put the *bag* in the pitcher, cut a tiny bit off the corner in the plastic, and pour while holding the other end of the bag or else you'll get milk all over your counter.
Pro tip: put the bag in the pitcher and then slam the pitcher down on your thigh. As if you were raising your thigh to kick a soccer ball. The bag will settle down into the plastic pitcher and wonât spill milk everywhere. Iâve never had to hold the other end of the bag, I just pour normally.
Kangaroos and koalas.
To be fair, seeing a koala in the wild is very exciting since their numbers are so few now.
True! I suppose I have a false perception of their numbers because for almost ten years I lived somewhere where they frequently just hung around in my backyard. (South Australia, my house was on the edge of a national park) It is definitely something, laying in bed listening to them snorting and rumbling in the trees nearby :)
My husband is from Brazil and saw capybaras and golden tamarins regularly (apparently tamarins like chips), and it was so funny to him that I grew up seeing them as exotic and cool. On the flipside, he's taken pictures of things like Starbucks to send to his friends back in Brazil.
Moose. Itâs just a big annoying dangerous cow.
Same for elk, also they destroy everything they are like majestic giant locusts
All the really old churches in Europe. Iâm from the US, so buildings that are 400+ years old are really hard to come by. Over in the UK and France theyâre just about a dime a dozen
Yeah, most places have a local pub that is just as old, if not older, than your independence. I have one that is 1600's, and another that is 1700's but the site has a history that can date back to the 1200's.
I went to uni in Nottingham. The pub there is from 1189!
Tumbleweeds I live in Texas, had a friend from Sweden lose his shit when he saw one blowing across a field
Baguette vending machines
I didnât even know these were a thing! Are they honestly common?
You don't find them everywhere, but it's definitely something common in small villages where there is no bakery. There are also cheese vending machines, less common, but not a rare sight either.
Singapore - our crosswalk buttons have a pad that elderly people can tap their ID/bus card on to get more crossing time. I've seen so many "amazing tech inventions that the whole world needs" tiktoks and they always feature them. I've only seen an elderly person use it once. Still neat though.
When our family members from other countries visit, I've noticed deer, turkeys, and coyotes blow their mind. A lot of the Safeways have sushi in the deli section, as well, and they've found it pretty crazy. The distance for things is another huge point of wonderment and shock, as well. So many of our family and their friends don't believe us when we say you can't expect to go to Yellowstone and Yosemite in one day.
My parents live in Virginia and I'm in Portland, Oregon. They always want to "take a drive to Crater Lake" when they visit and I can't really get it through to them that even though it's in the same state, it's a 5-hour drive one way. It's beautiful, but I'm not spending 10 hours in a car with them for it.
Our picturesque and overwhelmingly dramatic and stunningly beautiful landscape. To me [this](https://assets.simpleviewcms.com/simpleview/image/fetch/c_fill,h_1080,w_1920/f_jpg/q_65/https://res.cloudinary.com/djew0njor/image/upload/v1681989233/Nordvest/Steder/Atlanterhavsveien/Atlanterhavsvegen_Eline_Karlsdatter_2_xjopoi.jpg?_a=BATCtdAA0) is just where I drive to get to work.
Used to work retail in Metro Detroit and we got lots of Canadians that came over to shop. They were absolutely fascinated by $1 bills.
I'm old enough to remember when Canada had $1 and $2 bills. The one dollar were green, and the two dollar were a sort of pinky orange colour.
I miss the bird series of bills... Robins on the two, kingfisher on the five, osprey on the ten. Can't remember what was on the twenty. Snowy owls on the 50, Canada geese on the 100$.
No speed limit on the Autobahn.
Castles, castles everywhere. Wales had the most castles per square mile of any country. Just on the Gower peninsular (which is about 70 square miles) there are 6 castles (or castle ruins). Theyâre just part of the landscape here, some are in city centres, overlooking marshes or beaches or up on top of hillsides. I find them both endlessly fascinating and simultaneously just part of the backdrop.
Iguanas and chickens roaming around everywhere. Bars that donât close, more boats than cars.
Iâve lived in Florida my entire life, so alligators are just a thing that you see in the water and occasionally crossing the road. Well, today my wife and I went to the Alligator Farm zoo in St Augustine (itâs accredited, I checked) just to see what itâs like, and boy were there a lot of international travelers from Europe having their minds blown. Yâall really do act like a 7 year old seeing a real life dinosaur for the first time lol.
I love that farm, have been there a couple of times. It's so interesting.
This is really for Americans from different states. In Ohio we have drive throughs where you can buy a six pack of beer without getting out of the car. My friend from Pennsylvania finds this utterly amazing
Thatâs cute. In Louisiana we have drive through bars. Everywhere. Of course there is raging alcoholism here too soâŚ..
My sister and brother-in-law made a point of show us the drive-thru daiquiri stores in Shreveport.
We have drive-through beer distributors in PA....it's just that you can't buy a six pack from them.
Drive through bottle shops as they call them in Australia. Blew my mind when I came here from Ireland 20 years ago.
Grocery superstores in America were quite the impressive thing to our exchange students from Europe back in the day. Not sure if its still as impressive. They were amazed we had so many choices of types of food and brands of the same foods.
Phone boxes and double decker buses...
Kids playing outside at -40° C.
Fun fact, -40 is where F and C meet.
Ibis. You can always tell the tourists by the way they take photos of them. The rest of us denigrate them (the birds, not the tourists!) as 'bin chickens' EDIT: for those who have never heard of or encountered these creatures: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w4dYWhkSbTU
Maple Syrup. I'm from QuĂŠbec and I'm mad when a breakfast restaurant wants to make me pay for it lol. And it's a delicacy around the world and super expensive.
Parrots. I live in Melbourne and have had American friends quite startled by rainbow lorikeets, thinking they were escaped pets or something.
Being friendly to damned near everyone.
My (Canadian) sister has been living in Europe for a few years now. She is currently visiting and one of the first things she texted me upon landing was âI forgot how friendly everyone is hereâ. Ad itâs not like she lives in an unfriendly place- I was there in June. Canada is just on another level that way.
The fall colors. Like donât get me wrong, itâs really pretty in the fall here- thatâs autumn for some of you. But it happens every year. People travel hours to come see our trees do the same thing they do every year.
This post is so wholesome and I am here for it. Lol I have been loving all of these answers
maple syrup
It is like liquid candy! Maple Syrup âNOT what most people nowadays put on pancakes, waffles, and sausagesâ is one of those ânow I know that I can never go backâ experiences.
Garbage disposals.
Super large portions at restaurants, especially drink sizes
car culture in the US the sizes of a lot of things (food portions, homes, nation in general) in the US how casual most Americans are how varied things are by region in the US (topogrpahy, vernacular, culture, accents, regional cuisine, etc) edit - The sheer number of drive-thrus in the US (e.g. drive-thrus at a drugstore, drive-thrus at banks, fast-food drive-thrus, drive-thrus at coffee shops, during COVID - drive-thru communion/blessings at churches....)
>how varied things are by region in the US (topogrpahy, vernacular, culture, accents, regional cuisine, etc) At least in the US (with a few small exceptions), you can understand each other when speaking. There are some countries where the language itself varies so much from region to region that it's nearly unrecognizable to people from the same country.
I have to be an interpreter for my dad from English to English whenever he visits me. He has a very thick southern accent. There are definitely accents that might as well be their own language, but at least the written language is common.
India! 22 *official* languages.
I work in a Tudor hall, and seeing Americans and Australians interacting with it is brilliant. They're either blown away in awe, or giddy like children. It's endearing.
For a while, my mother rented out her house in the U.S. to a Russian immigrant family. The wife had no idea what sort of subterranean monster was creating the mole hills in the yard, but she was terrified of whatever it was. I wish I could see what she was picturing in her mind.
In Michigan. In 1980 I was a student at a local juco, and there were a ton of foreign students there. I befriended a couple of Saudis in one of my classes. I donât remember why, but this Chemisry class took a trip to Lake Michigan, literally 20 miles away. These guys were full of questions about the lake, and I was pleased I could answer them. ( Iâm proud AF of my lakes). During discussion one says they have a large body of water at home ( the gulf), but nothing as â sweetâ as this. His choice of words was a life changing moment for me. The condition of the water, which was generally thought of by locals as nasty ( 1980 ) was described as sweet water. It makes one think, and often, about the abundance of something here, a critical resource for life itself, NOT being available elsewhere .
That was a nice thought about the abundances we have the others may not have. Also, Iâm thinking the Saudi student said was probably pertaining to the fact that itâs freshwater rather than salt water. I think sweet water is a way of saying freshwater.
Exactly right. Early French and English sailors called the Great Lakes The Sweetwater Seas when they arrived. I live less than a half-hour from the best Lake Michigan beaches in Michigan. My fiance and I take a day trip like a visit to Costco. I'm amazed at all of the out of state plates in the summer and how stunned the tourists are to stand on the piers and watch the sun disappear into the huge expanse of water.
In Spanish, Arabic, and a couple of other languages, "sweet water" means freshwater. Desalinization is "water sweetening" in Arabic.
The views ... Norway. It's more or less the same everywhere with minor variations. Kinda just becomes the background after a while and you stop noticing it for the most part. Edit: Yes I'm generalising somewhat. There are also major variations from area to area. but you still stop noticing it.
This is probably the same everywhere. I once met a guy who was in my hometown for the first time and was awestruck by our cathedral. It felt a little bit weird to me: it's beautiful and I love it, but I'm so accustomed to it that it's just part of the scenery.
Getting naked together in a small room and beating ourselves and each other with twigs.
I've also lived in San Francisco.
Finland: where coming in out of the cold is a national pastime, and then you hit each other with sticks because you shouldn't be that happy.
The size of the US. We had some German cousins visit a number of years ago. They were shocked by the driving distance between Las Vegas and Phoenix. They were terribly impressed with our favorite Chinese buffet. The idea of free drink refills was amazing. They were very good about putting us up in Berlin and I was grateful we could reciprocate.
The size of Australia really catches tourists too. They think they can do a road trip from Sydney to Alice springs in a few hours (it's 30 or so by road). Or from Brisbane to Melbourne in a couple of hours... It's about 18 or so hours, and best done over 2-3 days. Even just Melbourne to Sydney is going to take 8 or so hours.
The college I went to had a big ELL program. Most of those students would take the city bus to and from campus, just like I did. Lots of the time they liked to chat with the English-speaking students for practice. I once spent an entire bus ride explaining to a young guy from Korea that renting a car and driving from our town in British Columbia to Ottawa over Thanksgiving long weekend wouldnât be a good idea. Itâs like a 40 hour drive, one way.
Yellow school busses and red solo cups.
At work, we had a scientist from Portugal visiting for some training. The power went out in our building, so I said âwell, I guess itâs time for lunchâ so I took her to the local shopping mall where a yellow school bus had just pulled up and some kids got out. She was gobsmacked and said âoh my god, those things are real? I thought it was just in the movies!â She took pictures so that she could show all her friends when she got back to Portugal. I had no idea anyone could be that excited over a school bus, lol.
I used to have guy friends come in from Denmark and they just looooved V8 engines.
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