Aren't them foreigners weird...

[Dayvo]

Amsterdam is a very pleasant city to visit/stay. Who needs pubs when you've got coffee shops?

 

[Dave 123]

Devon.
As an 19 year old from the Wirral it took me a while to get over the language barrier.
I worked for Plymough City Council for a while, grass cutting. I was cutting grass in the garden of some flats. One of the residents, an older man made me a cup of tea. I drank it and chatted to him.
When he started sayin "moi luvver" and "moi 'ansome" to me I thought he might be angling for a little bit of 'extra gardening'. I made my excuses.

It turns out that that's how they talk there!

 

[Haitch]

San Francisco airport had stalls that covered your midriff but not the strain on your face. I became constipated as soon as I saw them.

Those in the bars in Anchorage, Alaska, had no doors what so ever.

 

[jefmcg]

When I went to Japan in my 20s, I found it odd where they drew the lines.

1. Japanese girls in their 20s had never seen a penis (in photo or in real life)
2. Conversely, there were no doors on the men's toilets, so as you walked passed to the ladies, there were men with their backs turned, urinating a few feet away.
3. Pubic hair was verbotten in girlie mags, so all the nudes had their thighs arranged to hide them - think brunette Marilyn Monroe's early nudes.
4. Japanese Playboy had a centrefold picture that was apparently a murder victim, splayed out naked, with closed eyes and bloody in a wrecked apartment. Thigh was obscuring pubic area, we must keep it nice

etc. How I ended up showing young Japanese women naked photos of men, or how we were thrown out of a US Marine's hotel room by military police is left as an exercise for the reader.

 

[Markymark]

Thank God you didn't try smiling at someone.

Oy ponce, if I see them pearly whites again I'll smash em aht.

(I've seen the London documentary Eastenders, I know how you lovable cockney rogues talk)

Just give them a dry slap.

 

[derrick]

I went to a Devon pub once, they had what they call a lock in, I did not get out till 4-30 am. Pubs in London you have to be a regular before that happens.

 

[Dayvo]

I lost 6 hours after a visit to a coffee shop...


...and gained some very 'interesting' bruises in some rather 'interesting' places.

I went AWOL in Cambodia (Sihanoukville) on a 'happy pizza' for 36 hours. Oh how I laughed.

 

[jefmcg]

I went to a Devon pub once, they had what they call a lock in, I did not get out till 4-30 am. Pubs in London you have to be a regular before that happens.

Oh, my first lock in was in London at a pub near work. I saw them putting the chairs on tables, and I said "oh, they want us to leave". "No, it's a lock in!" So exciting! Like something off The Bill!

(London was so familiar and yet strange for my first visit to the Western hemisphere)

 

[GrumpyGregry]

wearing sailors hats when you leave high school

midsummer night bonfires whilst drinking oneself stupid

Sharing Friday night beers on the metro with total strangers

are but three Nordic differences.

 

[Fab Foodie]

I stay in on Friday nights for fear of turning into a Norwegian.

Work finishes early (no problem with that), then the next 8-10 hours are spent drinking large amounts of crap, cold, fizzy beer with a meal squeezed in somewhere (no-one ever remembers what or where). A few quarrels, arguments occur, followed by the obligatory fight, then you're sent home in a taxi by your colleagues, and in addition to paying £50 for a 20 minute journey from the city centre, you have to pay another £50 cos you've puked up in the taxi/over the driver and that's the going rate.

You eventually 'wake up' Saturday afternoon not remembering a thing and having an empty wallet lying on the floor. You phone a few friends to ask if anything 'happened' then go back to bed, knowing you've got a crap Sunday in store before being back at work Monday morning and guaranteed 'pi$$-taking' before shaking it all off and start to look forward to the following Friday.

It all seems a bit like American Physcho without the killings. And I'm NOT the subject here.

How I miss evenings in the pub back home: REAL ale, at a decent price, in a quiet pub with some mates and a 'sensible' Indian meal awaiting at the end of the evening.

Mmm, maybe I should have stayed the weekend in Lillehammer ....

 

[jefmcg]

My first overseas adventure (from Melbourne) started in Tokyo. I was with a large group of Australian women, most of whom were much older than me but include a few younger and around my age, one of whom was my best friend. She and I shared a hair dresser, who gave us the same haircut - even though she knew we were friends, and asked me if I had seen <friend>'s haircut when she gave me the same one. When I took the photos in to work, my colleagues who knew me very well thought photos of her were of me.

So out of this mixed bunch of women, whose ages ranged from a year or two younger than me to several decades older than me, and included a woman that to western eyes was indistinguishable from me ....

I was the only one who was asked to be photographed amongst a group of students. It happened to me at least 3 times, and to none of the dozens of women (and a few men) I travelled with. I so regret not handing them my camera so I have a record of what they saw. Japan and I have changed so much since the 80s, that I will never know what it was.

 

[Profpointy]

I went to a Devon pub once, they had what they call a lock in, I did not get out till 4-30 am. Pubs in London you have to be a regular before that happens.

a mate was tipped off about a "regulars only" lock in in a pub in the Lakes. It was his first visit to the place but was inforned "of course, you're a regular. You've been here since 8 o'clock"

The ilicit pleasure of a lock-in is now lost now that pubs open late regardless

 

[nickyboy]

In South China you get your crockery in a restaurant sanitised and sealed in cellophane as a pack; plate, cup, spoon, chopsticks

But they also give you a teapot full of weak tea and a bowl. You have to break open the cellophane and then proceed to rinse all your crockery by pouring the tea over the crockery in the bowl

The North China folk regard the South China folk as proper weird

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

I remember similar when as a nipper, the WC's with the iron courtesy screens and a troth along the streets in France,

There's one on the outskirts of Castleford actually!!, but not in use
(think the locals preferred walls & gutters?)

I know I did have a picture of it, but can't see it in my files, so, here's listing & a picture off the 'net;
http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-342464-public-urinal-to-east-of-post-office-

 

[marknotgeorge]

A much younger me went to Boulogne on a school trip, specifically to practice my French. At one shop I carefully perused the wares on offer, searching for something I could both afford and remember the right words for. Once I had it down pat in my head, I entered the shop, where the person behind the counter took the wind out of my sails with a cheery 'Good Morning!' Inconsiderate barstewards...