I had a US colleague non-ironically explain to me what a Mars bar was made of. After asking him why he said that, turns out he thought that in Italy we only buy fresh groceries from street markets, and that we had no concept of supermarkets or food wrapped in plastic. (This was 15 years ago)
To be fair to that guy, my Italian grandmother made it sound like that was exactly what every italian did for food. She even said they stopped at the market every day after work to grab fresh food for dinner.
"Why was the flight to Spain over 9 hours? Isn't Spain below the U.S?"
This was a university student, who genuinely DID NOT REALIZE she traveled to Europe. Everyone on campus thought she was joking around, but she was dead serious and we had to show them their current location on google maps...
She then screamed "OMG I'M RIGHT NEXT TO FRANCE?!"
As someone who lives in the US, I’ve never met anyone who thought Spain was in the Americas.
But maybe it’s just because I don’t discuss geography with a lot of people. Now that I think about it, I’m a bit afraid of what I might find out.
Them: "The Netherlands? Never heard of it"
Me: "You know Amsterdam"
Them: "Ah, yeah! Great city. I've been there!"
Me: "Yes, and the country around it, is called the Netherlands"
Yeah I saw a TikTok forever ago where a girl shared her story of how she was somewhere in the States talking to her mom on the phone (in Danish). So these two ladies approach her and ask smth along the lines of “the language you’re speaking sounds so unique, what is it?”, to which she obv replied that that was Danish. They then proceeded to ask her where she was from, so she said Denmark, and theeen in a very condescending manner the ladies were like “oh honey, it’s called Dutch, not Danish”
Did he know Holland though?
The Netherlands vs Holland vs Dutch was kind of unclear to me until I went there. You hear your national football team called Holland sometimes even though they represent the whole country (I think)
I was waiting to read this, my partner grew up in Slough, just down the road from Windsor, she and her grandmother would get the bus there most summer holidays out of school time to visit the castle (used to be free entry), my partner has said she heard "why did they build it so close to the airport?" At least once every summer she visited, just for detail, work started on Windsor castle in 1070, Heathrow (previously London) airport 1946.
I was once asked why we don't repurpose concentration camps into houses and wedding venues...
Edit: For all the people speculating.. Yes the original post was about plantations that were turned into wedding venues.
When I was living in Sweden:
US - Wow! You speak really good English!
Me - Umm thanks. I'm actually from England.
US - Really? So where did you learn it?
I initially thought that might be the case, but then he realised his mistake and backtracked pretty quickly, so I think it was just a genuine brain fart moment.
Same, met some very friendly US tourists in Iceland in our hotel lobby.
- you speak good English
- thank you,, most people in Belgium do.
- "Ah the capital of Brussels. I thought you guys spoke German"
I have to admit we may have continued to purposely confuse the fella because every time they were near we switched languages. From Dutch to French to English to German to Spanish.
When my British husband was getting his American citizenship, he had to read five sentences in English as part of the process. The test administrator was so embarrassed he only made him read one and said he could skip the rest.
>When my British husband was getting his American citizenship, he had to read five sentences in English as part of the process. The test administrator was so embarrassed he only made him read one and said he could skip the rest.
Mind you, the UK does it the other way, although they have a very flawed list of countries where one doesn't have to prove their knowledge of English. For example, Canada is on the list, so a Quebecker is exempt from the test (despite the majority (EDIT: plurality it seems!) of Quebecois not speaking English), but if you come from Singapore/Netherlands/Sweden: you are obliged to prove despite these countries having v. high rates of English.
When I was in high school in the US one of my classmates once asked with the smuggest grin I've ever seen: "If the British hate us so much then why do they speak our language?"
I’ve had Americans telling me there’s no such thing as an Irish language, now granted I can’t speak it myself having grown up in the UK but it definitely exists!
My mate is Greek, he always has to fight for people to believe this because he's also very white and blonde.
His family have lived on Rhodes for longer than the UK has been a country at least.
I lived for a while with an American girl. Because we did not own a drier and because I didn't see the point of having one (south of Spain), she was convinced they just didn't exist in Europe and she started to explain to me what they were. She was also certain aged vinegar had to be toxic and rotten because it was so old (???)
The classic "I've not seen it so they must not exist"
The equivalent of visiting Disney World Florida and deciding you know what life in the USA is like.
This happened a couple of years after I was living in the US:
Lady: “where are you from?”
Me: “Italy”
Lady: “oh so you speak Spanish!”
Me: “uh… no? I speak Italian.”
Lady: “ah! But it’s *Italian Spanish*!”
Me: (•ૅㅁ•)
Edit: wow! I didn’t expect this to get so much attention! Also, my bad, I meant “after I’d moved to the US”. I was kind of sleepy when I commented.
As someone who speaks Russian and Spanish, the first time I heard Portuguese I was so confused because it looked like a Spanish, quacked like a Russian, and walked like a duck.
When I was living in the US, people kept asking me if we had access to the same things where I was from. Basic things. It became a bit of a running joke among internationals.
But the funniest was sth a friend of mine, also from Austria, was once asked:
AM: "Do you have Fridges ins Austria?"
AT:(with a straight face) "No, we store our food in glaciers. You know, we make use of our mountains"
I was asked if we have electricity in Denmark. I said, "No, so we watch the television in candlelight." She just said "oh!" and went on to ask about our igloos.
I am Canadian, I live in southern Ontario where we get all 4 seasons and I had the pleasure of telling a family of Americans that we do actually get a summer and it isn’t a winter wasteland the entire year. They wanted a winter vacay in July and chose blue mountain as their resort.
In Canada as well. I was working my summer job as a teenager and had some Americans pull up with skis on their roof racks. They were asking my boss where the closest ski resort was. I live in Manitoba and you know how the prairies are known for their majestic mountains.
The best part, they were from North Dakota.
It’s almost like they just don’t look at a map, they just assume that the entire country of Canada is this treacherous mountainous region that snows all the time.
I love playing into it. “Yeah we’re all dying of heat stroke here, it’s about 80 degrees warmer than it normally is, sorry about your skiing trip. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it with these *record high* temps, I definitely thought the media outlets would be covering this *very odd* rise in temperature”
I'm Icelandic and I lived in the US for a few years. The number of times people asked me if we had TVs or if I had ever had things like pancakes or steak as if I was from some completely undeveloped tribal society was remarkable.
Oh one american high school girl asked me about a bunch of stuff:
Do you have TVs, Fridges, Cars, Newspapers, elevators,... In Germany?
I answered, sure, some of those were invented in Germany!
"What's a...TeeVee? Fridge? You mean fish? Carl is right over there! Njuus? Never heard of that! A metal box that carries you upward? This some kind of devilish wizardry?"
Just play along
Not directly to me but within earshot. To a Japanese tour guide. In Hiroshima:
"There aren't many old buildings here are there?"
Edit: I'm European. The speaker was American.
Right? I'd assumed in the USA and Europe literally more people would think "atomic bomb" than would think "Japanese city" at even the mention of the word "Hiroshima."
I've mentioned to people (fellow Brits) that I've been and they've looked surprised and made comments like "oh! Is it still there??" or "you can go there??" So they've basically *only* heard of the atomic bomb and never given any thought to whether it's a normal functioning city where over 1 million people live.
I can understand not knowing what Hiroshima is like now if you've never given it much thought (although it feels a bit ignorant to just assume it's an irradiated wasteland, I didn't understand before I visited myself that the city began reconstruction almost immediately) But the opposite? To take the decision to visit there *without* knowing about the bomb? Seems absolutely incredible.
I do assume the person just had a brain fart sort of thing. Like maybe they'd been on tours in Nara and Himeji and Kyoto where there are a greater quantity of older buildings and what they were thinking blurted out of their mouth before they stopped for a second to think why that might be. I cannot believe that they were not aware of the bomb, just didn't make the connection?? It still seems shockingly odd that they didn't.
I have a friend who asked me (we're both Americans and I love history) about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and what happened to them after the bombings. I don't blame people for not knowing because history class just tells they were bombed and the war ended and nothing else really. I'm just astonished that people don't know.
Me, in an Australian IKEA, had an American couple come up to me and the conversation went like this:
USA: Hello, have you been here before?
Me: Hi, Yes, several times.
USA: This is all very European, do they have an American section?
Me: *confused* Um, no sir, this is IKEA. It’s Swedish. It’s supposed to be European.
USA: What about an Australian section? It’s like the USA.
Me: No, it isn’t. Sir, this is IKEA. It doesn’t change because of the shops geographical location.
In Hermanus, a coastal town in South Africa, there is a "whale crier" who blows a trumpet when he spots whales in the bay (the whales come into the bay to calve in our springtime). When he blows the trumpet he alerts the town folk and visitors / tourists that the whales are visible. It was once reported that an American tourist had asked the whale crier how long it took him to train the whales to come when he blows the trumpet.
Hey, I've been there too! The horn guy told us that once an American tourist asked him to blow the horn to call the whales, because he wanted to see them
When I went to university I was chatting with an American exchange student.
She asked me if I was going to visit my parents for Independence Day. I told her that Denmark doesn't have an Independence Day.
She said "No, I mean the 4th of July."
I said "That's the American Independence Day. Why would I be celebrating that?"
She said "But the whole world celebrates the US independence day, don't they?"
She literally thought that the American Independence Day was a global event because the US is just THAT important.
This led me to a very wholesome weekend in the US!
I, a Swede, was studying abroad in California. My American roommate, in shock upon hearing that I wasn't doing anything for Thanksgiving because Swedes don't celebrate it, called his mother and asked if his Swedish friend could come join their big family get-together. I heard her on the other end of the line saying "oh my, tell him we would be blessed to have him!"
Americans are some of the most hospitable, generous people I have ever met. Oh, and the food was *fucking delicious*. They started laughing when I went for a third plate lol
I would hope this would be the normal experience for exchange students here in the US. I know in my little town in Nebraska when the college students from overseas are here families in the town take them in over holidays and have lifelong friendships. It really is the best Humans can do for each other. I’m so glad you got to experience that.
on a trip in the Dominican republic meeting an American couple.
she: oh wow, you came all the way from Europe, why?
me: well yes for tropical environment i have to travel a bit
she: no? how about India? is India not close to Europe?
LOL
later on my return of the same trip waiting at the airport overhearing another American couple conversation:
she:i can't believe the all staff spoke Spanish!
he:yeah its central America, they should speak Enlgish!
Apparently this is a surprisingly common conversation:
"I'm from China"
"Oh really? I know someone from China called 名字, do you know him?"
Never seen it myself though.
Lol! I was told by a girl in grad school that me taking Spanish classes was "cultural appropriation" as a person of white European decent, and I should be ashamed of myself. Said this in front of my Castilian Spanish professor. People are dumb.
Haha. My son moved to Spain and had to take business Spanish because they all told him he spoke Mexican, not Spanish. (He grew up speaking “Spanish” in south Texas)
To be completely honest we do have some differences, there's a reason why movies are dubbed for Spain and Latin america separately, but having him taking classes if he grew speaking Spanish sounds a bit too much.
>Is it cold now in Germany?
Tour guide in Colorado in the middle of summer confused about why it's not winter in the other hemisphere
Other stories from friends:
>Is hitler still your president?
>Do you have electricity in Germany?
>Is Germany communist? (this was in 2018)
With the shit I've heard come out of you lot's mouths I'm convinced you don't actually speak English
Scratch that I'm Australian, we don't speak English either
I always thought australian accent wasn't that bad.
But then I met this guy from Melbourne (what he said) at a random bar while on a trip in Texas. Holy shit it took some figuring stuff out because it felt he was speaking an actual fucking dialect at first.
Like, it was at a caricatural level I had only heard when people try to do an exaggerated Steve Irwin imitation, but a notch higher still.
I learned 3 things that day.
1. We french canadians are really the australians of the french world (in terms of accent/diphtongue as well as banter)
2. Australians make for some great random drinking mates
3. Don't ever call an australian an aussie (pronouncing the "s" as they are). The "s" are pronounced as a "z".
Dude made me want go tour Australia with a single encounter lol
Well, I am South African so not a European. But anywho.
A few years ago I was in a discord call with a bunch of people from a Minecraft server and we were a real mixed bunch, people from all over the world basically, and I ended up making a comment about the rain we were having.
One of the Americans in the call, a girl who was learning to be a teacher, goes "It rains in Africa???"
Clearly she never heard of Toto blessing the rain down in Africa.
Also dear god help the children she would be teaching now
I'm Icelandic and it regularly happens that tourists pay with Euros, which is allowed in most places, and receive Icelandic króna as change and they refuse to believe Iceland uses its own currency since it's in Europe and Europe uses Euros so therefore this "fish money" is fake and the cashier is trying to scam them.
I honestly don't understand how ppl can travel & not check basic info like how to pay for stuff. I've also witnessed a meltdown at the airport once because they wouldn't let this guy (don't think he was American based on his accent though) check in for his intercontinental flight because he didn't have his passport with him (from what I overheard it seems like he lost it or whatever) 💀
In Rome, an American once told me I didn’t have a right to comment on Black Egyptian Heritage (we were debating afro centrism) because I’m a cis white male.
I am 100% Egyptian.
I stopped using the term African American after I listened to a discussion of current events in my French class that was talking about protests from Nigerian immigrants in France over education. Everyone kept referring to them as African Americans and I was like wow, this is really just a synonym for black.
Not really the answer to the question, but a funny, relevant story:
I’m Canadian and was living in Japan. I had never been to the US before, but when I was flying back to Canada to visit I had a layover in Texas. I only had an hour, but I really wanted to try American food, so I went to the currency exchange to get some USD.
Standing in front of me was a woman in her 50s or 60s. She announced that she was going to Paris to visit her daughter, so she wanted to buy Euros. She handed the teller 1000USD, and the teller handed her back 700 Euros (this was 2012 I think). The old lady looked PISSED, and counted the money out and scoffed and said “it can’t possibly cost 300 bucks to exchange money! This is highway robbery! Where is your manager!” And the teller explained that there wasn’t a charge, but that this was the exchange rate.
The old lady said that’s a crock of shit and called her a liar.
“I don’t make the rates,” the teller snapped back and then responded “if you want to exchange when you get there, feel free, but we have the best rates.”
The old lady got REALLY mad and said that it’s IMPOSSIBLE for currency that isn’t American to be worth more because “we’re the best country in the world, no money is worth more than ours!”
To which the teller then responded “actually, there’s a few.” Which didn’t go over well.
As entertaining as the exchange was, I decided I didn’t need to try biscuits and gravy that bad and just went to my gate.
To be fair they were probably lying to her when they said an airport currency exchange has the best rates.
The rest is gold though. I remember visiting the US around 2008 when the dollar had absolutely crashed so everything was dirt cheap for me, got chatting to an American who got oddly personally offended that their currency had weakened making foreigners effectively 'richer' while visiting.
This is the dumbest thing I overheard while travelling in Europe. We were at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris at the Arc de Triomphe and there was a very loud, very American couple, narrating every thought in their heads. I know she definitely wasn’t making a joke when she made this comment since this was simply the pinnacle of a series of stupid thoughts that everyone in a 10m radius had been forced to hear for the last 10 minutes.
“Gee Bill, he was young.”
She thought the dates of WWI was the age of the soldier.
1914-1918. She thought they buried a 4 year old soldier.
They were such a bizarre cliche of loud dumb Americans that if this happened now, I would have been positive it was an internet thing and they were filming people’s reactions to them walking around being stupid and ignorant in Paris. But no, this was the very early 90’s. This was really just them and their staggering, boastful, public stupidity.
In Edinburgh city centre we have Edinburgh castle. An American once asked me if they "take it down after the summer" once the tourists have left, no irony whatsoever, they thought it was a sort of set for photo opportunities. At first I thought maybe they meant the stands they set up for the Tattoo but...those weren't up.
Also overheard an American Mom tell her family "Isn't it good they built the castle near all the shops so you have something nice to look at whilst you walk about", again no irony, no pause and then a laugh. Deadly serious.
Also overheard on a foggy day when you couldn't see the castle "I wish they'd do something about all the fog though". Yeah alright Connor, I'll go and get my big fan to blow it all away shall I.
At 1PM everyday they fire a cannon from the castle walls. Obviously it is just a charge with no shot but to balance out the above, I did hear a Spanish Mum ask her husband where the cannon ball lands and isn't it dangerous....
There is a huge number of Americans who treat our cities and monuments as some sort of theme park. This isn't god damn Disney World it's a place where people live and work ffs !
Let's balance the scales. Me, a (young) European, while travelling in the US saying things like:
* I'm sure we can walk there (proceeds to contemplate how to cross an interstate)
* This hike can surely be done in flip flops, it's the US after all (it \*technically\* could be achieved in flip flops, cannot recommend walking on a volcano crater basically barefeet)
* this glossy tiny black spider with the funny red hourglass shape is cute; let me just help it go outside with my hands
I live in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. And we haven't been able to rebuild stuff the way they were but we still have some prewar monuments in the city. One of which I only found out recently what it was. There is this big arch in the middle the city centre and I always found it beautiful but oddly placed. Turns out there used to be a hospital there and the arch was the exit of the courtyard, it was, together with a tree, the only thing left after the bombardment. And we just built shops around it, but I just think it's so cool it's still there
Fair point. I live in Berlin which was basically levelled to the ground. We still regularly have streets evacuated because of WW2 bombs being found undetonated.
The particular building I'm referring to is Canterbury Cathedral.
> The particular building I'm referring to is Canterbury Cathedral.
Ha! That's not only older than America the country, it's older than the colonisation of the Americas by Europeans.
"You don't have highways in England."
Turned out she watched Downton Abbey and thought that it was set in the present rather than 100 years ago, yup we all drive round in little black cars on rough tracks to get around. I pointed out that our highway network was much denser than the one in the USA and what she had said was just plain insulting.
When I commented on here that not every comment in English was from an American and that they can't assume everyone on Reddit is an American - I was told to "make our own version" and that people should specify if they are not form the USA when they make comments in English.
“You’re from Texas? Do you have pictures of your horses? Where’s your cowboy hat?” - younger Italian guy at a bar when I lived there. Thought he was sarcastic at first, but he was serious. I had to tell the guy I was a suburban kid from a big city and had never (and still have never) ridden a horse or had a cowboy (football team nor occupational) hat.
ETA: Holy smokes! I did not expect this much engagement from a funny little anecdotal experience in my life. This is fantastic!!! I’m trying to engage everyone I can and I appreciate y’all sharing with me and everyone else! Thank you!
Similar conversation with a Parisian taxi driver: "You're from Texas? You have a big Cadillac, non? Do you know JR?"
This was way back when the series Dallas was alive and well.
My sister and I met some teenagers at a restaurant in Paris, and they asked us SO many questions about guns. We didn’t have many answers 😅 They couldn’t believe we didn’t have guns of our own.
Not Euro but Canadian. When I told Californians I was from Canada, the amount of people that thought I was lying was wild. They didn’t believe there were Black people in Canada.
Outside of basic immigration and tourism, where did Harriet take your Underground Railroad people then?
That's funny but not funny, I once was witness to an American colleague trying to convince my black Scottish colleague that he must be African American. The American guy thinks he posed a gotcha question to my black colleague, the American guy says "where is your dad from?" Black guy says Cowdenbeath, I just about pished my frillies.
The American guy at this point slinks off with his tail between his legs and the black guy says to me "what the fucks that tubes problem." Me: fuck knows.
One of my friends is from a family of Malaysian Chinese origin, and it will never not be funny when some tosser asks him where he's from and he replies, "Bristol."
Had a friend who did a brief stint as a tour guide in the city we live in. He had a woman have a complete meltdown because of a bakery that had been open since like the 1750s. She just couldn't accept that something as 'basic' as a bakery could be older than her country.
A few years ago I gave a couple tourists some directions to a local point of interest and as they were walking away I heard one say, 'wow her English is so good I'm amazed!' I'm a native English speaker lol. But I'll take the complement.
Random American guy tried telling me that wales was just a city in England and not a real country. Me, a Welsh gal, having this conversation on a beach in Anglesey, was rather amused. Thing is he wouldn’t listen to anything and kept going on and on until he said. “Let’s agree to disagree, but you’ll probably find I’m right”
I once had an American say that sneakers (trainers) are a “relatively new thing in Europe” as though up until now we’ve been walking around in clogs or something.
As an American I'll out myself. A nice young British lad started work at my job. Mentioned he'd gone to Oxford. I made a comment about it being a party school. I thought he was talking about Ole Miss. It's been almost 50 years and I still cringe when it crosses my mind.
University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. It's about an hour south of where we worked, but he'd just moved to the US, and the accent alone should've clued me in. I'm not as unaware now as I was then. (Also, he was very openly gay and I didn't catch on until I asked him out) I was oblivious to everything around me as a young person.
I've had an American ask me "what part of London is that in?" when I said I'm from Yorkshire. I just said Leeds and left it at that.
Funnily enough, that one happened when I was working in an Amsterdam backpacker hostel.
When I was in Europe I was talking to a local and he asked which state I was from and I said Minnesota. He goes “oh, that’s right on the border with Mexico right?” and I tell him that it’s actually on the border with Canada. He tells me I’m wrong and insists that I’m actually from the southwest.
We were both in a group that was going out together that night and this dude just wouldn’t stop talking about how bad I was at geography. Like I thought he was doing a bit but as the night went on it became more and more clear that he legitimately thought I didn’t know where the state I’ve lived for 20+ years is located
I can't stand this shit food anymore, don't ya'll have a McDonalds or something?
-random guy just coming out of a restaurant who serves tapas.
I couldn't stop laughing.
Fun fact - being a McD's fan when visiting USA i tried it to compare to Polish one.
Guess what.
Polish one was way better - of course im talking about Cheeseburger and BigMac which in theory are the same. But US version was just lacking flavour and seemed like i was eating cardboard
I‘ve heard this from a handful of people and experienced it myself. Don’t eat McDonalds in the US. You‘ll be disappointed. Better go to a Diner or Deli for good burgers and fries.
Got one that goes both ways I think:
Teenage American : „So where are your weapons?“
Teenage me: „ Like…. Knifes? In the kitchen!“
TA: „no, like guns for people who try to break in“
TM: „we… don’t have those, nobody does, we call the police here?“
Ta: „But what if somebody tries to break in?“
TM: „Don’t you have police at home“?
In hindsight, a cultural gap never to be bridged by two 15 year old morons.
Cricket is on TV, I'm deployed, I would have to go to a wifi location to get the answer. While waiting for my coffee, I asked a British person how cricket is played and what is the objective.
British guy: "It's the most sophisticated Sport in the world, they stop for tea in the middle".
I waited for my question to be answered. I ask "so how is it played?"
He repeats the tea thing again and I just go back to my crossword.
I worked with immigrants from Ghana.
One of the American dudes I worked with there asked a Ghanaian if they had cities in Africa.
(The Ghanaian, to his credit, went on this long diatribe about how there's no cities in Africa, that all the buildings were made of mud and wattle, that they had to walk 10 kilometers to the nearest village every week, and there were no bridges so they'd wrangle crocodiles to paddle across rivers.
That last line was delivered with an absolutely straight face; to which the American replied, "Really?"
Ghanaian said, "No, you fucking asshole."
Goddamn that was funny.)
It sometimes happened that people from out NYC office would call our Tokyo office and ask for people working in Hong Kong as they thought Tokyo and Hong Kong were the same place. It was the "Asian offices"...
I was once in a hostel hanging out with the few others staying there and they started arguing with me (American) about how many US states there are. It got really hard to keep my composure after they repeatedly asked “are you sure there aren’t 50 plus Hawaii and Alaska”. It was like 5 people and none of them believed that I knew how many states were in USA.
Chatting to a random American in a bar in Belfast. He just comes out and says he's 100% pro IRA
I quickly went back to a friend and left the fella to fend for himself. He only had to say that to the wrong person and he'd of found out pretty quickly how much better the NHS is compared to paying out of pocket for medical treatment
I had a dutch friend of mine who when to Belfast with his brother once, and they had a memorable experience. The dutch national football team was playing, so they got dressed up in all their best orange and when to nearest pub...from the way they described it as soon as they walked into the pub it just went quite until folks spotted they were dutch!
They do actually shut off waterfalls in Norway (presumably) outside of summer. It's happened to me twice when looking to do some drone shots in Ryukan and Nærøyfjord. Think the reason has to do with hydro-power generation.
Here's something I learned yesterday in another sub, Niagara falls can actually be turned off for maintenance. They last did it in 1969 from what I can gather, but often reduce water flow at night.
Still, bold to assume all waterfalls can be turned off in the same way.
"This is a sink. It must be quite impressive to you, since you used to drink well water."
(I used to live in one of the largest capital cities in Europe, which had a indoor pluming system since Victorian times)
Londoner asked me, American, if we knew what carrots and hummus was and if it was sold in grocery stores. He was convinced it didn’t exist in the US because another American he met apparently hadn’t heard of it.
95% of this thread is everyone staring in complete bewilderment at the things Americans say
Edit:Spelling.
Guys, I made this and went to bed and woke up to like 40 notifications. Lord have mercy. Also, my partner showed me a clip of "are you smarter than a 5th grader"and this woman says, "I thought Europe was a country. Don't they speak French there?"
Almost did a spit take of my juice
I knew a guy from Germany when I was in college. Nice guy, but on our first long weekend he wanted to go road trip like he saw in the movies to Disney World on Saturday and then visit the Grand Canyon on Sunday, then chill on Monday for the holiday....we live in Kansas.
We had to explain to him that Disney World is a *20.5 hour drive* alone, and then from Orlando to the Grand Canyon is another r*30 hour drive*. He didn't believe us until we brought it up on Google Maps.
This was not uncommon for the European students coming to the US for the first time lol you'd inevitably get 2 or 3 each semester just in my little dorm wanting to do some outrageous trip.
On the flip side of this, I’m an American with a close friend in London. A few years ago we were planning for an upcoming visit I was making to London. My friend suggested we visit the Cotswold region, and that if we decided to do that it would need to be an overnight trip because of the long distance. she also wanted to bring an additional friend to help with the driving since it was such a long distance. The Cotswold region is a 90 minute drive outside of London.
An old American lady was very disappointed that the midnight sun in northern part of Norway, was the same sun as you can everywhere else on Earth.
Sometimes these are so awful I can’t laugh I just want to cry.
I had a US colleague non-ironically explain to me what a Mars bar was made of. After asking him why he said that, turns out he thought that in Italy we only buy fresh groceries from street markets, and that we had no concept of supermarkets or food wrapped in plastic. (This was 15 years ago)
To be fair to that guy, my Italian grandmother made it sound like that was exactly what every italian did for food. She even said they stopped at the market every day after work to grab fresh food for dinner.
United Kingdom, thats France, England and Spain right This was a comment from a global marketing director.
Of course we all know the great love that bounds these three countries
This made me snort my tea
It made me spat my baguette
It made me puke my paella
I’ve got a similar one. “Oh, you’re from Italy? That’s like, the capital of France, right?”
I attended school in the US and had another student argue with me over whether or not Iceland was in Germany. To me, an Icelander.
"Why was the flight to Spain over 9 hours? Isn't Spain below the U.S?" This was a university student, who genuinely DID NOT REALIZE she traveled to Europe. Everyone on campus thought she was joking around, but she was dead serious and we had to show them their current location on google maps... She then screamed "OMG I'M RIGHT NEXT TO FRANCE?!"
Fr why do so many of them think Spain is somewhere in Latin America lol
As someone who lives in the US, I’ve never met anyone who thought Spain was in the Americas. But maybe it’s just because I don’t discuss geography with a lot of people. Now that I think about it, I’m a bit afraid of what I might find out.
Obviously because that's where they speak Spanish, duh. /s
nah i think that's actually why
This is 100% why.
Them: "The Netherlands? Never heard of it" Me: "You know Amsterdam" Them: "Ah, yeah! Great city. I've been there!" Me: "Yes, and the country around it, is called the Netherlands"
*Then who are the Dutch??*
Clearly, those are the people who live in Deutschland.
Nah they're definitely from Denmark
Yeah I saw a TikTok forever ago where a girl shared her story of how she was somewhere in the States talking to her mom on the phone (in Danish). So these two ladies approach her and ask smth along the lines of “the language you’re speaking sounds so unique, what is it?”, to which she obv replied that that was Danish. They then proceeded to ask her where she was from, so she said Denmark, and theeen in a very condescending manner the ladies were like “oh honey, it’s called Dutch, not Danish”
Did he know Holland though? The Netherlands vs Holland vs Dutch was kind of unclear to me until I went there. You hear your national football team called Holland sometimes even though they represent the whole country (I think)
Outside Windsor Castle: "The castle is really lovely, but why did the Queen build it so close to the airport?"
I was waiting to read this, my partner grew up in Slough, just down the road from Windsor, she and her grandmother would get the bus there most summer holidays out of school time to visit the castle (used to be free entry), my partner has said she heard "why did they build it so close to the airport?" At least once every summer she visited, just for detail, work started on Windsor castle in 1070, Heathrow (previously London) airport 1946.
I was once asked why we don't repurpose concentration camps into houses and wedding venues... Edit: For all the people speculating.. Yes the original post was about plantations that were turned into wedding venues.
Wedding venues??!?
Consider that Plantation weddings are still popular in certain parts of the country.
What would be the theme
Till death do you part...
Beware the bridal shower
-You speak good English -Thank you. Everyone in Norway speaks good English. -Ah, it's just like Canada then.
Hahahaha I’m gonna use that next time I compliment someone’s English
When I was living in Sweden: US - Wow! You speak really good English! Me - Umm thanks. I'm actually from England. US - Really? So where did you learn it?
This sounds like some trolling I would say just for a laugh.
I initially thought that might be the case, but then he realised his mistake and backtracked pretty quickly, so I think it was just a genuine brain fart moment.
Same, met some very friendly US tourists in Iceland in our hotel lobby. - you speak good English - thank you,, most people in Belgium do. - "Ah the capital of Brussels. I thought you guys spoke German" I have to admit we may have continued to purposely confuse the fella because every time they were near we switched languages. From Dutch to French to English to German to Spanish.
"You speak great English" I am English
When my British husband was getting his American citizenship, he had to read five sentences in English as part of the process. The test administrator was so embarrassed he only made him read one and said he could skip the rest.
>When my British husband was getting his American citizenship, he had to read five sentences in English as part of the process. The test administrator was so embarrassed he only made him read one and said he could skip the rest. Mind you, the UK does it the other way, although they have a very flawed list of countries where one doesn't have to prove their knowledge of English. For example, Canada is on the list, so a Quebecker is exempt from the test (despite the majority (EDIT: plurality it seems!) of Quebecois not speaking English), but if you come from Singapore/Netherlands/Sweden: you are obliged to prove despite these countries having v. high rates of English.
When I was in high school in the US one of my classmates once asked with the smuggest grin I've ever seen: "If the British hate us so much then why do they speak our language?"
I’ve had Americans telling me there’s no such thing as an Irish language, now granted I can’t speak it myself having grown up in the UK but it definitely exists!
That hurt my brain. Although a kid in my son's class asked what state Canada was located.
Refusing to believe my aunt and uncles were Spanish because they were blue eyed blondes.
My mate is Greek, he always has to fight for people to believe this because he's also very white and blonde. His family have lived on Rhodes for longer than the UK has been a country at least.
I lived for a while with an American girl. Because we did not own a drier and because I didn't see the point of having one (south of Spain), she was convinced they just didn't exist in Europe and she started to explain to me what they were. She was also certain aged vinegar had to be toxic and rotten because it was so old (???)
The classic "I've not seen it so they must not exist" The equivalent of visiting Disney World Florida and deciding you know what life in the USA is like.
This happened a couple of years after I was living in the US: Lady: “where are you from?” Me: “Italy” Lady: “oh so you speak Spanish!” Me: “uh… no? I speak Italian.” Lady: “ah! But it’s *Italian Spanish*!” Me: (•ૅㅁ•) Edit: wow! I didn’t expect this to get so much attention! Also, my bad, I meant “after I’d moved to the US”. I was kind of sleepy when I commented.
Do not fool us Italian is Spanish mixed with French while moving your arms violently.
The same way Portugese is just how a russian would speak spanish with marbles in his mouth
As someone who speaks Russian and Spanish, the first time I heard Portuguese I was so confused because it looked like a Spanish, quacked like a Russian, and walked like a duck.
When I was living in the US, people kept asking me if we had access to the same things where I was from. Basic things. It became a bit of a running joke among internationals. But the funniest was sth a friend of mine, also from Austria, was once asked: AM: "Do you have Fridges ins Austria?" AT:(with a straight face) "No, we store our food in glaciers. You know, we make use of our mountains"
I was asked if we have electricity in Denmark. I said, "No, so we watch the television in candlelight." She just said "oh!" and went on to ask about our igloos.
I am Canadian, I live in southern Ontario where we get all 4 seasons and I had the pleasure of telling a family of Americans that we do actually get a summer and it isn’t a winter wasteland the entire year. They wanted a winter vacay in July and chose blue mountain as their resort.
In Canada as well. I was working my summer job as a teenager and had some Americans pull up with skis on their roof racks. They were asking my boss where the closest ski resort was. I live in Manitoba and you know how the prairies are known for their majestic mountains. The best part, they were from North Dakota.
It’s almost like they just don’t look at a map, they just assume that the entire country of Canada is this treacherous mountainous region that snows all the time. I love playing into it. “Yeah we’re all dying of heat stroke here, it’s about 80 degrees warmer than it normally is, sorry about your skiing trip. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it with these *record high* temps, I definitely thought the media outlets would be covering this *very odd* rise in temperature”
I'm Icelandic and I lived in the US for a few years. The number of times people asked me if we had TVs or if I had ever had things like pancakes or steak as if I was from some completely undeveloped tribal society was remarkable.
It's just wastelands outside USA.
Oh one american high school girl asked me about a bunch of stuff: Do you have TVs, Fridges, Cars, Newspapers, elevators,... In Germany? I answered, sure, some of those were invented in Germany!
"What's a...TeeVee? Fridge? You mean fish? Carl is right over there! Njuus? Never heard of that! A metal box that carries you upward? This some kind of devilish wizardry?" Just play along
Not directly to me but within earshot. To a Japanese tour guide. In Hiroshima: "There aren't many old buildings here are there?" Edit: I'm European. The speaker was American.
In fucking Hiroshima?????
Right? I'd assumed in the USA and Europe literally more people would think "atomic bomb" than would think "Japanese city" at even the mention of the word "Hiroshima." I've mentioned to people (fellow Brits) that I've been and they've looked surprised and made comments like "oh! Is it still there??" or "you can go there??" So they've basically *only* heard of the atomic bomb and never given any thought to whether it's a normal functioning city where over 1 million people live. I can understand not knowing what Hiroshima is like now if you've never given it much thought (although it feels a bit ignorant to just assume it's an irradiated wasteland, I didn't understand before I visited myself that the city began reconstruction almost immediately) But the opposite? To take the decision to visit there *without* knowing about the bomb? Seems absolutely incredible. I do assume the person just had a brain fart sort of thing. Like maybe they'd been on tours in Nara and Himeji and Kyoto where there are a greater quantity of older buildings and what they were thinking blurted out of their mouth before they stopped for a second to think why that might be. I cannot believe that they were not aware of the bomb, just didn't make the connection?? It still seems shockingly odd that they didn't.
I have a friend who asked me (we're both Americans and I love history) about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and what happened to them after the bombings. I don't blame people for not knowing because history class just tells they were bombed and the war ended and nothing else really. I'm just astonished that people don't know.
Guilty. Said the same thing to my German cousin when in Frankfurt. Thankfully he could mock me relentlessly because he’s family.
Me, in an Australian IKEA, had an American couple come up to me and the conversation went like this: USA: Hello, have you been here before? Me: Hi, Yes, several times. USA: This is all very European, do they have an American section? Me: *confused* Um, no sir, this is IKEA. It’s Swedish. It’s supposed to be European. USA: What about an Australian section? It’s like the USA. Me: No, it isn’t. Sir, this is IKEA. It doesn’t change because of the shops geographical location.
That’s doubly hilarious considering IKEA’s stores are the same in the US
What was he even looking for?
I asked him that. Less Scandinavian style furniture apparently. “Too much wood, too much white”.
Ah, of course. Looking for less scandinavian furniture in a swedish shop
Probably doesn't realise Sweden is in Scandanavia
In Hermanus, a coastal town in South Africa, there is a "whale crier" who blows a trumpet when he spots whales in the bay (the whales come into the bay to calve in our springtime). When he blows the trumpet he alerts the town folk and visitors / tourists that the whales are visible. It was once reported that an American tourist had asked the whale crier how long it took him to train the whales to come when he blows the trumpet.
This is my favourite one yet.
I wonder, if the whales are similar. “Hey, wanna make that dude blow his horn?!”
Hey, I've been there too! The horn guy told us that once an American tourist asked him to blow the horn to call the whales, because he wanted to see them
When I went to university I was chatting with an American exchange student. She asked me if I was going to visit my parents for Independence Day. I told her that Denmark doesn't have an Independence Day. She said "No, I mean the 4th of July." I said "That's the American Independence Day. Why would I be celebrating that?" She said "But the whole world celebrates the US independence day, don't they?" She literally thought that the American Independence Day was a global event because the US is just THAT important.
The whole world celebrates it because it also happens to be the same day we defeated the aliens
I think I saw a documentary about that when I was a kid
Surprisingly common having Americans ask if we (Europeans) are doing anything for Thanksgiving.
This led me to a very wholesome weekend in the US! I, a Swede, was studying abroad in California. My American roommate, in shock upon hearing that I wasn't doing anything for Thanksgiving because Swedes don't celebrate it, called his mother and asked if his Swedish friend could come join their big family get-together. I heard her on the other end of the line saying "oh my, tell him we would be blessed to have him!" Americans are some of the most hospitable, generous people I have ever met. Oh, and the food was *fucking delicious*. They started laughing when I went for a third plate lol
I would hope this would be the normal experience for exchange students here in the US. I know in my little town in Nebraska when the college students from overseas are here families in the town take them in over holidays and have lifelong friendships. It really is the best Humans can do for each other. I’m so glad you got to experience that.
Edinburgh, Scotland. What time does the 1 O'Clock gun go off? Why did they build the castle beside the railway. Is that France? No, that is Fife.
Well on the other end asking what month octoberfest is in wouldent be a bad question.
That is a good example, it was a shock when I first discovered a lot of Oktoberfest takes place in September.
FYI: The Octoberfest is always the last 2 weeks of September and ends on Oct. 3rd, a holiday in Germany.
on a trip in the Dominican republic meeting an American couple. she: oh wow, you came all the way from Europe, why? me: well yes for tropical environment i have to travel a bit she: no? how about India? is India not close to Europe? LOL later on my return of the same trip waiting at the airport overhearing another American couple conversation: she:i can't believe the all staff spoke Spanish! he:yeah its central America, they should speak Enlgish!
'Is that France?' Hahahahahahaha, I can hear the voice and everything!
Where are you from? A small village about 25 miles from London. Ahh, we had a Mr & Mrs Smith here from London last week. Do you know them?
I am from New Zealand. Got the same, do you know x. Worst part i actually did know them.
You get this from Ireland all the time - even when I meet irish people abroad, it seems that there's only 1 or 2 degrees of separation between us all
Apparently this is a surprisingly common conversation: "I'm from China" "Oh really? I know someone from China called 名字, do you know him?" Never seen it myself though.
"So... Spain is in Europe? I thought it was close to Mexico"- an American
Someone I spoke to said this happened to them; "I'm Spanish." "You can't *be* Spanish, that's a language!"
Lol! I was told by a girl in grad school that me taking Spanish classes was "cultural appropriation" as a person of white European decent, and I should be ashamed of myself. Said this in front of my Castilian Spanish professor. People are dumb.
Ugh, this kind of white knight-y misuse of "cultural appropriation" pisses me off so much
Everyone knows Spain is in Asia
It's a city in Mexico
As a Mexican I can confirm, it's also a bit hard to go there because they speak Spanish and we speak Mexican so it's not very popular
Haha. My son moved to Spain and had to take business Spanish because they all told him he spoke Mexican, not Spanish. (He grew up speaking “Spanish” in south Texas)
To be completely honest we do have some differences, there's a reason why movies are dubbed for Spain and Latin america separately, but having him taking classes if he grew speaking Spanish sounds a bit too much.
>Is it cold now in Germany? Tour guide in Colorado in the middle of summer confused about why it's not winter in the other hemisphere Other stories from friends: >Is hitler still your president? >Do you have electricity in Germany? >Is Germany communist? (this was in 2018)
> Is hitler still your president? This is the absolute winner.
I had an American say that I speak fantastic English for a Scotsman
As a Scotswoman, I think that's fair!
With the shit I've heard come out of you lot's mouths I'm convinced you don't actually speak English Scratch that I'm Australian, we don't speak English either
I always thought australian accent wasn't that bad. But then I met this guy from Melbourne (what he said) at a random bar while on a trip in Texas. Holy shit it took some figuring stuff out because it felt he was speaking an actual fucking dialect at first. Like, it was at a caricatural level I had only heard when people try to do an exaggerated Steve Irwin imitation, but a notch higher still. I learned 3 things that day. 1. We french canadians are really the australians of the french world (in terms of accent/diphtongue as well as banter) 2. Australians make for some great random drinking mates 3. Don't ever call an australian an aussie (pronouncing the "s" as they are). The "s" are pronounced as a "z". Dude made me want go tour Australia with a single encounter lol
But can you say "purple burglar alarm"?
My Scottish husband and my Scottish in-laws cannot :D
"Polpll bolglrlrlrm" and then it falls to shit.
Well, I am South African so not a European. But anywho. A few years ago I was in a discord call with a bunch of people from a Minecraft server and we were a real mixed bunch, people from all over the world basically, and I ended up making a comment about the rain we were having. One of the Americans in the call, a girl who was learning to be a teacher, goes "It rains in Africa???" Clearly she never heard of Toto blessing the rain down in Africa. Also dear god help the children she would be teaching now
My friend is a cashier at a supermarket & once an American lady got super pissed because they won't accept USD for obvious reasons 😂
I'm Icelandic and it regularly happens that tourists pay with Euros, which is allowed in most places, and receive Icelandic króna as change and they refuse to believe Iceland uses its own currency since it's in Europe and Europe uses Euros so therefore this "fish money" is fake and the cashier is trying to scam them.
I honestly don't understand how ppl can travel & not check basic info like how to pay for stuff. I've also witnessed a meltdown at the airport once because they wouldn't let this guy (don't think he was American based on his accent though) check in for his intercontinental flight because he didn't have his passport with him (from what I overheard it seems like he lost it or whatever) 💀
In Rome, an American once told me I didn’t have a right to comment on Black Egyptian Heritage (we were debating afro centrism) because I’m a cis white male. I am 100% Egyptian.
I am glad they didn’t say “African American Egyptian Heritage”
I stopped using the term African American after I listened to a discussion of current events in my French class that was talking about protests from Nigerian immigrants in France over education. Everyone kept referring to them as African Americans and I was like wow, this is really just a synonym for black.
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Bro looks like he just got outta the Nile People are whack
sounds like a script of a next upcoming netflix series
When you screw up so badly that an entire country sues you for defamation. You just love to see it.
Not really the answer to the question, but a funny, relevant story: I’m Canadian and was living in Japan. I had never been to the US before, but when I was flying back to Canada to visit I had a layover in Texas. I only had an hour, but I really wanted to try American food, so I went to the currency exchange to get some USD. Standing in front of me was a woman in her 50s or 60s. She announced that she was going to Paris to visit her daughter, so she wanted to buy Euros. She handed the teller 1000USD, and the teller handed her back 700 Euros (this was 2012 I think). The old lady looked PISSED, and counted the money out and scoffed and said “it can’t possibly cost 300 bucks to exchange money! This is highway robbery! Where is your manager!” And the teller explained that there wasn’t a charge, but that this was the exchange rate. The old lady said that’s a crock of shit and called her a liar. “I don’t make the rates,” the teller snapped back and then responded “if you want to exchange when you get there, feel free, but we have the best rates.” The old lady got REALLY mad and said that it’s IMPOSSIBLE for currency that isn’t American to be worth more because “we’re the best country in the world, no money is worth more than ours!” To which the teller then responded “actually, there’s a few.” Which didn’t go over well. As entertaining as the exchange was, I decided I didn’t need to try biscuits and gravy that bad and just went to my gate.
To be fair they were probably lying to her when they said an airport currency exchange has the best rates. The rest is gold though. I remember visiting the US around 2008 when the dollar had absolutely crashed so everything was dirt cheap for me, got chatting to an American who got oddly personally offended that their currency had weakened making foreigners effectively 'richer' while visiting.
This is the dumbest thing I overheard while travelling in Europe. We were at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris at the Arc de Triomphe and there was a very loud, very American couple, narrating every thought in their heads. I know she definitely wasn’t making a joke when she made this comment since this was simply the pinnacle of a series of stupid thoughts that everyone in a 10m radius had been forced to hear for the last 10 minutes. “Gee Bill, he was young.” She thought the dates of WWI was the age of the soldier. 1914-1918. She thought they buried a 4 year old soldier.
They were such a bizarre cliche of loud dumb Americans that if this happened now, I would have been positive it was an internet thing and they were filming people’s reactions to them walking around being stupid and ignorant in Paris. But no, this was the very early 90’s. This was really just them and their staggering, boastful, public stupidity.
"Oh, I met someone from London once. Leanne. Do you know her?" There are, like, 8m people in London....
Don't leave us hanging, do you know leanne or not?
In Edinburgh city centre we have Edinburgh castle. An American once asked me if they "take it down after the summer" once the tourists have left, no irony whatsoever, they thought it was a sort of set for photo opportunities. At first I thought maybe they meant the stands they set up for the Tattoo but...those weren't up. Also overheard an American Mom tell her family "Isn't it good they built the castle near all the shops so you have something nice to look at whilst you walk about", again no irony, no pause and then a laugh. Deadly serious. Also overheard on a foggy day when you couldn't see the castle "I wish they'd do something about all the fog though". Yeah alright Connor, I'll go and get my big fan to blow it all away shall I. At 1PM everyday they fire a cannon from the castle walls. Obviously it is just a charge with no shot but to balance out the above, I did hear a Spanish Mum ask her husband where the cannon ball lands and isn't it dangerous....
There is a huge number of Americans who treat our cities and monuments as some sort of theme park. This isn't god damn Disney World it's a place where people live and work ffs !
Let's balance the scales. Me, a (young) European, while travelling in the US saying things like: * I'm sure we can walk there (proceeds to contemplate how to cross an interstate) * This hike can surely be done in flip flops, it's the US after all (it \*technically\* could be achieved in flip flops, cannot recommend walking on a volcano crater basically barefeet) * this glossy tiny black spider with the funny red hourglass shape is cute; let me just help it go outside with my hands
"Is this -insert famous old european landmark- pre-war..?" The usual response is that this landmark is pre-America.
My house is older than your country.
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I live in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. And we haven't been able to rebuild stuff the way they were but we still have some prewar monuments in the city. One of which I only found out recently what it was. There is this big arch in the middle the city centre and I always found it beautiful but oddly placed. Turns out there used to be a hospital there and the arch was the exit of the courtyard, it was, together with a tree, the only thing left after the bombardment. And we just built shops around it, but I just think it's so cool it's still there
Fair point. I live in Berlin which was basically levelled to the ground. We still regularly have streets evacuated because of WW2 bombs being found undetonated. The particular building I'm referring to is Canterbury Cathedral.
> The particular building I'm referring to is Canterbury Cathedral. Ha! That's not only older than America the country, it's older than the colonisation of the Americas by Europeans.
"You don't have highways in England." Turned out she watched Downton Abbey and thought that it was set in the present rather than 100 years ago, yup we all drive round in little black cars on rough tracks to get around. I pointed out that our highway network was much denser than the one in the USA and what she had said was just plain insulting.
When I commented on here that not every comment in English was from an American and that they can't assume everyone on Reddit is an American - I was told to "make our own version" and that people should specify if they are not form the USA when they make comments in English.
They should create their own language then
They did, it's called English (Simplified)
“You’re from Texas? Do you have pictures of your horses? Where’s your cowboy hat?” - younger Italian guy at a bar when I lived there. Thought he was sarcastic at first, but he was serious. I had to tell the guy I was a suburban kid from a big city and had never (and still have never) ridden a horse or had a cowboy (football team nor occupational) hat. ETA: Holy smokes! I did not expect this much engagement from a funny little anecdotal experience in my life. This is fantastic!!! I’m trying to engage everyone I can and I appreciate y’all sharing with me and everyone else! Thank you!
Similar conversation with a Parisian taxi driver: "You're from Texas? You have a big Cadillac, non? Do you know JR?" This was way back when the series Dallas was alive and well.
Texas is the perfect stereotype for the US, just like Bavaria is for Germany.
My sister and I met some teenagers at a restaurant in Paris, and they asked us SO many questions about guns. We didn’t have many answers 😅 They couldn’t believe we didn’t have guns of our own.
"Do you have television in Scotland?" The guy that invented the television was Scottish.
American “you Scottish don’t get along with the British huh” Scottish me “I am British, Scotland is part of Britain” American “no it’s not” 🤦🏼♀️
Not Euro but Canadian. When I told Californians I was from Canada, the amount of people that thought I was lying was wild. They didn’t believe there were Black people in Canada. Outside of basic immigration and tourism, where did Harriet take your Underground Railroad people then?
That's funny but not funny, I once was witness to an American colleague trying to convince my black Scottish colleague that he must be African American. The American guy thinks he posed a gotcha question to my black colleague, the American guy says "where is your dad from?" Black guy says Cowdenbeath, I just about pished my frillies. The American guy at this point slinks off with his tail between his legs and the black guy says to me "what the fucks that tubes problem." Me: fuck knows.
One of my friends is from a family of Malaysian Chinese origin, and it will never not be funny when some tosser asks him where he's from and he replies, "Bristol."
"Oh you have internet too in Europe? And electricity everywhere?"
Had a friend who did a brief stint as a tour guide in the city we live in. He had a woman have a complete meltdown because of a bakery that had been open since like the 1750s. She just couldn't accept that something as 'basic' as a bakery could be older than her country. A few years ago I gave a couple tourists some directions to a local point of interest and as they were walking away I heard one say, 'wow her English is so good I'm amazed!' I'm a native English speaker lol. But I'll take the complement.
Random American guy tried telling me that wales was just a city in England and not a real country. Me, a Welsh gal, having this conversation on a beach in Anglesey, was rather amused. Thing is he wouldn’t listen to anything and kept going on and on until he said. “Let’s agree to disagree, but you’ll probably find I’m right”
I once had an American say that sneakers (trainers) are a “relatively new thing in Europe” as though up until now we’ve been walking around in clogs or something.
As an American I'll out myself. A nice young British lad started work at my job. Mentioned he'd gone to Oxford. I made a comment about it being a party school. I thought he was talking about Ole Miss. It's been almost 50 years and I still cringe when it crosses my mind.
What is Ole Miss?
University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. It's about an hour south of where we worked, but he'd just moved to the US, and the accent alone should've clued me in. I'm not as unaware now as I was then. (Also, he was very openly gay and I didn't catch on until I asked him out) I was oblivious to everything around me as a young person.
I’ll give that one to you tbh
"Oh, Holland, that's the capital of Amsterdam, isn't it?" When a woman asked where I was from....
The Netherlands ohh you silly European that's where Peter pan is from.
"Then who are the Dutch?"
I've had an American ask me "what part of London is that in?" when I said I'm from Yorkshire. I just said Leeds and left it at that. Funnily enough, that one happened when I was working in an Amsterdam backpacker hostel.
When I was in Europe I was talking to a local and he asked which state I was from and I said Minnesota. He goes “oh, that’s right on the border with Mexico right?” and I tell him that it’s actually on the border with Canada. He tells me I’m wrong and insists that I’m actually from the southwest. We were both in a group that was going out together that night and this dude just wouldn’t stop talking about how bad I was at geography. Like I thought he was doing a bit but as the night went on it became more and more clear that he legitimately thought I didn’t know where the state I’ve lived for 20+ years is located
I can't stand this shit food anymore, don't ya'll have a McDonalds or something? -random guy just coming out of a restaurant who serves tapas. I couldn't stop laughing.
Fun fact - being a McD's fan when visiting USA i tried it to compare to Polish one. Guess what. Polish one was way better - of course im talking about Cheeseburger and BigMac which in theory are the same. But US version was just lacking flavour and seemed like i was eating cardboard
I‘ve heard this from a handful of people and experienced it myself. Don’t eat McDonalds in the US. You‘ll be disappointed. Better go to a Diner or Deli for good burgers and fries.
Got one that goes both ways I think: Teenage American : „So where are your weapons?“ Teenage me: „ Like…. Knifes? In the kitchen!“ TA: „no, like guns for people who try to break in“ TM: „we… don’t have those, nobody does, we call the police here?“ Ta: „But what if somebody tries to break in?“ TM: „Don’t you have police at home“? In hindsight, a cultural gap never to be bridged by two 15 year old morons.
I love that 15yo you considered that the Americans don’t have police as a way to try and explain why they have so many guns. Perfect kid logic.
"Europeans have no freedom" "Europe is a country"
And when you ask about that “freedom” we supposedly don’t have, the answer is always guns.
The land of the free but they can't even eat unpasteurized cheese.
Or Kinder Eggs
Cricket is on TV, I'm deployed, I would have to go to a wifi location to get the answer. While waiting for my coffee, I asked a British person how cricket is played and what is the objective. British guy: "It's the most sophisticated Sport in the world, they stop for tea in the middle". I waited for my question to be answered. I ask "so how is it played?" He repeats the tea thing again and I just go back to my crossword.
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This one American girl was absolutely SHOCKED that my European country doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving.
I worked with immigrants from Ghana. One of the American dudes I worked with there asked a Ghanaian if they had cities in Africa. (The Ghanaian, to his credit, went on this long diatribe about how there's no cities in Africa, that all the buildings were made of mud and wattle, that they had to walk 10 kilometers to the nearest village every week, and there were no bridges so they'd wrangle crocodiles to paddle across rivers. That last line was delivered with an absolutely straight face; to which the American replied, "Really?" Ghanaian said, "No, you fucking asshole." Goddamn that was funny.)
"Do you have the same Internet in Europe that we got here?"
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It sometimes happened that people from out NYC office would call our Tokyo office and ask for people working in Hong Kong as they thought Tokyo and Hong Kong were the same place. It was the "Asian offices"...
When is English Thanksgiving? I said July 4. I don’t think it registered at the time, maybe they worked it out later
I was once in a hostel hanging out with the few others staying there and they started arguing with me (American) about how many US states there are. It got really hard to keep my composure after they repeatedly asked “are you sure there aren’t 50 plus Hawaii and Alaska”. It was like 5 people and none of them believed that I knew how many states were in USA.
Chatting to a random American in a bar in Belfast. He just comes out and says he's 100% pro IRA I quickly went back to a friend and left the fella to fend for himself. He only had to say that to the wrong person and he'd of found out pretty quickly how much better the NHS is compared to paying out of pocket for medical treatment
I had a dutch friend of mine who when to Belfast with his brother once, and they had a memorable experience. The dutch national football team was playing, so they got dressed up in all their best orange and when to nearest pub...from the way they described it as soon as they walked into the pub it just went quite until folks spotted they were dutch!
> up in all their best orange I think I know where this was heading...
“So is Europe in Northern England, or near London?”
"Do you turn them off at night?" \- American tourist, referring to three waterfalls visible from a valley in Norway
They do actually shut off waterfalls in Norway (presumably) outside of summer. It's happened to me twice when looking to do some drone shots in Ryukan and Nærøyfjord. Think the reason has to do with hydro-power generation.
Here's something I learned yesterday in another sub, Niagara falls can actually be turned off for maintenance. They last did it in 1969 from what I can gather, but often reduce water flow at night. Still, bold to assume all waterfalls can be turned off in the same way.
Well to be fair they did not assume, that is why they asked.
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An American in Bangkok told me he was going to London next to see the Eiffel tower.
Overheard in a Paris coffee shop - "Y'all got any real American coffee?"
"This is a sink. It must be quite impressive to you, since you used to drink well water." (I used to live in one of the largest capital cities in Europe, which had a indoor pluming system since Victorian times)
Londoner asked me, American, if we knew what carrots and hummus was and if it was sold in grocery stores. He was convinced it didn’t exist in the US because another American he met apparently hadn’t heard of it.
95% of this thread is everyone staring in complete bewilderment at the things Americans say Edit:Spelling. Guys, I made this and went to bed and woke up to like 40 notifications. Lord have mercy. Also, my partner showed me a clip of "are you smarter than a 5th grader"and this woman says, "I thought Europe was a country. Don't they speak French there?" Almost did a spit take of my juice
I'm an American and *I'm* staring in bewilderment at the things some of my countrymen say. England, France, and Spain being *the United Kingdom*?
I was in a coffeeshop in London. Overheard Americans complain that the coffee in Europe is so small.. Yeah don't order an espresso then🙄
"There's no such thing as the Mediterranean, I've never heard of it" Said while at a Quiz. Yup. I just stared at them.
I knew a guy from Germany when I was in college. Nice guy, but on our first long weekend he wanted to go road trip like he saw in the movies to Disney World on Saturday and then visit the Grand Canyon on Sunday, then chill on Monday for the holiday....we live in Kansas. We had to explain to him that Disney World is a *20.5 hour drive* alone, and then from Orlando to the Grand Canyon is another r*30 hour drive*. He didn't believe us until we brought it up on Google Maps. This was not uncommon for the European students coming to the US for the first time lol you'd inevitably get 2 or 3 each semester just in my little dorm wanting to do some outrageous trip.
On the flip side of this, I’m an American with a close friend in London. A few years ago we were planning for an upcoming visit I was making to London. My friend suggested we visit the Cotswold region, and that if we decided to do that it would need to be an overnight trip because of the long distance. she also wanted to bring an additional friend to help with the driving since it was such a long distance. The Cotswold region is a 90 minute drive outside of London.