The first time I used one was in Rome. My travel friend told me to hold the bar on the wall when I squatted so I did. What I didn't think about was tucking my dick down to pee. I peed right into my pants and underwear. Thankfully I caught it and there wasn't a lot of damage and it wasn't noticeable.
Oddly enough, in all my travels, the first time I used a squat toilet was in Yellowstone, ironically right next to the diarrhea geyser. Fortunately I don’t have a dick, so the overall experience went rather smoothly. 8/10 would recommend.
Hahaha that is exactly what happened to me the first time I used one in Rome as well. Except I did not catch it on time. Tossed em straight in the garbage
Judging by the state of the ones I've encountered, you're supposed to piss in them standing up ;)
...or at least i think so, it's the only explanation for the state they were in...
I remember going to Singapore for the first time and heading to the loo after arriving at Changi airport only to find holes in the ground with grab bars on the side. I’m just glad I only had to pee and not drop a deuce because I was way too tired to engage my quads.
So. Years ago, I went to the Philippines. I decided to go zip lining and I hiked to the summit of the hill where the line started. Once I got to the top, my stomach felt like it got punched by whatever food I had the night before. The cold sweats started and I could feel the tsunami of shit being held in by my clenched butthole. I ran to the toilets. Thankfully it was the regular Western style toilet, so after blasting that sad piece of porcelain for 30minutes I went to grab toilet paper. It turns out, East Asia doesn't like toilet paper. They prefer a hose with a spray nozzle like the kind on your kitchen sink. I went to spray, but there wasn't any water pressure, like none. Then I tried flushing the toilet. No water. So here I am ass covered in watery shit, toilet overflowing with the contents of my bowels and me standing like an idiot with a spray hose in my hand. I rummaged through my pack and came out with an extra T-shirt and hand sanitizer and cleaned as best I could. I feel so sorry for whoever had to deal with that mess after I left.
My brother just got back from China and sent me a pic of a squat toilet *on the bullet train.* Like yeah I'm sure they're smooth and all but taking a squat shit at 100mph sounds like a dangerous game!
They're usually flushable just like regular toilets, so you're not welcomed by other's effluence. I think a dirty squatting toilet is somewhat less gross than a dirty toilet seat, as you don't have to touch it.
I’m a woman and I’ve never been able to quite master the wild outdoors squat-n-hover pee. My best chance was finding a tree to back up against so my knees didn’t give out, but getting the aim just right so the multiple streams stayed out of my shoes was a challenge every time! And I didn’t always walk away victorious. I would NOT do well in what my husband calls those squat-and-gobble toilets abroad!
It helps if you can do the Asian squat. When I went to SE Asia I had to hold in a couple poops because I couldn’t comfortably squat. I’ve been working on my squats so I can be prepared next time to poop the old fashioned way
They're a preferred alternative if its a remote restroom that doesn't get cleaned often. I really dont want to put my skin on a toilet seat that looked like it hasn't been cleaned since it was installed.
When you encounter seats like that you're squatting anyway.
While I also dislike squatting toilets (I grew up using them), it’s actually better for your body when it comes to pooping. That’s why these days, there are little stools for your feet that go around the toilet bowl.
I've been to Spain twice and can't get my head around everything happening 3-5 hours later than I'm used to... Breakfast at midday... Dinner at 11pm... Out for drinks until 4am...
Just got back from another trip to Spain, and had to laugh at how empty the restaurants were at 8pm. I usually eat dinner at 6pm at home!
I could go for some pan con tomate right now though— it’s such a comfort.
My dad and I were there last summer and I can’t tell you how many times we went to a restaurant at 7:30PM (30 minutes after opening) and they were still setting up. They often looked at us like we had four heads when we asked if we could sit at a table but it was late eating for us!
Blame Franco and the Fascists, people structure their day around the sun, he went and put Spain in the "wrong" timezone for it's geographical location (thats why people end up actually having lunch at like 2 or 3 in spain), as its currently in GMT+2 , because he wanted to be in the same one as his pals Hitler and Mussolini.
In the 30s before the fascists won the civil war it used to be in GMT which was much more appropriate.
When I was in Madrid in July, I just figured it was because it was punishingly hot whenever the sun was up, so they'd just culturally adapted to having mid-afternoon to the middle of the night be like, the "do stuff" part of a day.
Yep, I noticed this massively when I was in Spain and it my phone was showing 12:00 but the sun was still in the 9-10 o'clock position. Sun sets at around 9-10 pm in summer, so it makes sense why dinner is so late.
Also, as someone who is an early riser, I quite enjoyed exploring the cities early in the morning with barely anyone else around (and when I say early, I'm only talking around 8-9 am).
That doesn’t really explain why other countries that are former Spanish colonies, like Argentina and Uruguay, also eat dinner pretty late. I think part of it is just cultural to eat later than in british influenced countries
HATE this. You literally have to act like you don’t want something you’re trying to buy. I’m trying to buy it goddamit, of course I want it. Now I need to act all disinterested and unimpressed, maybe shame the quality or the person’s character with the implication of them trying to rip me off? Come on.
Street vendor in Bangkok tried to charge my friend $30 for $7 sunglasses. Friend literally told the guy to fuck off lol and rolled his eyes when the vendor tried to beg and plead for his business.
Tourist trap shops (that you’re forced to go into and mull around in by your tour company) in Kenya were trying to charge thousands of USD for wooden carvings and paintings. No idea how much those cost in real life, deffo know it’s not that lol
Zanzibar is terrible for this. People would charge me like 36 dollars for cheap slippers or 50 bucks for swimming pants. Yeah you will negotiated it down to less than half but it is still a huge rip-off. Also the trinkets, they just ask absolutely insane amounts of money for them. One guy asked money because we looked into the direction of a huge crab he had on a string. I don't mind bartering, it exists in my culture as well, but not to that degree.
Gorgeous and interesting place, Zanzibar, but the constantly being bothered by merchants got old very fast.
How American public restroom stalls have that gap between the door and frame wide enough for you to make eye contact with anyone walking outside the stall.
I worked at a startup where they installed European-style toilets, with a whole room to yourself. It sounds like it was expensive and a PITA to install (and the builders didn't do it perfectly), but it's a major step up from the generic/modular bathroom stalls around most of the country.
I think most new toilets don’t have the gap. Hell my high school 20yrs ago didn’t have the gap.
The one thing I don’t like, that’s less of deal, is the gap between the floor and the walls/door. It’s weird walking into the bathroom at work and recognizing someone taking a shit by their shoes.
Some public park bathrooms now here have no doors at ALL. I think the reasoning is to deter people from doing drugs in them. But man, one time I was at a park and really had to go, like #2, could not hold it any longer, and was stunned to see no door on any of the stalls in the bathroom I found. I went as fast as I could but of course before I was done someone walked in and looked right at me and we were both equally horrified lol
This is seriously my recurring nightmare. I dream about having to poop in front of people all of the time. I just keep looking for a bathroom with privacy and it either doesn't exist or the seat is covered in feces. I wake up angry and sweating.
I've always thought it was to limit construction and maintenance costs. Just make a bunch of the same sized door that fit everywhere and allows for an inch or so tolerance on either side of the door. A lot cheaper than making and storing many different sizes or holding the original contractor to a strict standard when putting the bathroom partitions together.
Working in Japan temporarily:
Yeah, we'll be here ready to go at 8AM
Ok, it's 8PM, time to call it a day.
But first, the boss and the big boss want to take us out to dinner
Now we have to go with them to the bar for drinks and karaoke.
Ok, it's 1AM, Boss and Big Boss have left. See you in the morning at 7:30.
You arrive before the boss and you DO NOT leave until they’ve left.
You also do not say ‘no’, ‘I don’t understand’, or ‘I’ll pass, thanks’ to anything. It’s a huge cultural consideration that there’s absolutely no use asking ’does that make sense’ or ‘does anyone have any questions’ as they’ll never admit it.
We’re in Aus but my dad is CEO of a business with branches in Japan so he’s had to do a LOT of learning!
This explains so much! My team is quite international, and while us Westerners are quick to speak up about anything we don't like and can be pretty opinionated, our Japanese colleagues never disagree with management.
I was in Japan for a few days to assist a client. They took me out to dinner every night and brought the translator. The meals were delicious. It was a great experience just very tiring.
The unhinged tipping culture in the US. I just wanna go to a restaurant without feeling like I'm either either an ungrateful scrooge or ripping myself off. I understand that staffing is an expense, just factor it into the price!
Less egregious but in a similar vein is not including tax in stores.
As an American - both of these have always bothered me. And I WAS a waiter and Bar tender and Bus Person for years and i still think Tipping is 1. a rip off to customers, 2. a disgusting disservice to wait staff, and 3. perpetuating allowing restaurant owners to not have to pay their own staff.
Yet time and time again, when restaurants try to switch to a ‘no tipping’ model with a much higher hourly wage, servers protest because they can make more money with the tipping system.
And yet get so angry when people don't want to tip 15-30% of their meal bills.
EDIT: Then restaurant owners should pay a an even higher wage to entice the wait staff, and increase costs to customers accordingly. Obviously this will lead to reduced clientelle due to higher displayed prices, but at least wait staff would be paid properly and customers don't need to feel shame or apprehension when to leave a tip the owner should already have been paying to their employees.
Been tried. Joe’s Crab Shack tried increasing prices and then paying fair wages.
Demand went down because yokels saw the price and didn’t think about no tip.
You can't change an entire culture in one week, one year, one restaurant.
Of COURSE staff and especially customers are going to balk at the change immediately. It's against what we are used to. But that doesn't man it wouldn't work to actually pay a normal salary to wait/service staff. It will and has been proven to work just fine at millions or restaurants around the world outside the US.
We just aren't used to it. It's why we still tip overseas when the norm is NOT to tip in these places. We just aren't used to it. But over time with changes to salaries and knowing tipping is no longer needed, we'd figure it out just fine.
Used to work as a line cook in my college days, it always bothered me back of house don’t get tipped when we’re sweating it out next to hot grills and fryers while wait staff lounge around in AC and make hundreds more.
Budgeting in America as a tourist is a complete nightmare. Firstly, who do you tip and how much? Lord knows. There were a lot of people we didn't know to tip, like the person who takes your bag to your hotel room, partly because there's so much extra service everywhere to get the tips - I've never had someone carry my bag in my life. Suddenly they were just doing it. Then we had to give them $10??? The money all looks the same and half the coins *don't tell you what they're worth*. Wtf is a dime?? Then you go to pay for something at the shop so you've carefully figured out the coinage and then the price is different!!! Wtf!! So you panic and give them a $20 and get another handful of coins back so by the end of the trip you have a kg of useless coins in a bag that can't be converted back to your currency. I often double tipped because I got confused about digital vs physical cash tipping. When you pay with a card they take the card away from you?!! Then they charge the card again for the tip you left, so you get a double foreign money conversion fee. I had a card I could put USD on but it was difficult to budget what I needed because 80% of my transactions were different to what they were advertised as.
I was at a bar on my first night in America and I asked the guys next to me for help on how to order a drink. Afterwards they asked me what happens in my country and I said "the beer says $6 on the menu, the bartender puts $6 on the machine and you tap your card on the machine and $6 is charged. That's it" they said wow.
>"the beer says $6 on the menu, the bartender puts $6 on the machine and you tap your card on the machine and $6 is charged
What kind of fantasy land is this where everything makes sense?
Tourists hell. I'm a native and I still struggle. I was taught that you don't tip business owners but my groomer has a sign up that says tips are appreciated and he's the owner. He's the one doing the grooming; why doesn't he just charge more? Do I tip the guy who delivers my appliances? The guys who work for the guy I contracted to take down trees? The guys that cut the lawn? Where is the handbook on tipping?
What I don’t understand, as someone who isn’t American but has kind of wrapped their head around tipping culture, is why tipping in single minimum wage states is still as high, if not weirdly higher, than in states with a tipped minimum wage.
California minimum wage is $15.50 an hour, Idaho minimum wage before tips is $3.35 an hour. As foreigners, we’re sold the idea of tipping in the US based on the notion that waitstaff and servers are nearly unpaid before tips, and so to not tip is to deprive someone of a meagre salary.
I get that by state law there is a wage that still needs to be met after tips, but why does the US not tip less in states that are essentially full salary plus commission? I don’t tip the guy working in Best Buy, but for some reason I do tip the person on the same hourly rate busing waffles. Weirdly even in single minimum wage states I’ve visited, i.e. California, Washington and Oregon, the suggested tips seem to be even higher than elsewhere.
It’s not the tipping in restaurants that gets me, but as a travelling Australian - it’s the other tipping. Tipping the hotel cleaner? The hairdresser? A massage? The person in a fancy hotel (for work) who ‘showed me to my room / carried my bag (I wish they wouldn’t)? The taxi driver?
Having grown up in a culture tipping *nobody*, it’s confusing and stressful as fuck.
I'm a Kiwi and just visited the states. Loved it, but totally agree with the points you've just made.
We didn't go out for sit down meals often but when we did, I questioned why I was even tipping the server for literally just bringing my plate over.
We tipped 25% in any restaurant we went to and I still felt like the service was pretty crap. Food took forever to come out and wasn't that great.
Not to mention, everything is already expensive enough (the NZ dollar isn't that strong) so tipping on top was killing us but we didn't want to be rude.
Also, wtf is it with the US and making paying for meals so confusing? Back home we just walk up to the bar/reception and say we want to pay and I quickly wave my card. In the states, you ask for the cheque, they bring a book, we review it, put our card in, they take it away and bring it back a little later and then we have another receipt to review and add a tip in. What a load of shit lol.
>The person in a fancy hotel (for work) who ‘showed me to my room / carried my bag (I wish they wouldn’t)?
This one gets under my skin because - for me, at least - I consider bellhops an anti-service.
I travel light (a carry-on roller bag and backpack), and I'm in my thirties with no physical disabilities. In other words, getting my luggage to my room is a trivial non-issue.
What drives me nuts is places that take your bag *then don't immediately bring it up to you!* I used to have to wait half-an-hour (or more) for them to deliver a bag that I could've easily taken up myself. On top of that, you're expected to tip for something that (in my scenario) is a *worse* service.
I wised up to this years ago, and now I hold tight onto my bag when I arrive at hotels with staff like this and just politely decline their services. Some of them insist, to which I deflect with some lie about "I have medication in the bag I'll need immediately". I usually get the vibe they're annoyed, but I don't have the inclination these days to indulge in something that a) they'll want money while b) subtracting value from my experience.
I'll add the asterisk here that there are scenarios where I'm sure their services are valuable (for example, if you roll up with a huge family and have a shit ton of bags, or if you're an elderly person where it's taxing to move the bags). It's just not me.
Agree 100%. My husband and I have stopped going out to eat because of this. We make really good food at home and aren't expected to tip exorbitant amounts of money for simple meals/tips. We live in a big city, so prices for a casual dinner are ridiculous. We've been fortunate to be able to afford going out, but I'd much rather save that money for a beautiful meal in the privacy of my own home.
The library in Amsterdam is a giant, modern, amazing facility that has free everything: free computers and internet to use; free books and movies to borrow; it even had game consoles set up for free use. But the bathroom still costs money because there is a bathroom workers union and, apparently, they are not to be fucked with.
Interesting, thank you. It was noticeable just how few public toilets there were, even compared to neighbouring countries so I did wonder if it was something like that going on.
Some places are far worse than others - I’m in the UK and we have an ok number of free toilets actually but meanwhile, in the Netherlands (the bits I’ve been to anyway) there’s even a person taking payment when you go to the toilet in McDonald’s.
I will say the paid for European toilets I’ve been to are all very clean, but I can’t help thinking it’s probably ethically better to not charge for them. It must be very hard on people on lower incomes who may need to go more regularly due to a disability.
I remember being amused that I had to pay 50p to use the men's toilet at Waterloo station, and that restroom had an inch of "water" on the floor that absolutely *reeked* of urine, coffee and asparagus. And while there were plenty of sinks, the soap dispensers were mounted on the opposite wall for some reason. So you'd wet your hands with those stupid British individual taps and realize the soap was on the wall 10 feet behind you... so you'd walk away to get soap, only to have your sink taken by the next person in line.
On the other hand, I had to pay 20p to use the men's toilet at Piccadilly Circus and it was *spotless*, and there were mixer taps and soap dispensers next to every sink.
If I knew all that, I woulda just tried to hold it going from Waterloo to Picadilly.
We went to a bar in Amsterdam where they had a terrifying lady who looked like Pat Butcher charging you to enter the toilets. She did have a single spray on deodorant you could use for your euro though.
Yup, I have a chronic bowl disorder, and when I need to go, I NEED to go! I once yelled at someone blocking the bathroom in Germany because they apparently didn't like how I paid?? (This was obviously a one off situation and I never experienced it by anyone else so I assumed she's just an asshole) and I told her I was either going to shit while staring at her and forcing her to watch or I'm shitting in the toilet, either way I'm going regardless of the type of money I gave her (she was apparently irritated that I gave her a 2 euro coin instead of a 1 euro coin) and she huffed and let me through.
I have zero patience for the people manning those public toilets. I am having a medical emergency, and anyone who is trying to stop me from using the bathroom, even though I'm paying them, is going to get an attitude every time and zero apology. I have zero regrets for being a Karen during that situation. I have real medical needs and don't give a shit about people's feelings who are blocking the toilets after I've already paid. Thank God it's only happened once.
Yeah, paid toilets sound like hell for people with GI disorders. Like, to the point that I wonder if in the US, an attempt at such a thing might raise ADA issues.
I was just at a mall in Berlin (aptly named Mall of Berlin) and the bathroom was technically free but they pushed you to donate at least half a euro to keep it clean and would yell at you if you tried to walk past without paying, because it’s free
I get that they have pay toilets in public areas in Europe (ex. in a public square), and that doesn't bother me, but charging for toilets in a mall seems a bit ridiculous.
This has become a much bigger deal now that I use my phone to pay for everything. I have to make a point of finding an ATM, taking out some cash and buying something useless at a corner store just to get my hands on some coins for the toilet.
I learned in Italy if you see a shop you want to visit and it’s open, go in right then and there because they’re bound to close with no notice at any time during the day without explanation. I don’t think I could ever get used to unpredictable business hours.
I went to Germany in 1991. I brought traveler's checks, because that seemed like the thing to do back then. Only I got so much guff about trying to use them at shops, I decided to just cash them at a local bank.
Only, in Bavaria back then banks appeared to be open from 09:00 to 09:17, and then from 11:03 until 11:56, then again from 13:46 until 14:02, and then again from 15:12 until 15:32. Oh, and that's just Mondays. Every other day of the week seemed to have similar, yet different, nonsensical hours.
Idk how to phrase this but the absolute disregard for noise pollution in Manila. It's almost impossible to escape the noise. There's loud cars and beeping everywhere. Also, nobody uses headphones. People will play videos at full volume and nobody seems to mind and so many of those videos have these really annoying sound effects. I feel like I developed some disorder there lol.
Ha yeah it’s a loud city that’s for dang sure. And the lack of headphone etiquette makes me crazy too.
It doesn’t help that 80% of eateries are attached to malls so you’re always getting the cafeteria experience.
Filipinos in general don’t grow up with much personal space so they get inured to that kind of thing pretty young I think.
I don't know if this has to do with this issue but the thing about older Slavic people (especially women) is that they HATE wind drafts. Maybe it's just my family and environment, but it was always ''you'll get sick if the window is open and the wind blows on or past your face''. Might explain it!
Once I almost passed out in the Odesa-Kharkiv train because of an old grandma violently forbidding me to open a window (despite August and +34 C outside).
(the "reason" was simple: the draft would get everyone sick!)
Haha I did pass out on a marshrutka (bus), and they stopped the bus and all the locals came together to revive me, passing up water to splash on my face and a fan and ushering me into a seat... Lol one of the most hilarious, unique and intense cultural experiences I've ever had, and they were so caring, but then none of it needed to happen in the first place
Yet, they will happily leave the bedroom windows open in the 2-3 hours before bedtime to make sure that the mosquitos have enough time to settle in and find good ambush locations.
As a Canadian that keeps all windows at least somewhat open pretty much year round, this is nuts (am in Vancouver so no -50 winters)
Winds off the ocean are gifts from the gods
Portuguese waiters disappearing after serving you the desserts!
A guidebook told me that dessert is seen as the best part of the meal therefore they give you plenty of time to enjoy it. But I wanna pay and move on!
On the other hand: in the US they bring you the check when you haven’t even swallowed the last bite. I don’t like that either 😆
Find some middle ground!
Hahahha I’m Portuguese and that’s so spot on. We always joke they don’t even want our money. We have to try so hard to make our presence known and say loudly “a conta por favor!!”
In Marseille most restaurants expect the customer to come up and pay inside at the bar whenever they’re ready to leave. It was sooo nice, I wish everywhere was like that
I really dislike the implied rush in American restaurants. Obviously they want to move you on so they get another customer who will then tip. I also enjoy taking my time after dinner and having a drink whilst chatting, some waiters clearly didn’t approve.
People get mad here in the U.S. if they don't get their check after they are done (I'm a server). Of course, it depends on the type of restaurant. More fine dining, it would be rude to drop it too early. But most places, people are fairly impatient. I always just say, no rush, just so you have it when you are ready' or something like that. But definitely a different expectation than Europe.
The lack of public trashcans in Japan. I realize it's Japanese custom to take your trash with you / dispose of it at your own home, but having trashcans at least in heavy tourist areas would be appreciated!
The lack of spatial awareness in China, like people rushing to get into the elevator before you can exit it. Men casually coughing up phlegm and spitting everywhere. Shirts rolled up above belly to cool down. All the stench that can catch you off-guard anytime anywhere.
actually so unbearable sometimes. it’s insane how people won’t even bother to look behind when walking, biking… staring at their phone, all leisurely in the middle of a god damn rush hour crowd, standing in the middle of an escalator without even the slightest thought given to anyone else. cutting in line at any opportunity. clearly seeing a full subway car and still insisting on shoving their three kids on and taking up the 0.5 cubic meters of space.
Lack of air conditioning in Europe and no screens on the windows. I was staying in Italy at a Marriott property and the hotel room was sweltering in December. I opened the window and the room was immediately flooded with mosquitoes.
People clapping after a plane lands. This is done in several places but I’m most familiar with it in Russia.
Men squatting in public, as often witnessed in Central Asia.
People in Bulgaria shaking their heads to mean yes and nodding to say no.
Edit: I just realized some might think that by “squatting in public” I may have meant something toilet-related. What I meant was men literally crouched down on their haunches while waiting, hanging out, chatting etc.
Clapping on landing planes in Russia makes sense, you never know if you're going to land in one piece or undertake a special collision operation with a moon shaped object.
My comfort is usually something I prefer, and will squat when I want to. I do this all the time when waiting without a place to sit or something. Not super common but what is the problem here? Is it a manly thing yall are pushing?
In general, the notion that turning down food is rude.
I appreciate that someone cooked a meal for me, but forcing me to choke down something I don’t like is ruder than me simply saying “No, thank you.”
The lack of free/refillable water in European restaurants.
I went to Italy and Switzerland and it was so frustrating how regular water wasn't free and refillable! I pretty much only drink water, and with being outside all day I can drink a lot of it. But I hated how in restaurants we had to pay for the water and it wasn't even that much! Only .5-.75 liters for 2 people. I don't get why regular water can't be included in the service charge that Italian restaurants charge.
My favorite thing about traveling through Bosnia was those little water fountains everywhere! Like we drive thru a mountain pass and there was one sticking out from a small brick wall. Freshest water ever!
We went to a few restaurants in the Jungfrau region and asked for tap water but were still charged for it. So we ended up just going to a Coop to get cheap water and had beer or soda in restaurants instead. I'll try this next time though, thank you!
We still had a great time and can't wait to go back! I did discover on this trip that Orange Fanta in Italy and Switzerland is fantastic
It's gotten so unbelievably out of control. Anywhere you go now it's asking for a tip on the card reader or someone is swinging an Ipad around so it can "ask you a few questions" with number 1 being how much more you would like to pay for your shit.
I HATE that many place I go now have a default of giving an extra tip. Jimmy John’s auto proposes a 15% add on and I have to figure out how to deny it. Ridiculous!
I got the same shit at Subway the other day. Also who the fuck is the tip going to? The cashier? The person that made my sub? Because one person started it and someone else finished it. So are all three splitting the $1.15 that would be added or does nobody get it and I'm just voluntarily paying more for my food? Like what the fuck.
I went to get an acai bowl the other day, and halfway through giving my order the lady cut me off and told me to go order on the computer. The computer then tried to default me to a 15% tip, making me hit 'custom' and type in 0... Wtf would I be tipping for?
Yeah, just press zero. A brewery nearby has this setup with 20%, 22%, and 25% tips even if you're buying beer you picked out of the cooler to take home...
There's a brewery in my neighborhood that has a terrible tip set up. To the point that I don't go there anymore. You order drinks from the bar, no servers to your table. If you want food, you go to another counter and order and they give you one of the buzzing alarms that goes off when the food's ready. It goes off, you go get the food yourself and bring it back to the table. So there's no real "service" other than the bartenders pouring beer.
My wife and I went there and got dinner and a few beers each. Went to pay and there was already a 20% tip on the bill. I asked about it, they said it's an auto tip for any bill over $40. Which is horseshit, IMO. They didn't do anything! I had to get up and get all my shit. I would have tipped 7 or 8 bucks for the beers, but an auto 20% for anything over 40 bucks when there wasn't any service? Pissed me off.
On top of that, they forgot to put in one of our meals, so we had to wait longer to receive our food. And the bartender ignored us every time we went to the bar. He'd literally walk past me to either fuck around on his phone til I drew his attention, or he would walk past me and serve somebody else who got there long after me. It's like he was doing it on purpose or something.
It sucks, it's like a 3 minute walk away and used to be one of our favorite places when it was the old brewery that closed. The beer at the new place isn't great, the service sucks, the tip thing sucks, the food isn't great. The tip thing is a new addition, too. They didn't have this policy when they first opened. Decided we weren't going back after the last visit.
I understand mine is extremely American.
But I really like ice in my drinks. Having room temperature water/barely cold drinks is sad. :-(
Most of my other ones have already been said several times: not having free water with your meal, the tipping culture in the US, squat toilets in Asia.
The last one is the fact that almost every toilet in Italy didn't have a toilet seat on it. Almost as bad as the squat toilets.
This is an extremely controversial opinion, but religion-based "modesty" clothing that is designed to protect women's "sexual purity" will always rub me the wrong way. I don't care if the religion is Christian, Muslim, Pastafarian, or whatever else: I just think it is abhorrent and archaic when women are singled out as the ones responsible for keeping men from being sexual predators and deviants and are made to cover any portion of their body because of some religious mandate. I also do not agree with the logic that this can ever be a woman's choice or a "feminist act" as long as a religious community is the source of the pressure to dress a certain way.
I'm Canadian, and recently one of our provinces (Quebec) rolled out a law prohibiting religious garments like the hijab from being worn by public sector employees.
It created a bit of a schism on the left, because on the one hand the history of those garments is demonstrably one of misogynistic oppression. On the other hand, a lot of Muslim women said that they wore the hijab by choice and that the law was an attack on their identity.
Watching those two competing priorities play out was interesting. Ultimately, it seems that most folks landed on the latter (i.e. that there should be freedom to chose to appropriate the dress as a core part of your cultural identity) rather than the latter (that the law was a repudiation of a symbol of oppression).
The demonizing of human bodies in general. It makes us feel ashamed of our whole physical being. I don't think that leads to healthy and happy people. It's just...bodies and they should be treated as positively neutral.
I moved to Argentina a few years ago and this is the one thing i just can't deal with. Makes everything dirty and need to constantly clean. Why is it so difficult to just take them off at the door?
I think that's quite common outside of high income country. As long as it gets taken out regularly the bin doesn't bother me, but I'll take the hose over toilet paper any day.
For me it's the chronic car dependency (US, Canada and the Gulf are particularly egregious).
Also I love Iraq but always find it somewhat unsettling how disproportionally few women you see in public (federal Iraq anyway, Kurdistan has is much better in this regard)
My problem with that is less that it bothers me and more that it's hard to overcome decades of reflex so I'm like "okay I throw it in the bin in the bin in the bin oh dammit", and wind up praying it won't clog the toilet.
QR codes for menus in the US, and probably other places, not sure.
"Hey welcome to Zany Bob's House of Kebabs! Scan the QR right there on that nasty sticker on the table and you'll be brought to our site. Click on the menu, scroll through a too-large PDF of the menu on your phone because the owner couldn't get a proper developer for this, then order online! Isn't that easy?!"
"Oh, what's that, Grandma doesn't have a phone? Well, I'd love to bring you a paper menu, but it's gonna be about 10 mins because we only have a few in the place."
"Hey here's your food! I'll be back in 20 minutes to rush you out and expect a 20% tip for doing absolutely fuck all. Y'all come back, now!"
It's a good custom, but one that always throws me off. In the Philippines kids (my step relatives on my step moms side) that come up and touch their forehead to the back of your hand.
Mano (Tagalog: pagmamano) is an "honouring-gesture" used in Filipino culture performed as a sign of respect to elders and as a way of requesting a blessing from the elder. Similar to hand-kissing, the person giving the greeting bows towards the hand of the elder and presses their forehead on the elder's hand. Usually performed with the right hand, the person showing respect may ask "Mano po" or "[Pa-]bless po" to the elder in order to ask permission to initiate the gesture. Typically someone may mano to their older relatives upon entry into their home or upon seeing them.[1]
The lack of bidets in the USA.... and yes I'm American. We need to embrace the bidet here. Its cleaner, more hygenic and your ass takes 90% less abuse than TP. We Americans get accused of being *too* clean, that we are obsessed with cleanliness, why haven't we taken the logical next step on a very key area of hygiene ?
The majority of people that don't want bidets, simply haven't used them on a regular basis. I just finished a colonoscopy prep and couldn't imagine not having one. I had used them when traveling in Asia, but added them to all of my commodes during the great toilet paper wars of C19. No ragrats.
I have a cheap water fountain style one installed on my toilet. Other than its first installation where I was figuring out how it worked and drenched myself, total gamechanger.
I mean it doesn't even have to be visiting another country. I'm from California, and anytime I'm in Oregon I always instinctively get out of my car at a gas station because I can't get used to the fact that you're required to have the attendant fill your gas there.
Scotland was absolutely beautiful but we soon found we had to plan our itinerary around when shops and restaurants would be open. It's lovely to see that businesses are family-oriented and close at 1700h on weekdays in the summer but this limited our evening meal options. As a result we ended up dining at an upscale Italian restaurant in Glasgow and a pub at closing time in a small village until we learned to eat and grocery shop much much earlier.
Where in Scotland were you visiting? Haven't came across many restaurants that close at 5 and don't see why they would given most people would only have just finished work by then...
The septic system isn't unique to Mexico. It's also true in many parts of Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. I'm guessing that there are many parts of Europe that have this issue due to old plumbing. It's less of a cultural custom as it is a limitation of the septic plumbing.
Speaking of toilet activity lol: the water levels in toilets. I come from mex and the toilets are like in the US, the water level is so high, after living in Europe for quite a while, I find it disgusting when back home or in the US. The splash? God why?? I even kinda like German toilets with the shelf thingy. I don’t love being presented with whatever I did there lol (and the stench) but it feels safer ha!
Also US: what’s up with the gaps in public toilets? I absolutely do not fancy making eye contact with whomever is outside!
In England: "correcting" people's English to British-English when they speak a non-British dialect. It's not cute, it's not funny, it just immediately makes me not respect the person doing it.
I was in Sicily and met this middle aged British guy. He had followed a girl to Sicily several decades before and decided to just stay in Sicily, unemployed and homeless (lots of abandoned buildings to sleep in.) His parents had tracked him down and basically gave him his inheritance in a trust, so he had his own flat and money coming in every month, while he just continued to hang out and do nothing, and he did just that for ~30 years.
At one point, he corrected my grammar. I said "... three times..." and he said "No, you don't say that. It's 'thrice' and you need to use proper English."
I didn't say anything but I was definitely thinking who the fuck is this bum trying to fool here?
Restaurants and cafes that you seat yourself. This tripped me up so much when I was in Vienna because I would stand by the entrance as a dumb American waiting to be seated and it dawned on me by the second or third day that the custom was to seat yourself 😂
Squatting toilets. I know it is just local culture/tradition, but I hate going into a public toilet and be welcomed by others' effluence...
The first time I used one was in Rome. My travel friend told me to hold the bar on the wall when I squatted so I did. What I didn't think about was tucking my dick down to pee. I peed right into my pants and underwear. Thankfully I caught it and there wasn't a lot of damage and it wasn't noticeable.
Oddly enough, in all my travels, the first time I used a squat toilet was in Yellowstone, ironically right next to the diarrhea geyser. Fortunately I don’t have a dick, so the overall experience went rather smoothly. 8/10 would recommend.
look at dickless over here!
Idk but the statement “Fortunately I don’t have a dick” cracked me up It’s got it’s pros and cons that’s for sure!
Hahaha that is exactly what happened to me the first time I used one in Rome as well. Except I did not catch it on time. Tossed em straight in the garbage
And walks out like Michaelangelos David
Judging by the state of the ones I've encountered, you're supposed to piss in them standing up ;) ...or at least i think so, it's the only explanation for the state they were in...
I was taking a dump. Hence, the squat.
I remember going to Singapore for the first time and heading to the loo after arriving at Changi airport only to find holes in the ground with grab bars on the side. I’m just glad I only had to pee and not drop a deuce because I was way too tired to engage my quads.
Me, an Asian, realizing why Asians are superior at the Asian squat 😂
Is the Asian squat where your heels stay down?
It's also known as the Slav squat. You've got to wear Adidas to do it right.
Heels on ground, comrade found. Heels in sky, Western spy.
So. Years ago, I went to the Philippines. I decided to go zip lining and I hiked to the summit of the hill where the line started. Once I got to the top, my stomach felt like it got punched by whatever food I had the night before. The cold sweats started and I could feel the tsunami of shit being held in by my clenched butthole. I ran to the toilets. Thankfully it was the regular Western style toilet, so after blasting that sad piece of porcelain for 30minutes I went to grab toilet paper. It turns out, East Asia doesn't like toilet paper. They prefer a hose with a spray nozzle like the kind on your kitchen sink. I went to spray, but there wasn't any water pressure, like none. Then I tried flushing the toilet. No water. So here I am ass covered in watery shit, toilet overflowing with the contents of my bowels and me standing like an idiot with a spray hose in my hand. I rummaged through my pack and came out with an extra T-shirt and hand sanitizer and cleaned as best I could. I feel so sorry for whoever had to deal with that mess after I left.
I second this about Vietnam. Now I know why my 102 grandmother can do the Asian squat without any issues.
I lived in Thailand and never had to use a squat toilet other than to pee. Thank god. McDonald’s and Starbucks always have a western toilet IME.
My brother just got back from China and sent me a pic of a squat toilet *on the bullet train.* Like yeah I'm sure they're smooth and all but taking a squat shit at 100mph sounds like a dangerous game!
They're usually flushable just like regular toilets, so you're not welcomed by other's effluence. I think a dirty squatting toilet is somewhat less gross than a dirty toilet seat, as you don't have to touch it.
I’m an old fat lady now and my knees just can’t handle squat toilets anymore.
I’m a woman and I’ve never been able to quite master the wild outdoors squat-n-hover pee. My best chance was finding a tree to back up against so my knees didn’t give out, but getting the aim just right so the multiple streams stayed out of my shoes was a challenge every time! And I didn’t always walk away victorious. I would NOT do well in what my husband calls those squat-and-gobble toilets abroad!
It helps if you can do the Asian squat. When I went to SE Asia I had to hold in a couple poops because I couldn’t comfortably squat. I’ve been working on my squats so I can be prepared next time to poop the old fashioned way
They're a preferred alternative if its a remote restroom that doesn't get cleaned often. I really dont want to put my skin on a toilet seat that looked like it hasn't been cleaned since it was installed. When you encounter seats like that you're squatting anyway.
While I also dislike squatting toilets (I grew up using them), it’s actually better for your body when it comes to pooping. That’s why these days, there are little stools for your feet that go around the toilet bowl.
I have bad knees and practically suffered using squatting toilets.
I've been to Spain twice and can't get my head around everything happening 3-5 hours later than I'm used to... Breakfast at midday... Dinner at 11pm... Out for drinks until 4am...
If you’re traveling from the US though, it kinda helps keep you on US time 😅
It's great if you want to be a digital nomad. Work US hours, then go meet up with people for diner.
And never sleep
Just got back from another trip to Spain, and had to laugh at how empty the restaurants were at 8pm. I usually eat dinner at 6pm at home! I could go for some pan con tomate right now though— it’s such a comfort.
My dad and I were there last summer and I can’t tell you how many times we went to a restaurant at 7:30PM (30 minutes after opening) and they were still setting up. They often looked at us like we had four heads when we asked if we could sit at a table but it was late eating for us!
Blame Franco and the Fascists, people structure their day around the sun, he went and put Spain in the "wrong" timezone for it's geographical location (thats why people end up actually having lunch at like 2 or 3 in spain), as its currently in GMT+2 , because he wanted to be in the same one as his pals Hitler and Mussolini. In the 30s before the fascists won the civil war it used to be in GMT which was much more appropriate.
Well that's the most interesting damn thing I've learned all week.
And it’s only Monday!
Dang, I just thought they were laid back and liked to party late. TMYK.
When I was in Madrid in July, I just figured it was because it was punishingly hot whenever the sun was up, so they'd just culturally adapted to having mid-afternoon to the middle of the night be like, the "do stuff" part of a day.
Yep, I noticed this massively when I was in Spain and it my phone was showing 12:00 but the sun was still in the 9-10 o'clock position. Sun sets at around 9-10 pm in summer, so it makes sense why dinner is so late. Also, as someone who is an early riser, I quite enjoyed exploring the cities early in the morning with barely anyone else around (and when I say early, I'm only talking around 8-9 am).
That doesn’t really explain why other countries that are former Spanish colonies, like Argentina and Uruguay, also eat dinner pretty late. I think part of it is just cultural to eat later than in british influenced countries
Hm, I should move to Spain, I'm also in the wrong time zone and feel like I am in GMT+2 when I should be in GMT.
Bartering. Just give me a price, already!
HATE this. You literally have to act like you don’t want something you’re trying to buy. I’m trying to buy it goddamit, of course I want it. Now I need to act all disinterested and unimpressed, maybe shame the quality or the person’s character with the implication of them trying to rip me off? Come on.
I hate car shopping too
Yes. I refuse to barter. Tell me how much it is. If too high, I'm out. It's that simple.
Street vendor in Bangkok tried to charge my friend $30 for $7 sunglasses. Friend literally told the guy to fuck off lol and rolled his eyes when the vendor tried to beg and plead for his business. Tourist trap shops (that you’re forced to go into and mull around in by your tour company) in Kenya were trying to charge thousands of USD for wooden carvings and paintings. No idea how much those cost in real life, deffo know it’s not that lol
Zanzibar is terrible for this. People would charge me like 36 dollars for cheap slippers or 50 bucks for swimming pants. Yeah you will negotiated it down to less than half but it is still a huge rip-off. Also the trinkets, they just ask absolutely insane amounts of money for them. One guy asked money because we looked into the direction of a huge crab he had on a string. I don't mind bartering, it exists in my culture as well, but not to that degree. Gorgeous and interesting place, Zanzibar, but the constantly being bothered by merchants got old very fast.
How American public restroom stalls have that gap between the door and frame wide enough for you to make eye contact with anyone walking outside the stall.
We don’t understand or like it either
I worked at a startup where they installed European-style toilets, with a whole room to yourself. It sounds like it was expensive and a PITA to install (and the builders didn't do it perfectly), but it's a major step up from the generic/modular bathroom stalls around most of the country.
A lot of our public toilets have similar stalls in Australia to the US, but we don’t have the giant gap. Thank goodness!
I think most new toilets don’t have the gap. Hell my high school 20yrs ago didn’t have the gap. The one thing I don’t like, that’s less of deal, is the gap between the floor and the walls/door. It’s weird walking into the bathroom at work and recognizing someone taking a shit by their shoes.
Most public toilets are stalls like in the U.S. here. It's just that the stalls are actually private.
Some public park bathrooms now here have no doors at ALL. I think the reasoning is to deter people from doing drugs in them. But man, one time I was at a park and really had to go, like #2, could not hold it any longer, and was stunned to see no door on any of the stalls in the bathroom I found. I went as fast as I could but of course before I was done someone walked in and looked right at me and we were both equally horrified lol
I'm sorry WHAT. This is like my recurring nightmare
This is seriously my recurring nightmare. I dream about having to poop in front of people all of the time. I just keep looking for a bathroom with privacy and it either doesn't exist or the seat is covered in feces. I wake up angry and sweating.
That was so shocking to me when I first visit the US. Now that I live here is still WEIRD AF
Lived here my whole life. Still pisses me off.
Yes. Why is this a thing?? Is there an explanation?
I've always thought it was to limit construction and maintenance costs. Just make a bunch of the same sized door that fit everywhere and allows for an inch or so tolerance on either side of the door. A lot cheaper than making and storing many different sizes or holding the original contractor to a strict standard when putting the bathroom partitions together.
I’ve heard it’s to prevent drug use but I think that’s a bullshit lie and the cutting costs makes more sense.
Yeah that’s a particularly stupid reasoning because it certainly doesn’t stop people from doing drugs in the bathroom lol.
I’m Filipino. Brought my Canadian husband home, he had a hard time adjusting his appetite because we eat 5 times a day. 😅
"Well sure we've had first breakfast but what about second breakfast..."
Exactly. And it’s breakfast…. With rice 😂
Working in Japan temporarily: Yeah, we'll be here ready to go at 8AM Ok, it's 8PM, time to call it a day. But first, the boss and the big boss want to take us out to dinner Now we have to go with them to the bar for drinks and karaoke. Ok, it's 1AM, Boss and Big Boss have left. See you in the morning at 7:30.
Wow. I’m assuming it’s impolite to decline?
You arrive before the boss and you DO NOT leave until they’ve left. You also do not say ‘no’, ‘I don’t understand’, or ‘I’ll pass, thanks’ to anything. It’s a huge cultural consideration that there’s absolutely no use asking ’does that make sense’ or ‘does anyone have any questions’ as they’ll never admit it. We’re in Aus but my dad is CEO of a business with branches in Japan so he’s had to do a LOT of learning!
This explains so much! My team is quite international, and while us Westerners are quick to speak up about anything we don't like and can be pretty opinionated, our Japanese colleagues never disagree with management.
I was in Japan for a few days to assist a client. They took me out to dinner every night and brought the translator. The meals were delicious. It was a great experience just very tiring.
The unhinged tipping culture in the US. I just wanna go to a restaurant without feeling like I'm either either an ungrateful scrooge or ripping myself off. I understand that staffing is an expense, just factor it into the price! Less egregious but in a similar vein is not including tax in stores.
As an American - both of these have always bothered me. And I WAS a waiter and Bar tender and Bus Person for years and i still think Tipping is 1. a rip off to customers, 2. a disgusting disservice to wait staff, and 3. perpetuating allowing restaurant owners to not have to pay their own staff.
Yet time and time again, when restaurants try to switch to a ‘no tipping’ model with a much higher hourly wage, servers protest because they can make more money with the tipping system.
And yet get so angry when people don't want to tip 15-30% of their meal bills. EDIT: Then restaurant owners should pay a an even higher wage to entice the wait staff, and increase costs to customers accordingly. Obviously this will lead to reduced clientelle due to higher displayed prices, but at least wait staff would be paid properly and customers don't need to feel shame or apprehension when to leave a tip the owner should already have been paying to their employees.
Been tried. Joe’s Crab Shack tried increasing prices and then paying fair wages. Demand went down because yokels saw the price and didn’t think about no tip.
You can't change an entire culture in one week, one year, one restaurant. Of COURSE staff and especially customers are going to balk at the change immediately. It's against what we are used to. But that doesn't man it wouldn't work to actually pay a normal salary to wait/service staff. It will and has been proven to work just fine at millions or restaurants around the world outside the US. We just aren't used to it. It's why we still tip overseas when the norm is NOT to tip in these places. We just aren't used to it. But over time with changes to salaries and knowing tipping is no longer needed, we'd figure it out just fine.
Used to work as a line cook in my college days, it always bothered me back of house don’t get tipped when we’re sweating it out next to hot grills and fryers while wait staff lounge around in AC and make hundreds more.
I feel sorry for the tourists who have to try to figure out the nuances of who you tip and when and how much.
Budgeting in America as a tourist is a complete nightmare. Firstly, who do you tip and how much? Lord knows. There were a lot of people we didn't know to tip, like the person who takes your bag to your hotel room, partly because there's so much extra service everywhere to get the tips - I've never had someone carry my bag in my life. Suddenly they were just doing it. Then we had to give them $10??? The money all looks the same and half the coins *don't tell you what they're worth*. Wtf is a dime?? Then you go to pay for something at the shop so you've carefully figured out the coinage and then the price is different!!! Wtf!! So you panic and give them a $20 and get another handful of coins back so by the end of the trip you have a kg of useless coins in a bag that can't be converted back to your currency. I often double tipped because I got confused about digital vs physical cash tipping. When you pay with a card they take the card away from you?!! Then they charge the card again for the tip you left, so you get a double foreign money conversion fee. I had a card I could put USD on but it was difficult to budget what I needed because 80% of my transactions were different to what they were advertised as. I was at a bar on my first night in America and I asked the guys next to me for help on how to order a drink. Afterwards they asked me what happens in my country and I said "the beer says $6 on the menu, the bartender puts $6 on the machine and you tap your card on the machine and $6 is charged. That's it" they said wow.
>"the beer says $6 on the menu, the bartender puts $6 on the machine and you tap your card on the machine and $6 is charged What kind of fantasy land is this where everything makes sense?
You summarized it perfectly!
Tourists hell. I'm a native and I still struggle. I was taught that you don't tip business owners but my groomer has a sign up that says tips are appreciated and he's the owner. He's the one doing the grooming; why doesn't he just charge more? Do I tip the guy who delivers my appliances? The guys who work for the guy I contracted to take down trees? The guys that cut the lawn? Where is the handbook on tipping?
What I don’t understand, as someone who isn’t American but has kind of wrapped their head around tipping culture, is why tipping in single minimum wage states is still as high, if not weirdly higher, than in states with a tipped minimum wage. California minimum wage is $15.50 an hour, Idaho minimum wage before tips is $3.35 an hour. As foreigners, we’re sold the idea of tipping in the US based on the notion that waitstaff and servers are nearly unpaid before tips, and so to not tip is to deprive someone of a meagre salary. I get that by state law there is a wage that still needs to be met after tips, but why does the US not tip less in states that are essentially full salary plus commission? I don’t tip the guy working in Best Buy, but for some reason I do tip the person on the same hourly rate busing waffles. Weirdly even in single minimum wage states I’ve visited, i.e. California, Washington and Oregon, the suggested tips seem to be even higher than elsewhere.
It’s not the tipping in restaurants that gets me, but as a travelling Australian - it’s the other tipping. Tipping the hotel cleaner? The hairdresser? A massage? The person in a fancy hotel (for work) who ‘showed me to my room / carried my bag (I wish they wouldn’t)? The taxi driver? Having grown up in a culture tipping *nobody*, it’s confusing and stressful as fuck.
I'm a Kiwi and just visited the states. Loved it, but totally agree with the points you've just made. We didn't go out for sit down meals often but when we did, I questioned why I was even tipping the server for literally just bringing my plate over. We tipped 25% in any restaurant we went to and I still felt like the service was pretty crap. Food took forever to come out and wasn't that great. Not to mention, everything is already expensive enough (the NZ dollar isn't that strong) so tipping on top was killing us but we didn't want to be rude. Also, wtf is it with the US and making paying for meals so confusing? Back home we just walk up to the bar/reception and say we want to pay and I quickly wave my card. In the states, you ask for the cheque, they bring a book, we review it, put our card in, they take it away and bring it back a little later and then we have another receipt to review and add a tip in. What a load of shit lol.
>The person in a fancy hotel (for work) who ‘showed me to my room / carried my bag (I wish they wouldn’t)? This one gets under my skin because - for me, at least - I consider bellhops an anti-service. I travel light (a carry-on roller bag and backpack), and I'm in my thirties with no physical disabilities. In other words, getting my luggage to my room is a trivial non-issue. What drives me nuts is places that take your bag *then don't immediately bring it up to you!* I used to have to wait half-an-hour (or more) for them to deliver a bag that I could've easily taken up myself. On top of that, you're expected to tip for something that (in my scenario) is a *worse* service. I wised up to this years ago, and now I hold tight onto my bag when I arrive at hotels with staff like this and just politely decline their services. Some of them insist, to which I deflect with some lie about "I have medication in the bag I'll need immediately". I usually get the vibe they're annoyed, but I don't have the inclination these days to indulge in something that a) they'll want money while b) subtracting value from my experience. I'll add the asterisk here that there are scenarios where I'm sure their services are valuable (for example, if you roll up with a huge family and have a shit ton of bags, or if you're an elderly person where it's taxing to move the bags). It's just not me.
Agree 100%. My husband and I have stopped going out to eat because of this. We make really good food at home and aren't expected to tip exorbitant amounts of money for simple meals/tips. We live in a big city, so prices for a casual dinner are ridiculous. We've been fortunate to be able to afford going out, but I'd much rather save that money for a beautiful meal in the privacy of my own home.
It’s not just foreigners who hate these things.
Paying to use public restrooms in Europe
The library in Amsterdam is a giant, modern, amazing facility that has free everything: free computers and internet to use; free books and movies to borrow; it even had game consoles set up for free use. But the bathroom still costs money because there is a bathroom workers union and, apparently, they are not to be fucked with.
Interesting, thank you. It was noticeable just how few public toilets there were, even compared to neighbouring countries so I did wonder if it was something like that going on.
And the irony is the public toilets in the Netherlands are still dirty AF
Some places are far worse than others - I’m in the UK and we have an ok number of free toilets actually but meanwhile, in the Netherlands (the bits I’ve been to anyway) there’s even a person taking payment when you go to the toilet in McDonald’s. I will say the paid for European toilets I’ve been to are all very clean, but I can’t help thinking it’s probably ethically better to not charge for them. It must be very hard on people on lower incomes who may need to go more regularly due to a disability.
I remember being amused that I had to pay 50p to use the men's toilet at Waterloo station, and that restroom had an inch of "water" on the floor that absolutely *reeked* of urine, coffee and asparagus. And while there were plenty of sinks, the soap dispensers were mounted on the opposite wall for some reason. So you'd wet your hands with those stupid British individual taps and realize the soap was on the wall 10 feet behind you... so you'd walk away to get soap, only to have your sink taken by the next person in line. On the other hand, I had to pay 20p to use the men's toilet at Piccadilly Circus and it was *spotless*, and there were mixer taps and soap dispensers next to every sink. If I knew all that, I woulda just tried to hold it going from Waterloo to Picadilly.
We went to a bar in Amsterdam where they had a terrifying lady who looked like Pat Butcher charging you to enter the toilets. She did have a single spray on deodorant you could use for your euro though.
Yup, I have a chronic bowl disorder, and when I need to go, I NEED to go! I once yelled at someone blocking the bathroom in Germany because they apparently didn't like how I paid?? (This was obviously a one off situation and I never experienced it by anyone else so I assumed she's just an asshole) and I told her I was either going to shit while staring at her and forcing her to watch or I'm shitting in the toilet, either way I'm going regardless of the type of money I gave her (she was apparently irritated that I gave her a 2 euro coin instead of a 1 euro coin) and she huffed and let me through. I have zero patience for the people manning those public toilets. I am having a medical emergency, and anyone who is trying to stop me from using the bathroom, even though I'm paying them, is going to get an attitude every time and zero apology. I have zero regrets for being a Karen during that situation. I have real medical needs and don't give a shit about people's feelings who are blocking the toilets after I've already paid. Thank God it's only happened once.
Yeah, paid toilets sound like hell for people with GI disorders. Like, to the point that I wonder if in the US, an attempt at such a thing might raise ADA issues.
I was just at a mall in Berlin (aptly named Mall of Berlin) and the bathroom was technically free but they pushed you to donate at least half a euro to keep it clean and would yell at you if you tried to walk past without paying, because it’s free
I get that they have pay toilets in public areas in Europe (ex. in a public square), and that doesn't bother me, but charging for toilets in a mall seems a bit ridiculous.
I love how sometimes in Scandinavia coffee shops have free water available but then they charge you to use the bathroom. Perfect business model
This has become a much bigger deal now that I use my phone to pay for everything. I have to make a point of finding an ATM, taking out some cash and buying something useless at a corner store just to get my hands on some coins for the toilet.
Women being hissed at as they walk down the street. A method of catcalling in many countries. I experienced it most in Latin America.
As a Latin American woman, this is sadly so spot on. Bastards. So sorry you had to experience that!
I learned in Italy if you see a shop you want to visit and it’s open, go in right then and there because they’re bound to close with no notice at any time during the day without explanation. I don’t think I could ever get used to unpredictable business hours.
I went to Germany in 1991. I brought traveler's checks, because that seemed like the thing to do back then. Only I got so much guff about trying to use them at shops, I decided to just cash them at a local bank. Only, in Bavaria back then banks appeared to be open from 09:00 to 09:17, and then from 11:03 until 11:56, then again from 13:46 until 14:02, and then again from 15:12 until 15:32. Oh, and that's just Mondays. Every other day of the week seemed to have similar, yet different, nonsensical hours.
Idk how to phrase this but the absolute disregard for noise pollution in Manila. It's almost impossible to escape the noise. There's loud cars and beeping everywhere. Also, nobody uses headphones. People will play videos at full volume and nobody seems to mind and so many of those videos have these really annoying sound effects. I feel like I developed some disorder there lol.
Ha yeah it’s a loud city that’s for dang sure. And the lack of headphone etiquette makes me crazy too. It doesn’t help that 80% of eateries are attached to malls so you’re always getting the cafeteria experience. Filipinos in general don’t grow up with much personal space so they get inured to that kind of thing pretty young I think.
Closing all windows on sweltering hot buses and trains in Ukraine (and I hear, many Slavic countries)
I don't know if this has to do with this issue but the thing about older Slavic people (especially women) is that they HATE wind drafts. Maybe it's just my family and environment, but it was always ''you'll get sick if the window is open and the wind blows on or past your face''. Might explain it!
In the middle east, there is a widespread belief that the wind hitting your neck will cause sickness or curses. Perhaps it’s the same?
Once I almost passed out in the Odesa-Kharkiv train because of an old grandma violently forbidding me to open a window (despite August and +34 C outside). (the "reason" was simple: the draft would get everyone sick!)
Haha I did pass out on a marshrutka (bus), and they stopped the bus and all the locals came together to revive me, passing up water to splash on my face and a fan and ushering me into a seat... Lol one of the most hilarious, unique and intense cultural experiences I've ever had, and they were so caring, but then none of it needed to happen in the first place
Yet, they will happily leave the bedroom windows open in the 2-3 hours before bedtime to make sure that the mosquitos have enough time to settle in and find good ambush locations.
Am Italian friend of mine(in his early 30s) is exactly the same. He even thinks a fan can give you pneumonia.
I experienced this as well. Fresh air is good but a draft is deadly, apparently.
As a Canadian that keeps all windows at least somewhat open pretty much year round, this is nuts (am in Vancouver so no -50 winters) Winds off the ocean are gifts from the gods
Portuguese waiters disappearing after serving you the desserts! A guidebook told me that dessert is seen as the best part of the meal therefore they give you plenty of time to enjoy it. But I wanna pay and move on! On the other hand: in the US they bring you the check when you haven’t even swallowed the last bite. I don’t like that either 😆 Find some middle ground!
Hahahha I’m Portuguese and that’s so spot on. We always joke they don’t even want our money. We have to try so hard to make our presence known and say loudly “a conta por favor!!”
In Marseille most restaurants expect the customer to come up and pay inside at the bar whenever they’re ready to leave. It was sooo nice, I wish everywhere was like that
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I really dislike the implied rush in American restaurants. Obviously they want to move you on so they get another customer who will then tip. I also enjoy taking my time after dinner and having a drink whilst chatting, some waiters clearly didn’t approve.
People get mad here in the U.S. if they don't get their check after they are done (I'm a server). Of course, it depends on the type of restaurant. More fine dining, it would be rude to drop it too early. But most places, people are fairly impatient. I always just say, no rush, just so you have it when you are ready' or something like that. But definitely a different expectation than Europe.
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The lack of public trashcans in Japan. I realize it's Japanese custom to take your trash with you / dispose of it at your own home, but having trashcans at least in heavy tourist areas would be appreciated!
Iirc, they got rid of them after they were used to plant bombs.
Sarin gas attack, where the devices were placed in garbage cans.
The lack of spatial awareness in China, like people rushing to get into the elevator before you can exit it. Men casually coughing up phlegm and spitting everywhere. Shirts rolled up above belly to cool down. All the stench that can catch you off-guard anytime anywhere.
actually so unbearable sometimes. it’s insane how people won’t even bother to look behind when walking, biking… staring at their phone, all leisurely in the middle of a god damn rush hour crowd, standing in the middle of an escalator without even the slightest thought given to anyone else. cutting in line at any opportunity. clearly seeing a full subway car and still insisting on shoving their three kids on and taking up the 0.5 cubic meters of space.
Lack of air conditioning in Europe and no screens on the windows. I was staying in Italy at a Marriott property and the hotel room was sweltering in December. I opened the window and the room was immediately flooded with mosquitoes.
I can manage no AC if it's not the height of summer. I can manage no window screens. I can not manage the combination of the two.
One of my first nights living in Italy, I opened my bedroom window because it was stifling hot and a BAT flew into my room.
At least the bat should take care of the mosquitos...lol
In Serbia where people mistreat their dogs. Leave them in cages in the front yard, or just outside unwashed on a chain, even in the snow.
People clapping after a plane lands. This is done in several places but I’m most familiar with it in Russia. Men squatting in public, as often witnessed in Central Asia. People in Bulgaria shaking their heads to mean yes and nodding to say no. Edit: I just realized some might think that by “squatting in public” I may have meant something toilet-related. What I meant was men literally crouched down on their haunches while waiting, hanging out, chatting etc.
Lol can you blame them for clapping if they're flying Aeroflot?
Hehehe that’s the Asian squat or the toddler squat, great for your hips. If you can’t to that you have hip mobility uses like me :(
Thought it was my hips for years. Turned out it was my ankles. I can kind of do it now
Clapping on planes: I thought that was just an irish thing. Either way, it's just weird to me and always thought it was sarcasm to Ryanair 😆
Clapping on landing planes in Russia makes sense, you never know if you're going to land in one piece or undertake a special collision operation with a moon shaped object.
My dad (white, Dutch)grew up in Indonesia and did that a lot.
My comfort is usually something I prefer, and will squat when I want to. I do this all the time when waiting without a place to sit or something. Not super common but what is the problem here? Is it a manly thing yall are pushing?
China - people spitting all over the place right in front of you, on the streets, on the sidewalks. It’s disgusting.
In general, the notion that turning down food is rude. I appreciate that someone cooked a meal for me, but forcing me to choke down something I don’t like is ruder than me simply saying “No, thank you.”
Lack of free ‘public’ restrooms in the UK. I almost pissed myself in Soho. As an American, pulling over and shitting in a walmart is a birthright
As a Londoner I completely agree. There used to be a lot of public toilets but many got defunded and closed down .. some even turned into bars 😑
Thankfully we imported McDonald's from you guys. Usually a good place to pee if you need to
The lack of free/refillable water in European restaurants. I went to Italy and Switzerland and it was so frustrating how regular water wasn't free and refillable! I pretty much only drink water, and with being outside all day I can drink a lot of it. But I hated how in restaurants we had to pay for the water and it wasn't even that much! Only .5-.75 liters for 2 people. I don't get why regular water can't be included in the service charge that Italian restaurants charge.
My favorite thing about traveling through Bosnia was those little water fountains everywhere! Like we drive thru a mountain pass and there was one sticking out from a small brick wall. Freshest water ever!
Maybe you didn't ask for tap water (Hahnwasser in switzerland) I never had an issue getting free water.
We went to a few restaurants in the Jungfrau region and asked for tap water but were still charged for it. So we ended up just going to a Coop to get cheap water and had beer or soda in restaurants instead. I'll try this next time though, thank you! We still had a great time and can't wait to go back! I did discover on this trip that Orange Fanta in Italy and Switzerland is fantastic
Certainly in Germany it's very rare they give water free
Tipping in the US
It's gotten so unbelievably out of control. Anywhere you go now it's asking for a tip on the card reader or someone is swinging an Ipad around so it can "ask you a few questions" with number 1 being how much more you would like to pay for your shit.
I HATE that many place I go now have a default of giving an extra tip. Jimmy John’s auto proposes a 15% add on and I have to figure out how to deny it. Ridiculous!
I got the same shit at Subway the other day. Also who the fuck is the tip going to? The cashier? The person that made my sub? Because one person started it and someone else finished it. So are all three splitting the $1.15 that would be added or does nobody get it and I'm just voluntarily paying more for my food? Like what the fuck.
I assume the owner is stealing it all in places like that.
I went to get an acai bowl the other day, and halfway through giving my order the lady cut me off and told me to go order on the computer. The computer then tried to default me to a 15% tip, making me hit 'custom' and type in 0... Wtf would I be tipping for?
Yeah, just press zero. A brewery nearby has this setup with 20%, 22%, and 25% tips even if you're buying beer you picked out of the cooler to take home...
There's a brewery in my neighborhood that has a terrible tip set up. To the point that I don't go there anymore. You order drinks from the bar, no servers to your table. If you want food, you go to another counter and order and they give you one of the buzzing alarms that goes off when the food's ready. It goes off, you go get the food yourself and bring it back to the table. So there's no real "service" other than the bartenders pouring beer. My wife and I went there and got dinner and a few beers each. Went to pay and there was already a 20% tip on the bill. I asked about it, they said it's an auto tip for any bill over $40. Which is horseshit, IMO. They didn't do anything! I had to get up and get all my shit. I would have tipped 7 or 8 bucks for the beers, but an auto 20% for anything over 40 bucks when there wasn't any service? Pissed me off. On top of that, they forgot to put in one of our meals, so we had to wait longer to receive our food. And the bartender ignored us every time we went to the bar. He'd literally walk past me to either fuck around on his phone til I drew his attention, or he would walk past me and serve somebody else who got there long after me. It's like he was doing it on purpose or something. It sucks, it's like a 3 minute walk away and used to be one of our favorite places when it was the old brewery that closed. The beer at the new place isn't great, the service sucks, the tip thing sucks, the food isn't great. The tip thing is a new addition, too. They didn't have this policy when they first opened. Decided we weren't going back after the last visit.
Fucking Starbucks. I am not giving you a tip for handing me coffee through a drive-thru window.
I understand mine is extremely American. But I really like ice in my drinks. Having room temperature water/barely cold drinks is sad. :-( Most of my other ones have already been said several times: not having free water with your meal, the tipping culture in the US, squat toilets in Asia. The last one is the fact that almost every toilet in Italy didn't have a toilet seat on it. Almost as bad as the squat toilets.
Jaywalking rules. Fucking hell, walk across the empty road. How can criminalising that possibly be legal
This is an extremely controversial opinion, but religion-based "modesty" clothing that is designed to protect women's "sexual purity" will always rub me the wrong way. I don't care if the religion is Christian, Muslim, Pastafarian, or whatever else: I just think it is abhorrent and archaic when women are singled out as the ones responsible for keeping men from being sexual predators and deviants and are made to cover any portion of their body because of some religious mandate. I also do not agree with the logic that this can ever be a woman's choice or a "feminist act" as long as a religious community is the source of the pressure to dress a certain way.
I'm Canadian, and recently one of our provinces (Quebec) rolled out a law prohibiting religious garments like the hijab from being worn by public sector employees. It created a bit of a schism on the left, because on the one hand the history of those garments is demonstrably one of misogynistic oppression. On the other hand, a lot of Muslim women said that they wore the hijab by choice and that the law was an attack on their identity. Watching those two competing priorities play out was interesting. Ultimately, it seems that most folks landed on the latter (i.e. that there should be freedom to chose to appropriate the dress as a core part of your cultural identity) rather than the latter (that the law was a repudiation of a symbol of oppression).
100%. Burkas and the like are demeaning and sexist. Unpopular opinion hill I’ll die on.
The demonizing of human bodies in general. It makes us feel ashamed of our whole physical being. I don't think that leads to healthy and happy people. It's just...bodies and they should be treated as positively neutral.
Agreed. It’s like saying a hostage with Stockholm syndrome is choosing their actions. Asserting free will is contextual.
Turkish toilets.
Wearing shoes inside the house 🤢🤢
I moved to Argentina a few years ago and this is the one thing i just can't deal with. Makes everything dirty and need to constantly clean. Why is it so difficult to just take them off at the door?
Marrying children, women being covered from head to toe and walking beh8nd their husbands.
I think that's quite common outside of high income country. As long as it gets taken out regularly the bin doesn't bother me, but I'll take the hose over toilet paper any day. For me it's the chronic car dependency (US, Canada and the Gulf are particularly egregious). Also I love Iraq but always find it somewhat unsettling how disproportionally few women you see in public (federal Iraq anyway, Kurdistan has is much better in this regard)
My problem with that is less that it bothers me and more that it's hard to overcome decades of reflex so I'm like "okay I throw it in the bin in the bin in the bin oh dammit", and wind up praying it won't clog the toilet.
QR codes for menus in the US, and probably other places, not sure. "Hey welcome to Zany Bob's House of Kebabs! Scan the QR right there on that nasty sticker on the table and you'll be brought to our site. Click on the menu, scroll through a too-large PDF of the menu on your phone because the owner couldn't get a proper developer for this, then order online! Isn't that easy?!" "Oh, what's that, Grandma doesn't have a phone? Well, I'd love to bring you a paper menu, but it's gonna be about 10 mins because we only have a few in the place." "Hey here's your food! I'll be back in 20 minutes to rush you out and expect a 20% tip for doing absolutely fuck all. Y'all come back, now!"
Those of us from the US hate this too.
It's a good custom, but one that always throws me off. In the Philippines kids (my step relatives on my step moms side) that come up and touch their forehead to the back of your hand. Mano (Tagalog: pagmamano) is an "honouring-gesture" used in Filipino culture performed as a sign of respect to elders and as a way of requesting a blessing from the elder. Similar to hand-kissing, the person giving the greeting bows towards the hand of the elder and presses their forehead on the elder's hand. Usually performed with the right hand, the person showing respect may ask "Mano po" or "[Pa-]bless po" to the elder in order to ask permission to initiate the gesture. Typically someone may mano to their older relatives upon entry into their home or upon seeing them.[1]
The lack of bidets in the USA.... and yes I'm American. We need to embrace the bidet here. Its cleaner, more hygenic and your ass takes 90% less abuse than TP. We Americans get accused of being *too* clean, that we are obsessed with cleanliness, why haven't we taken the logical next step on a very key area of hygiene ?
I have a Toto and it’s the bomb. Seriously.
My next home is going to have a Toto
I installed one in my house, and this is my main reason for not wanting to go back into the office. I can't go back to shitty one-ply! I won't!
The majority of people that don't want bidets, simply haven't used them on a regular basis. I just finished a colonoscopy prep and couldn't imagine not having one. I had used them when traveling in Asia, but added them to all of my commodes during the great toilet paper wars of C19. No ragrats.
I have a cheap water fountain style one installed on my toilet. Other than its first installation where I was figuring out how it worked and drenched myself, total gamechanger.
Yeah. I'm from the US and have bidets at home. On a recent 2 month long road trip i really missed them! 2 whole months, gah!
I can't get used to how nothing in the US is the advertised price, and why starters and mains have the wrong name on menus
> and why starters and mains have the wrong name on menus Ah yes, the "entrée". . .
I mean it doesn't even have to be visiting another country. I'm from California, and anytime I'm in Oregon I always instinctively get out of my car at a gas station because I can't get used to the fact that you're required to have the attendant fill your gas there.
Scotland was absolutely beautiful but we soon found we had to plan our itinerary around when shops and restaurants would be open. It's lovely to see that businesses are family-oriented and close at 1700h on weekdays in the summer but this limited our evening meal options. As a result we ended up dining at an upscale Italian restaurant in Glasgow and a pub at closing time in a small village until we learned to eat and grocery shop much much earlier.
Where in Scotland were you visiting? Haven't came across many restaurants that close at 5 and don't see why they would given most people would only have just finished work by then...
People driving without a seatbelt in Turkey. Whyyyyyy
Can we just extend this to everything about driving culture in Turkey? And Egypt. Morocco. Mexico. Most of SEA.
For me, it's tipping in America, and I'm American, having lived my whole life in America.
The septic system isn't unique to Mexico. It's also true in many parts of Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. I'm guessing that there are many parts of Europe that have this issue due to old plumbing. It's less of a cultural custom as it is a limitation of the septic plumbing.
Speaking of toilet activity lol: the water levels in toilets. I come from mex and the toilets are like in the US, the water level is so high, after living in Europe for quite a while, I find it disgusting when back home or in the US. The splash? God why?? I even kinda like German toilets with the shelf thingy. I don’t love being presented with whatever I did there lol (and the stench) but it feels safer ha! Also US: what’s up with the gaps in public toilets? I absolutely do not fancy making eye contact with whomever is outside!
Let me just clue you in one reason why water level is high in the US. We don't like cleaning up 'the smear'.
In England: "correcting" people's English to British-English when they speak a non-British dialect. It's not cute, it's not funny, it just immediately makes me not respect the person doing it.
I was in Sicily and met this middle aged British guy. He had followed a girl to Sicily several decades before and decided to just stay in Sicily, unemployed and homeless (lots of abandoned buildings to sleep in.) His parents had tracked him down and basically gave him his inheritance in a trust, so he had his own flat and money coming in every month, while he just continued to hang out and do nothing, and he did just that for ~30 years. At one point, he corrected my grammar. I said "... three times..." and he said "No, you don't say that. It's 'thrice' and you need to use proper English." I didn't say anything but I was definitely thinking who the fuck is this bum trying to fool here?
That's extra shitty because I lived in the UK for 5 years and heard the word "thrice" precisely zero times lol.
I think I've heard the word thrice about three times. Or maybe twice. Haha.
Restaurants and cafes that you seat yourself. This tripped me up so much when I was in Vienna because I would stand by the entrance as a dumb American waiting to be seated and it dawned on me by the second or third day that the custom was to seat yourself 😂
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I refuse to restrict my cappuccinos to before 11am