I’ve only been abroad one time, and there were little gecko/lizard things everywhere, climbing up walls and scurrying across roads, and nobody cared. I was constantly fascinated but to the locals they’re just kinda there.
Bonus question to anyone who visited the UK - was there anything that fascinated you but I’d be taking for granted?
Pic unrelated.
The Autobahn.
I live in the US northeast coast in a touristy area. People have been surprised to see: white beach sand, seashells, docks, boats, seagulls, deer, opossums. I could go on. I get most people don’t live coastal, so none of these reactions surprised me except the white sand one. Apparently a lot of lakes in the mainland just have dirt at their shores. Never would’ve guessed.
Not my country, but something that fascinated me in Greece. Greece is a land of honey…and marble rock. Beautiful, swirling, sparkly rock in all different shades. It is so terribly abundant that they use marble in place of concrete.
To the Greeks, it is normal to use marble literally everywhere. They disrespect the beautiful stone, turning it into a curb on the street & slathering it in yellow paint. I saw a yellow curb that was cracked open - exposing the glittering marble rock inside. I found it so funny & sad that I took a picture. We love marble, we think it’s so decadent & fancy, it’s flooring in the finest hotels, businesses, and homes. These people just use marble everywhere; it’s just a rock to them. 😆
It really puts things into perspective.
Marble is expensive in places where there isn’t already a lot of it simply because it’s HEAVY.
Climate stuff comes to mind. Big storms, it being sunny almost all the time, and -30C. There’s other climates that are similar, of course, but I guess most people don’t live in them, because visitors remark on it. Europeans tend to be gobsmacked by the amount of empty space there is between human structures, too.
A lot of pests people think are everywhere are just nowhere to be seen because of the cold. That’s more something that’s missing, though.
Free healthcare and French labeling, for the Americans. I’m not sure if they think the money is cool or just stupid.
Québec? Quelle partie?
Squirrels
The sun.
-Gem show
-Rodeo week
I personally couldn’t be bothered for either, but it’s cool that people like them.
Yes I understand the irony that “Horsey” doesn’t like rodeos, lol. Eventing in the horse world is just too damn expensive for me to want to compete.
The Redlight district. Every city has/had them and for us it’s just normal. As a kid I had to pass some of those windows to get to school.
Czech beer…
And cathedrals/castles. I was in a tourist group, thinking “Can we move on? I can see two peak Gothic sites from my house roof.”
P-U!
Norwegian fjords. I live here, and to me it’s mundane landscape.
Aaaah 🤯
Must be nice taking that beautiful scenery in for granted
The Bob Ross caliber view of the Rocky Mountains should be the answer, but tourists always go for the big stupid churches that just look like every other big stupid church.
Niagara Falls. It’s spectacular to visitors but for me it’s right there so it’s just a bunch of water falling off a ledge.
I find the old and historical buildings in the center of other countries’ cities very fascinating. I live in a city where all the old buildings were demolished to build newer style ones, so I don’t see a lot of them in my everyday life.
For some reason, Japanese tourists go nuts for PEI. Now I’ve nothing against PEI, it’s a nice enough province in the beautiful maritimes. Good potatoes.
But I don’t think it deserves THAT much hype.
It’s an island of farms. The economic and demographic statistics are predictably dire given that, too.
You get to vote 3 times, though.
I’ve heard that! Anne of Green Gables is big there too for a weird reason. There’s an anime airing right now, even.
We went to the mostly abandoned Anne of Green Gables theme park in Hokkaido, Canadian World, a couple months ago.
The translation of the book was done particularly well, I think. It was prescribed in schools. And the setting was attractive to those stuck in big cities.
My Polish wife was thrilled to see fireflies in Kentucky.
I haven’t seen fireflies in YEARS, but I was recently in Astoria, Queens, NYC, and there were fireflies all over the place! NYC would have been the last place I would have expected to see them.
I heard that there was a firefly boom this year, I can’t remember the cause though. It sure is nice though, reminds me of when I was a kid.
That’s so sad, there was such a small number in my area :(
