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 trees. They’re big. I frequently pass by Douglas firs that are 100+ feet tall and 6+ feet in diameter. They’re just normal around here, but you realize that isn’t common when you travel to other places and all they have are spindly 30-foot-tall pines or wimpy looking deciduous trees. We have some that are notably big even for this area and are definite tourist attractions, but there are also so many that are objectively massive, but we just overlook them.
Having young men and some women ride public transport in full military get up including their military gun.
I’ve often overheard tourists talking about them with respect or feeling alarmed something crazy is going on. The funniest one, was an older American tourist asking them for directions and talking very, very, very respectfull to them. The scene was just to comical seeing a bunch of boomers being so respectfull towards 18 years olds.
Meanwhile for us here it’s the most normal thing in the world to see a bunch of recruits going home from training or going to their base by train. If anyone feels anything towards them, it’s pity. Because most of them are just there because they have to and not because they want to.
Outsiders are blown away when they see cattle/horses right along the highway and roads.
I’m in Tennessee. The smokey mountains. They are wonderful… But pigeon forge / Sevierville/ Gatlinburg is just a touristy blight now.
There’s much better places to go than there.
Where would you recommend? We visited earlier this year and I found it overwhelming, though the abundance of family-friendly stuff was nice.
Depends on what you want out of your trip.
Townsend on the backside is nice. Cherokee (and has gambling) is nice Any small valley town in the range is going to be fine.
But when I go, I tend to just go for the views and like one day in actual Gatlinburg. I’m from e.tn so the tourist stuff is oldhat for me.
So I’ll go get a cabin in the deep dark woods and just be “off grid” for a bit. But that’s not what everyone does. There’s a lot there to do that’s not spend your money playing games / on trinkets.
Thank you! I’ll be planning my first solo “escape the world” trip either this month or next month (I’m from northern GA) and I’ll probably spend most of my time in a cabin just doing a lot of nothing.
Squirrels
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.
Norwegian fjords. I live here, and to me it’s mundane landscape.
Penguins, the biggest dessert on the planet, snow blindness
Czech beer…
The Henrik Ibsen statue near my home, and also just about all street-facing buildings built before like 1960. People stop to take pictures but I’m just like, people live there. It’s a pretty row of houses, but have some respect. See also, Bryggen.
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.
Deer. They are so common in this area they practically press the walk button to walk across the street. “hi bob. You gonna eat some more grass today. Yup ok. See ya later.”
Gambling
My school was in a village that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site so in the morning there’d be coachloads of Japanese and American tourists unloading and getting their cameras out and I was just trying to not be late for registration.
