- In Europe people take dogs on trams, buses and trains, into restaurants and sightseeing. Not just little dogs, but GIANT dogs that could easily bite off your face or swallow a small child whole.
- I thought it was just a stereotype but headscarves really are all the rage for women over 50 in Eastern Europe.
- Public transport, when done right, is amazing. Australia has failed to grasp this fact.
- Trams are super cool
- You have to pay to use the toilets at a staggering amount of places including restaurants (even when you eat there), museums and shopping centers. It usually costs between .30 and .50 euros but the highest we paid was 1.50 per person in Venice. Paid toilets are most prevalent however in Germany.
- It's true: Italian drivers are crazy! Our closest chance of an accident happened on a motorway into Rome when a tiny car merged right in front of us while we were going 70 and they were going 40. Not sure how Matt managed it, but we survived.
- Driving at night in Poland is strongly not recommended.
- Actually, if you can, avoid driving in Poland at all.
- From our experience, Austria has a public holiday every week.
- We didn't see any of Maria's Favourite things in Austria.
- The French are mad for italics. They love using it for street signs. Ironically the Italians do not.
- You're phone company sends you a friendly SMS when you enter a new country.
- every country has weird names for other countries and cities. We call Deutschland Germany, the French call it Allegmange. Why don't we just use the original name?
- In some countries (Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic) you have to buy a sticker for your car to drive on the motorway called a Vignette.
- Other countries, like France, Spain and Italy, use tolls.
- Germany has the best roads but you don't have to pay tolls or buy a vignette. And the speed limit on autobahns is unlimited. The max our van would go however was 140km/hr
- no food in Germany comes with salad on the side
- French aires and German stellplatzes are dotted all over the country and are a great cheap place to stay.
- Cheaper take away places or kiosks usually only sell sandwiches, wraps, pastries, pretzels, burgers, kebabs, pizza or any other gluten containing food you can think of.
- Being gluten intolerant usually means you can't eat cheaply for lunch and usually have to have a sit down meal in a cafe or restaurant.
- the only language you really need to brush up on if you're going to Europe is French. You can get by with English pretty much anywhere else, but the French will only speak to you in English if you start the conversation in French.
- Internet cafes pretty much don't exist anymore
- McDonalds are wonderful for tourists. They have free wifi (sometimes even accessible without entering) and clean toilets (which are usually free).
- Several service stations still have attendants and subsequently the fuel is about 5c/L more expensive. Not knowing the language means you can't tell them to stop, no matter how hard you try.
- A lot of the newspapers have large pictures of naked women on them, sometimes on the front page.
- There are cigarette vending machines everywhere
- Nine out of ten songs on the radio in Europe are in English, even if it isn't the singer's first language. In France though they must have a certain quota of songs in French.
Rachel and Matt
No comments:
Post a Comment