I've been abroad a few times, but pointing out all the random differences between North America and Europe never ceases to provide endless entertainment for my friends and me on a trip. So yet again, on a recent trip hopping around a few European countries, we gathered a list of all the funny differences for our fellow Canadians to relate to.
For simplicity's sake, we're talking generally here. These are some differences I've noticed that are common across the places I've been to. While each country and region has its own customs and norms, here are some things you'll also probably notice on your next trip abroad.
The bathroom situation
Depending on the country you go to, Europe has pros and cons when it comes to bathrooms.
Public restroom access? In general, a con.
Bidets? There's some debate.
Floor-to-ceiling-enclosed rooms to use the toilet in? Please take notes, Canada.
Obviously, I, as a Canadian, have experienced bathrooms with privacy in my country, but let me tell you, it's basically reserved for fancy restaurants and your own home.
When it comes to public washrooms in airports, transit stations, stores, gyms, etc., you're far too likely to make accidental eye contact with someone through the gap in the door. It's like Canada has a colossal shortage of the material used for privacy partitions — constructing them to cover as little as possible without actually having to see anything completely inappropriate (to note, that doesn't protect you against sound).
Every bathroom I entered on my recent trip was a room in itself. There was then a separate room where people could wash their hands and use a mirror, but (amazingly) you are left to do your business alone.
Buying fruit is not for the faint of heart
Sometimes you're tired of eating out for every meal while travelling, and you just want a simple bite at your stay. Grocery shopping is all fine and dandy (actually, often a highlight, when you can discover new snacks) until you approach the produce section.
In Canada, they weigh your fruit at checkout, but in many spots I've been to in Europe, it's on you to do it at a station near the fruit section and get a sticker for it. Honestly, it makes a lot of sense, but when I come face-to-face with that sticker-printing machine, and I'm using Google Translate to decode the instructions while a line forms behind me, morale gets low.
Or worse, when you forget and you get to the checkout without a sticker in hand. Cue the laughing.
And neither is unlocking a door
It seems like each Airbnb I stay at while travelling has some unique locking system I've never encountered before.
A few required not one, not two, but three turns of the key. Some need you to pull the handle up first before turning. One of them was a sort of automatic contraption where you just insert the key, and it turns itself.
Don't get me started on trying to open sliding doors — which actually don't require a key but maybe do require magic — because I can't tell you how to do it.
This is another one I'm sure is better than our version in some way or another, but still, it never doesn't confuse me.
Our transit sucks
This is more a cultural realization than a shock, but it still has to be said.
I've lived in multiple Canadian cities. I've travelled to all of our major ones. The public transit options in every single European city I have been to are miles ahead of anything we have.
They are more timely, more useful, easier to navigate and actually convenient to use. My favourite so far has been Copenhagen's, which made it seamless enough to get around the city that I didn't open my Uber app once (for me, that's a big deal). Montreal could never.
But we do have dryers
Again, setting aside the fact that it probably does make more sense (energy efficiency is not our strong suit), the lack of dryers is hard for a Canadian abroad. It just is.
Wet clothes were perpetually strung up throughout our Airbnbs. I'm talking socks on every available drawer handle, towels on chair backs, and sweatpants hanging down off curtain rods. Yet still, nothing ever really dried completely.
And iced coffee
I mean, they have iced coffee too. But most of the time, ordering one will come with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. When it's 9 a.m. and you forget that this is a thing, it does come as a shock (although a delicious one).
Honourable mention: The currency exchange
This isn't an official point on the list (because I'm trying not to be that obvious), but an honourable mention to the biggest shock of all: the conversion of CAD to Euros.
It shouldn't come as a surprise (we all hopefully have some idea of our economic situation), but yet it's so easy to forget when you're on the beaches of Italy. I'm sorry to say it, but that €20 sandwich you grabbed for lunch? That actually cost you $32.
There you have it — my most up-to-date list of the funny differences that never get old for us Canadians to point out while travelling abroad, and that Europeans are probably incredibly tired of hearing by now.
As much as I love to go away, there's something comforting about coming home to doors that swing open unencumbered by secure locking systems, a sh*tty bus route that will undoubtedly make you late for work, and plugging in a Revlon brush without it exploding.
It's the little things, right?
