What they mean is that French people treat food service people poorly as well. In fact I remember a hidden camera show had a stupid american stereotype order at a French restaurant, and when they revealed themselves the waiter said that typically the worst customers were the French people themselves.
I live in Chicago and love I can be car free in comparison to Texas. I hate there's only a few spots in this country where being car free is a decent option.
Yeah, when I was in college, I lived almost car-free. It was a smallish city of about 80,000, and the campus was relatively close to downtown and had sidewalks the whole way (I think it would take like 40 minutes or so walking). I grew up in car-dependent suburbia (and didn't have a car, so had to bum rides from everyone all the time) and that kind of freedom of movement was so liberating. Plus, I didn't have to pay insurance or car payments or gas on top of it. I eventually did get a car, but even when I had it, I still walked/biked any chance I got.
I don't miss the days of barely being able to afford all the upkeep on a car. public transportation in Chicago is $75 a month and I'll gladly pay that! I should probably bike more too...
if you can handle the winters, its one of best cities out there! so much to do, see, and eat! it can also be as bustling or quiet of a city as you'd like depending on the area.
its wild how many people told me to be careful and strapped at all times when I told them I'm moving to Chicago, but I've felt so much safer walking around in my day-to-day here than Texas lol. The worst were a couple times on the train a weird thing happened (they should be better about monitoring on trains), but overall it's wonderful.
I have a car but I walk to the train system in Boston, a second tier American city, that moves more people a day then Sydney or other alpha world cities.
But some 16 year old in Waco or Warsaw will tell me about the real America without a hint of irony.
Biking is underrated as a way to get around. Now I just need to convince my wife that, if I put a bike lock on my bike outside the grocery store, I can absolutely bike to get groceries. She’s positive that someone will cut the lock and abscond with my bike the second I set foot inside of Trader Joe’s.
Dude, it’s one of the worst part of America. Being forced to drive most places blows. I did live in a city with great public transit, lots of walkable neighborhoods, and great biking lanes, but now I’m on the west coast in a place where driving is the only option. It sucks.
Texas here. I literally can't even leave my neighborhood without a car. So it's literally the only option to get food or....well anything if I wanna leave the house. It blows.
Walkable cities exist in America. NYC is the ultimate, but obviously quite expensive. I've lived here my entire adult life and raised two kids without ever owning a car. This channel talks about transit and walkable ciites in the US and has some data on best places for it.
Like a year ago there was a girl on TikTok who initially started posting about her journey to go be an au pair for an Italian couple and then went viral when she posted her journey ‘escaping’ from the ‘horrible family’ who had taken her on. People went back through her videos at that point and realized that she basically thought being an au pair was a free paid vacation to Italy and also that she hadn’t done anything to prepare herself for living in a foreign country. She was from such a small non-walkable town that one of her earlier videos was talking about how cute she thought Italy was for having ‘little traffic lights for people’ aka cross walk lights.
It was an interesting thing to watch all the way through lmao.
In 2017 I was absolutely amazed at the number of men straight up smoking on the dance floor of a club in Lisbon. I’d never even entertained that thought.
You haven't been to France , because as a Portuguese the difference is astonishing, like it's bad in Portugal but France is insane how normal it is for everyone to do it.
In Spain, between the cigarettes, perfume, and hashish, it's like being perpetually immersed in a thick purple cloud. Going back to the US is like coming up for air
It's not just Europe, I used to teach for years in East Asia and a parent once gave me a pack of ciggies as a social invitation, which I would've thought was weird had I not already had plenty of cigs offered to me at bars when striking up conversation with a local.
I'm not condemning smokers, but it's funny seeing how the younger generation in the US are definitely leaning away from traditional tobacco products in exchange for vapor based products, hemp oil, THC pens, etc. I taught in the US for a brief time and kind of brought up how when I was a high schooler it was kids sneaking off to have a cigarette, and EVERYBODY was like "Eww that's gross."
It's fucking gross tbh. Coming from Australia where smoking is fairly rare, especially in public, europe is like one giant thick smog of smoke, actually insane how much people smoke over there.
As much as I love europe, you guys need to seriously get a handle on smoking, it's truly disgusting and a bane on society in general. Yeah I get not talking shit about other countries, but I just can't get over how progressive europe is on so many fronts but so ass backwards on smoking.
And I truly feel sorry for non-smokers in europe, 2nd hand smoke health hazards are very much real, and they have no choice but to breathe in this toxic shit because people apparently can't contain themselves to not smoke where others are.
Oh yes! I live in Denmark (from the states) and I still haven't found a bar that isn't full of smoke. After a while you just get used to it even if all of your clothes are stinky the next day. -_( '3')_/-
I'm in the US and generally live in a smoke free environment. The first time I entered a casino I was shocked by the smell. It immediately brought me back to my childhood when smoking indoors in the US was still a thing.
Ugggh I HATED that! I mean sure I was a kid in the early 90s and they started cracking down on it, but i grew up with adult smoking with kids in the car.
I still hated the smell, but two years in Europe and now I'm totally used to it 🫠
I like the laws that say you can’t smoke with XX distance if a public entry way. It’s annoying walking into a place here and there’s a small group of smokers huddled right in front. They should be forced to move away from the entrances.
Those don't really amount to much, its like 2-3 meters and the entrance is still covered in smoke if you go by the places people like to go for smoke breaks.
There are Americans who genuinely prefer coffee on its own. Heck my grandfather and father would do that with Folgers, which tastes like burnt carpet and regret. I really like cold-brewed coffee
I always seem to lose weight on vacation. I don’t watch what I eat, end up drinking a lot more while I’m there, but still somehow end up losing weight. All of that walking and stairs up and down from subways and train platforms adds up.
This isn't targeted at you, but a lot of people think they eat more on vacation when they're actually eating less - because they're going to restaurants for specific meals vs. constantly snacking at home.
That can be true. And for me it depends where I’m going. If it’s somewhere where the food is extra palatable like Japan or Mexico I definitely eat more.
IDK about France, but here in the Netherlands it's 70 cents, and you get a voucher for 50 cents that you can spend at most stops in the station so it can be 20 cents if you don't forget about it.
Places you could just walk into, like parks and train station I get, since it costs money to keep them clean, but paying in an airport is wild. You’re basically trapped there once you’re inside, and presumably already paid an airport fee with your ticket.
That said, I went to a restaurant in Amsterdam once that told me I had to pay to use their washroom, after I’d already bought lunch there. It was an ultra touristy place that probably just figured they could gouge people easily, and tbh eating there in the first place was a mistake 😆
Japan is interesting cause they have free public toilets everywhere, like you don’t even need to look for them and they’re shockingly clean. Buuuut they usually don’t have soap.
Same. I somewhat understand where they're coming from, like, to keep a clean restroom there's a price to pay. But if I'm already a paying customer, you can fuck right off with asking me to pay cash (which I haven't really carried with me for ~15 years) to use the restroom.
There was a big campaign in the USA to ban pay toilets. The result was that... the number of public toilets reduced dramatically.
Typically toilets in businesses are still free, it's the ones outside a specific business that tend to go away when they can't get money to fund cleaning and maintenance.
it's something to keep in mind whenever someone shouts "How dare they charge for XYZ!", there's always the option of the service just disappearing and nobody getting it.
Old ladies would "rent" the toilets from big department stores and restaurants etc, sit there all day and collect the money, clean the toilets.
That way they had a activity and a way to have some extra income on their pensions.
So you're not telling a big company to get fucked but a nice old lady 😂
These days the business model is still there but it will be big companies renting every toilet they can and just putting cheap labor in there though
I've seen a few places that have coin opened restrooms here in Denmark, but it's a highly niche thing.
Most times I did see it when I was younger, were vacations in Germany, but that was like, 20 years ago, and I am certain that tourists going there frequently, were a big part of why it happened.
I'm American too so I'm obviously biased, but forcing people to pay to use public restrooms is ridiculous. Especially since so many of the ones I've seen while abroad are coin only.
Fun fact: there used to be pay-restrooms in NYC, but a group of students campaigned to make it illegal to charge for restrooms. They were successful, and now there are hardly any public restrooms in NYC (google says there are a thousand, but I lived there for 5 years and I think I saw 2). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_in_America
That's a government problem. You're suggesting it's because people wanted a better standard of living and caused it to be worse. That is incorrect, you just have a shit government and they took the easy route of just removing public toilets.
Australia has public toilets everywhere, free, and often in pretty good condition. It's abhorrent to me to not have free quality toilet services.
Funny enough, when I did go to Europe and had to use countless paid bathrooms, they were often in worse disrepair than Australian free toilets.
took a day trip to omaha to do some shopping and apparently it's common to have shops and restaurants in one area with no public bathrooms, at least the 8 or so blocks i was walking around in. in iowa, if the building as an oocupancy of over 50 there has to be a bathroom. i had to buy multiple coffees to take a piss throughout the day.
Public restroom as in in a public building, or public restroom in a business?
Must businesses I've gone into in metro areas in the US have signs about bathrooms being for customers only and/ or you need a code or need to be buzzed in.
When I was a kid (60s/70s), pay toilets were a thing. Even today, some of those stand alone self cleaning restrooms ate not free to use.
Going into a restaurant or public building I didn't run into bathrooms like that. But train stations or a park bathroom was where I ran into someone waiting near the door with a tray/box expecting euros.
For real, Europeans smoke too much. Am Australian, living in the EU. Strong national pensions incentivize governments to not give a shit about smoking, I am convinced of this.
My sister got married in Europe and so we were all in Lisbon a few days before the wedding to get acclimated. First full day there at an outdoor cafe getting breakfast, my eight year old cousin was absolutely scandalized that the group of French tourists three tables over were all smoking. She was seriously about to jump up and run over because in her head they must not know about how bad it was for you if they were doing it so she should tell them. We managed to stop her and explain to her that French people just don’t care lol.
okay unironically as the fat kid I would have killed to have been able to study abroad and be able to walk everywhere (my mom didn't even like me crossing the street alone to go visit friends a block away) and you could have fed me dirt as compensation LOL
I hated fast food anyway (eta it always made me sick), wasn't diagnosed with Crohn's yet at that point in my life, so you probably could have literally given me anything
Where in Europe though? France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Scotland, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Slovakia? Go to any of these places, you’re not simply getting jamon and espresso like in other countries.
So many people work so hard to be respectful while they study abroad so they can better learn their studies and the culture. Can we wes top painting an entire country of ~350 million with such broad strokes? It's so depressing
I’ve worked in study abroad for 13 years. 8 of those in the US and after that now abroad in Germany.
I would say the first is accurate for maybe 50% of the students. The second half accurate to 70%.
Though to be honest it’s not exclusive to Americans. Just a bit more loud. Though I’ll say the first slide looks like a 40 year old man and less like a university age student.
Town/Island was full of French tourists desperately looking for some kind of pastry in the morning, and only eating the western breakfast at the ryokan.
The lady at the inn was pleasantly surprised when we stressed we would gladly eat the Japanese breakfast. "You want Japanese breakfast? You sure?" "Yes, it's why we are here"
It's not that there's so much MORE smoking in Europe. The US is actually quite unusual among most countries in that there's relatively little smoking.
Aggressive anti-smoking campaigns, vice taxing, and regulations on marketing made a huge difference here. Everywhere else I've been in Asia, Europe, Central and South America, smoking has been far more prevalent than in the US.
When I worked for a Spanish company in the US, we had many older American colleagues who had long since quit smoking, but unfortunately ended up picking up the habit again thanks to influence from visiting European colleagues.
I'm surprised Europe isn't beating Usa in quitting smoking. It seems like they are a little more accepting of knowledge over there and would all know that smoking is addictive and poisonous.
We have significantly more puritanical beliefs regarding cigarettes, alcohol, etc than other countries. It's one thing to know it's unhealthy - it's another to be judged as immoral.
Travel is a class indicator. Usually only the wealthy can do anything like this, still it's generally in bad tastes to say every American is like this.
After working several grunt jobs in both food service and retail. I eventually just stopped caring. There’s this sort of “customer service” mode i learned to switch on whenever someone gets upitty. Put on a smile, agree with everything they say, and if they get violent, back off and call the manager. That’s how i kept my jobs
Lmao while I was in Germany, I got SO excited that I could just...get to places without a car. When I got back to America, I was used to walking and tried to walk to the store.
2nd slide is me when I discovered a European McDonalds that sold FRESH MACARONS. Like how am I supposed to come back to plain ol' American McDonalds after that :(
"We might not have wine or espresso, but would you like a cup of water?"
"Do I look like I'm MADE of money?!"
Seriously though, nothing gave me culture shock during my trip to Europe quite like learning that it wasn't unusual to pay 2-5€ for a glass of water, and sometimes even more if I wanted just a small bottle of it from a shop. As someone who tries to stay hydrated (lest I get bad headaches), it made up a surprising amount of my budget in the end. Food in general was quite pricey; a restaurant meal that might've cost me $25 (including a tip) back home could easily go for 40€. I think I recall paying ~35€ for two Subway sandwiches for myself and my wife, at one point.
And yes, I knew to ask for tap water, specifically. Still got charged at some establishments, regardless.
Oh, undoubtedly. But we also stayed off and on with people we'd met online before the trip, so it was a mix. Knew we'd be getting the tourist experience, but that's also where a lot of the fun was, too. The trip itself was budgeted with the assumption of seeing all the tacky, popular stuff, with some more down-to-earth locations in between, seen on foot. Spent a whole day in a botanical garden that was downright gorgeous and completely free.
Which country did you go?
Some places pride themselves in milking tourists for every penny.
Italy is really bad when it comes to that, they will keep 2 different menu's with different pricing for tourists and locals.
Some places you only get served by foreign students so they know what it's like to be in a strange country
As an American who studied abroad for a few years in college, I had thought this was largely just a stereotype until around 1997 when I was in a McDonalds in the Hampstead area of London watching an Englishman berating the cashier over a hamburger before storming out and then an American man, who was next in line, berate the same cashier about cola.
The real American coffee thing when you get to Europe “where is the gigantic, strong, iced cup of nuclear coffee fuel”. Europe is a good place to ween off caffeine, ironically since they do of course drink a lot of coffee. It’s just small, and spread out, and fairly weak (ironic because of the stereotype of American coffee, but that is decades out of date at this point).
Also one of the prime American tourists in Europe is the one that unbelievably, desperately, yearns to be mistaken for a local.
And I don’t mean respecting local customs and speaking the local language, etc. I mean scoffing at American tourists wearing “American clothes” and things like that, as if it matters at all. Newsflash: though this will pain you deeply, you are also a tourist.
I’ve always wondered what the local opinion on people like that is.
The same with people who go on mission trips and take jobs from locals and then come back and talk about how no one can understand their life changing experience.
When I went to work in Germany, I didn't mind the walking, but the smoking is absolutely obnoxious. I came to hate smokers who don't respect the desire for others to breathe clean air and just light up wherever. It's one thing when it is your own home or a private area, it's another to light up in a crowded festival or even just a courtyard with kids.
That said, when I came back, I did miss a lot of the amenities Germany had, but I only spent 3 years over there, so it isn't like I became a full-blooded German/European.
On the flip side, having nice internet in America is worth way more to me than most of the niceties in Germany. Fiberoptic in my building and the best a company right down the street could do for me was 16kbps. I had to find another company (1&1) to get 180mbps and even then with the distance I only really got 120. Kinda pathetic for an hour or 2 from Frankfurt, which I know is a pretty major hub for European internet traffic.
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I love how he still never learned not to yell at workers along the way 🤣
Karens are karens, no matter what country they've been living in.
Yes, being a Karen is not unique to America. Americans just do it a little more loudly!
He just never learns lol 😎
On the flip side he did learn that an espresso after a nice dinner is an elite move (y’know, just maybe not McDonald’s)
Talking louder and slower is the best way to transcend language
Maybe make some little hand-gestures, too. Y’know, for added clarity.
Oh of course. Pointing at a map or translation book is optional though
Yeah but he's now slim
But now he's French
If you want to learn patience and tolerance for food service employees, France might not be the best country to do it in.
I had nothing but good experiences in France with food service employees.
(Probably helps that I speak a decent amount of French.)
What they mean is that French people treat food service people poorly as well. In fact I remember a hidden camera show had a stupid american stereotype order at a French restaurant, and when they revealed themselves the waiter said that typically the worst customers were the French people themselves.
Did we expect him to learn that from the French?
He just learned to yell at workers like euros do.
He also did it in the first slide lmao
Awww but I like the walking. I would KILL here in America to not have to use my car.
But seriously though, enjoy the culture while you're there! It's so refreshing to see things done differently
I live in Chicago and love I can be car free in comparison to Texas. I hate there's only a few spots in this country where being car free is a decent option.
Yeah, when I was in college, I lived almost car-free. It was a smallish city of about 80,000, and the campus was relatively close to downtown and had sidewalks the whole way (I think it would take like 40 minutes or so walking). I grew up in car-dependent suburbia (and didn't have a car, so had to bum rides from everyone all the time) and that kind of freedom of movement was so liberating. Plus, I didn't have to pay insurance or car payments or gas on top of it. I eventually did get a car, but even when I had it, I still walked/biked any chance I got.
I don't miss the days of barely being able to afford all the upkeep on a car. public transportation in Chicago is $75 a month and I'll gladly pay that! I should probably bike more too...
It's giving bloomington indiana
Boy would I have stayed if not for the indiana part. But that's still so many college towns, lol.
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I grew up in a rural area, lived in a suburban area, and have now lived in a larger city for >10 years... In my experience:
I feel attacked.
I fucking LOVE Chicago. We've been more than a few times and when I retire I'm definitely moving up into the area
if you can handle the winters, its one of best cities out there! so much to do, see, and eat! it can also be as bustling or quiet of a city as you'd like depending on the area.
And lesser shootings than Texas too 😂
its wild how many people told me to be careful and strapped at all times when I told them I'm moving to Chicago, but I've felt so much safer walking around in my day-to-day here than Texas lol. The worst were a couple times on the train a weird thing happened (they should be better about monitoring on trains), but overall it's wonderful.
Fewer*
I've been car free in the Boston area for 6 years now. Even living one suburb out from the city, our bus network is pretty thorough.
I have a car but I walk to the train system in Boston, a second tier American city, that moves more people a day then Sydney or other alpha world cities.
But some 16 year old in Waco or Warsaw will tell me about the real America without a hint of irony.
I miss living in Chicago and not needing to drive. The days when I could go weeks between driving if I wanted.
Same! Grant it, I still drive to some places but if I don’t have to, walk/public transit. Plus, I don’t have to worry about parking!
We have some cities that try, denver is pretty damn walkable with the trams + bus but my favorite is just tram and bike.
Biking is underrated as a way to get around. Now I just need to convince my wife that, if I put a bike lock on my bike outside the grocery store, I can absolutely bike to get groceries. She’s positive that someone will cut the lock and abscond with my bike the second I set foot inside of Trader Joe’s.
Dude, it’s one of the worst part of America. Being forced to drive most places blows. I did live in a city with great public transit, lots of walkable neighborhoods, and great biking lanes, but now I’m on the west coast in a place where driving is the only option. It sucks.
Texas here. I literally can't even leave my neighborhood without a car. So it's literally the only option to get food or....well anything if I wanna leave the house. It blows.
And the alternative is just not doing anything
Walkable cities exist in America. NYC is the ultimate, but obviously quite expensive. I've lived here my entire adult life and raised two kids without ever owning a car. This channel talks about transit and walkable ciites in the US and has some data on best places for it.
I definitely second that channel. CityNerd definitely does some quality research for his videos!
Agreed! Always nice to explore new cultures! When I went to visit America I loved it ❤️
Thanks for visiting us! I promise it's not all bad.
We are going to London in a few months and I am very excited
London is great! I bet you are gonna have a good time 🙏
If you eat Indian food go to Dishoom. Drink their chai. It’s fantastic.
Like a year ago there was a girl on TikTok who initially started posting about her journey to go be an au pair for an Italian couple and then went viral when she posted her journey ‘escaping’ from the ‘horrible family’ who had taken her on. People went back through her videos at that point and realized that she basically thought being an au pair was a free paid vacation to Italy and also that she hadn’t done anything to prepare herself for living in a foreign country. She was from such a small non-walkable town that one of her earlier videos was talking about how cute she thought Italy was for having ‘little traffic lights for people’ aka cross walk lights.
It was an interesting thing to watch all the way through lmao.
I was able to get away with not driving in the UK until I was 25 and immediately started piling on weight....
My car was broken down for a month and a half. I started walking a lot more around town and taking the bus where I could. It was nice.
Is smoking that popular most of Europe?
In Portugal yeah.
And in France. My god I've never seen so many smokers or had my asthma so aggravated by cigarette smoke than when I visited Paris
Been a while since I've been, but it was prominent in Germany too.
Should be significantly better since 2015 and early 2025, smoking law got significantly updated
In 2017 I was absolutely amazed at the number of men straight up smoking on the dance floor of a club in Lisbon. I’d never even entertained that thought.
I think I don't care to visit Portugal, then. I value my lungs, and cigarette smoke just smells nasty.
You haven't been to France , because as a Portuguese the difference is astonishing, like it's bad in Portugal but France is insane how normal it is for everyone to do it.
Far more then the US at least
I had friends visit the Netherlands recently and commented there were way more smokers than the US.
In Spain, between the cigarettes, perfume, and hashish, it's like being perpetually immersed in a thick purple cloud. Going back to the US is like coming up for air
It's not just Europe, I used to teach for years in East Asia and a parent once gave me a pack of ciggies as a social invitation, which I would've thought was weird had I not already had plenty of cigs offered to me at bars when striking up conversation with a local.
I'm not condemning smokers, but it's funny seeing how the younger generation in the US are definitely leaning away from traditional tobacco products in exchange for vapor based products, hemp oil, THC pens, etc. I taught in the US for a brief time and kind of brought up how when I was a high schooler it was kids sneaking off to have a cigarette, and EVERYBODY was like "Eww that's gross."
It's fucking gross tbh. Coming from Australia where smoking is fairly rare, especially in public, europe is like one giant thick smog of smoke, actually insane how much people smoke over there.
As much as I love europe, you guys need to seriously get a handle on smoking, it's truly disgusting and a bane on society in general. Yeah I get not talking shit about other countries, but I just can't get over how progressive europe is on so many fronts but so ass backwards on smoking.
And I truly feel sorry for non-smokers in europe, 2nd hand smoke health hazards are very much real, and they have no choice but to breathe in this toxic shit because people apparently can't contain themselves to not smoke where others are.
Not in NL, it is banned in public places, restaurants etc.
Oh yes! I live in Denmark (from the states) and I still haven't found a bar that isn't full of smoke. After a while you just get used to it even if all of your clothes are stinky the next day. -_( '3')_/-
I'm in the US and generally live in a smoke free environment. The first time I entered a casino I was shocked by the smell. It immediately brought me back to my childhood when smoking indoors in the US was still a thing.
Ugggh I HATED that! I mean sure I was a kid in the early 90s and they started cracking down on it, but i grew up with adult smoking with kids in the car.
I still hated the smell, but two years in Europe and now I'm totally used to it 🫠
I've been in Spain and Ireland Yes it is insanely popular when compared to the states.
My husband and I lived in Finland for two years and I was surprised at how many more people smoked.
I just visited Dublin, Edinburgh, and York, and yes, every third person is smoking or vaping.
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Really depends on where you live:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/xvgn4d/smoking_rate_in_europe_compared_to_the_us/
Those don't really amount to much, its like 2-3 meters and the entrance is still covered in smoke if you go by the places people like to go for smoke breaks.
Compared to the US? Yes. Compared to pretty much every other place in the world? Definitely not.
Barely anyone smokes here in Sweden anymore, but almost everyone uses snus
Why is the that 35 year old father of three studying abroad?
Never too old to follow your dreams 😎
Based
Look at how much weight he lost. It was obviously incredibly beneficial, at least physically.
He was studying how to annoy service workers in different countries. :P
That's a very hard 35, if that's 35.
Well, at least he lost weight.
Coffee and cigarettes do that
And actually walking.
If coffee made you lose weight, America would be skinny.
Coffee without high fructose corn syrup
Coffee not the coffee flavoured sugar dump starbucks in the US serves
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There are Americans who genuinely prefer coffee on its own. Heck my grandfather and father would do that with Folgers, which tastes like burnt carpet and regret. I really like cold-brewed coffee
I always seem to lose weight on vacation. I don’t watch what I eat, end up drinking a lot more while I’m there, but still somehow end up losing weight. All of that walking and stairs up and down from subways and train platforms adds up.
This isn't targeted at you, but a lot of people think they eat more on vacation when they're actually eating less - because they're going to restaurants for specific meals vs. constantly snacking at home.
That can be true. And for me it depends where I’m going. If it’s somewhere where the food is extra palatable like Japan or Mexico I definitely eat more.
I'm partially guilty in the first one. As an American I refused to pay someone to use the public restroom for the entire trip.
I live in Europe and i haven't pay once in my life to use the restroom. Not sure what places do that but you can burn them to the ground.
It looked pretty common in France, especially in train stations and airports.
I didn't exaclty hate it cause it was a few euro at worst.
A few euro to take a piss is an absolute ripoff
IDK about France, but here in the Netherlands it's 70 cents, and you get a voucher for 50 cents that you can spend at most stops in the station so it can be 20 cents if you don't forget about it.
Places you could just walk into, like parks and train station I get, since it costs money to keep them clean, but paying in an airport is wild. You’re basically trapped there once you’re inside, and presumably already paid an airport fee with your ticket.
That said, I went to a restaurant in Amsterdam once that told me I had to pay to use their washroom, after I’d already bought lunch there. It was an ultra touristy place that probably just figured they could gouge people easily, and tbh eating there in the first place was a mistake 😆
Japan is interesting cause they have free public toilets everywhere, like you don’t even need to look for them and they’re shockingly clean. Buuuut they usually don’t have soap.
It was in France actually. I wasn't a dick about it, just a polite "nah I'm good" and then I searched for a freebie restroom to go Oui in.
Ah your outrage speaks to your true Scottish heritage
But you should have embraced being European and peed in the nearest alley
Usually in train stations and ariports. But between the plenty of free public bathrooms, or just the good ol' "coffee+toilet break 1-in-2"
Maybe Germany. If you want a clean toilet you have to pay for it.
Same. I somewhat understand where they're coming from, like, to keep a clean restroom there's a price to pay. But if I'm already a paying customer, you can fuck right off with asking me to pay cash (which I haven't really carried with me for ~15 years) to use the restroom.
There was a big campaign in the USA to ban pay toilets. The result was that... the number of public toilets reduced dramatically.
Typically toilets in businesses are still free, it's the ones outside a specific business that tend to go away when they can't get money to fund cleaning and maintenance.
it's something to keep in mind whenever someone shouts "How dare they charge for XYZ!", there's always the option of the service just disappearing and nobody getting it.
The way it works here, or at least it used to.
Old ladies would "rent" the toilets from big department stores and restaurants etc, sit there all day and collect the money, clean the toilets. That way they had a activity and a way to have some extra income on their pensions.
So you're not telling a big company to get fucked but a nice old lady 😂
These days the business model is still there but it will be big companies renting every toilet they can and just putting cheap labor in there though
I've seen a few places that have coin opened restrooms here in Denmark, but it's a highly niche thing.
Most times I did see it when I was younger, were vacations in Germany, but that was like, 20 years ago, and I am certain that tourists going there frequently, were a big part of why it happened.
Saint Andrews Scotland bus stop. Never have I needed twenty pence more in my life.
Germany does. At least in bigger cities. Sucks as someone with kidney and bladder issues. 😭
Gas stations on highways
No no, that one's fair.
I'm American too so I'm obviously biased, but forcing people to pay to use public restrooms is ridiculous. Especially since so many of the ones I've seen while abroad are coin only.
Fun fact: there used to be pay-restrooms in NYC, but a group of students campaigned to make it illegal to charge for restrooms. They were successful, and now there are hardly any public restrooms in NYC (google says there are a thousand, but I lived there for 5 years and I think I saw 2).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_in_America
There's an app that shows you where the usable restrooms are now, lol
Yeah I saw that; almost all of them seem to be in businesses though? I assume most of them would want you to buy something
I thought all of NYC was just one big public toilet?
The one in Williamsburg is always nice somehow
That's a government problem. You're suggesting it's because people wanted a better standard of living and caused it to be worse. That is incorrect, you just have a shit government and they took the easy route of just removing public toilets.
Australia has public toilets everywhere, free, and often in pretty good condition. It's abhorrent to me to not have free quality toilet services.
Funny enough, when I did go to Europe and had to use countless paid bathrooms, they were often in worse disrepair than Australian free toilets.
took a day trip to omaha to do some shopping and apparently it's common to have shops and restaurants in one area with no public bathrooms, at least the 8 or so blocks i was walking around in. in iowa, if the building as an oocupancy of over 50 there has to be a bathroom. i had to buy multiple coffees to take a piss throughout the day.
It used to be more common in the U.S. at one point. It's where this rhyme comes from:
"Here I sit, broken hearted. Spent a dime and only farted.
Yesterday, I took a chance. Saved my dime and shit my pants."
the Pay Bathrooms that have sliding doors can be easily opend by just sliding the doors to the side
Public restroom as in in a public building, or public restroom in a business?
Must businesses I've gone into in metro areas in the US have signs about bathrooms being for customers only and/ or you need a code or need to be buzzed in.
When I was a kid (60s/70s), pay toilets were a thing. Even today, some of those stand alone self cleaning restrooms ate not free to use.
EDIT: Added "in the US"
Going into a restaurant or public building I didn't run into bathrooms like that. But train stations or a park bathroom was where I ran into someone waiting near the door with a tray/box expecting euros.
In the last panel he should have asked for a Royale with cheese.
Lightbulb lights up. The long-forgotten movie reference surfaces from the depths of the 90s’ memories…
…but he’s in Spain, where it’s called a quarter-pounder with cheese. I know, I had it yesterday for 5.5€ with a Fanta and fries.
For real, Europeans smoke too much. Am Australian, living in the EU. Strong national pensions incentivize governments to not give a shit about smoking, I am convinced of this.
My sister got married in Europe and so we were all in Lisbon a few days before the wedding to get acclimated. First full day there at an outdoor cafe getting breakfast, my eight year old cousin was absolutely scandalized that the group of French tourists three tables over were all smoking. She was seriously about to jump up and run over because in her head they must not know about how bad it was for you if they were doing it so she should tell them. We managed to stop her and explain to her that French people just don’t care lol.
Okay but the smoking is a valid complaint
Like, are we still in the 1900s? Have some consideration for your fellow man
okay unironically as the fat kid I would have killed to have been able to study abroad and be able to walk everywhere (my mom didn't even like me crossing the street alone to go visit friends a block away) and you could have fed me dirt as compensation LOL
I hated fast food anyway (eta it always made me sick), wasn't diagnosed with Crohn's yet at that point in my life, so you probably could have literally given me anything
America bad, amirite?
Every American kid is fat and eats only McDonald’s, a timeless classic.
Lmao!!! Comedy!!!!
I honestly thought the second pair of pictures was just your average frenchman abroad.
😂😂😂
Where in Europe though? France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Scotland, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Slovakia? Go to any of these places, you’re not simply getting jamon and espresso like in other countries.
I will die on the hill that Europe needs to embrace the automatic glass of ice water.
Edit- while on my soap box, for all the great public infrastructure in many places how about some drinking fountains too?
We have drinking fountains. Just go to a park they're usually there. In italy at least idk about other countries.
We don’t want ice water
Only if you get rid of tipping first.
Not really connected whatsoever but sure.
Wait until the drinking fountains ask for a tip
So many people work so hard to be respectful while they study abroad so they can better learn their studies and the culture. Can we wes top painting an entire country of ~350 million with such broad strokes? It's so depressing
Well, yeah. Those are the kids with money and resources that the more graceful of us do not have.
I low-key love cities built for walking more than driving. Nothing more stressful than trying to drive in some unfamiliar city.
Like, NYC is one of my favorite places to go on vacation (when I can afford it) because of how walkable everything is.
They serve wine in European coffee shops?
Sometimes, yeah. Not at McDo tho...
I got a beer at a mcdonald's in Italy.
After a bit of reaserch, apparently in Italy they can, unlike mot of Europe. Probably a difference in permits.
Generally, yes
For a second I thought the McDonald's worker Transitioned.
I’ve worked in study abroad for 13 years. 8 of those in the US and after that now abroad in Germany.
I would say the first is accurate for maybe 50% of the students. The second half accurate to 70%.
Though to be honest it’s not exclusive to Americans. Just a bit more loud. Though I’ll say the first slide looks like a 40 year old man and less like a university age student.
This is one of the worst Comics I've seen in the entire year. Congratulations
2019 went to Japan,
Visited Miyajima
Town/Island was full of French tourists desperately looking for some kind of pastry in the morning, and only eating the western breakfast at the ryokan.
The lady at the inn was pleasantly surprised when we stressed we would gladly eat the Japanese breakfast. "You want Japanese breakfast? You sure?" "Yes, it's why we are here"
The thing is, McDonald's would have coffee available, maybe not an espresso.
As an American who is friends with many from the EU, Europeans smoke too much.
Your healthcare is better, Eurobros, but you don't NEED to speed up the process to start using it.
I'd love living somewhere where I could walk everywhere and be car free. Driving is the absolute worst.
good for him for losing weight though.
..... why is there so much more smoking over there?
It's not that there's so much MORE smoking in Europe. The US is actually quite unusual among most countries in that there's relatively little smoking.
Aggressive anti-smoking campaigns, vice taxing, and regulations on marketing made a huge difference here. Everywhere else I've been in Asia, Europe, Central and South America, smoking has been far more prevalent than in the US.
When I worked for a Spanish company in the US, we had many older American colleagues who had long since quit smoking, but unfortunately ended up picking up the habit again thanks to influence from visiting European colleagues.
That last part is so sad. It was so hard to quit.
I'm surprised Europe isn't beating Usa in quitting smoking. It seems like they are a little more accepting of knowledge over there and would all know that smoking is addictive and poisonous.
We have significantly more puritanical beliefs regarding cigarettes, alcohol, etc than other countries. It's one thing to know it's unhealthy - it's another to be judged as immoral.
Travel is a class indicator. Usually only the wealthy can do anything like this, still it's generally in bad tastes to say every American is like this.
Too bad r/americabad is mostly dead these days.
Zzzz this is the whole comic? Murica bad?
Maybe it’s just been a while but I could have sworn that American McDonald’s did have espresso?
After working several grunt jobs in both food service and retail. I eventually just stopped caring. There’s this sort of “customer service” mode i learned to switch on whenever someone gets upitty. Put on a smile, agree with everything they say, and if they get violent, back off and call the manager. That’s how i kept my jobs
Lmao while I was in Germany, I got SO excited that I could just...get to places without a car. When I got back to America, I was used to walking and tried to walk to the store.
Yeah that didn't pan out. Sigh.
Not everyone with moobs is fat, lazy, or out of shape. And not every fat guy has moobs. Just saying.
You can totally get an expresso at Mcdonalds
2nd slide is me when I discovered a European McDonalds that sold FRESH MACARONS. Like how am I supposed to come back to plain ol' American McDonalds after that :(
They turn Fr*nch, truly a horrible fate.
Does McCafe not exist in the US?
It's the only real option for coffee at 3am in Australia outside of Petrol stations.
This is just weird and untrue
It could just be the guy's a dick.
What's wrong with hating smoking? It's terrible and disgusting.
"We might not have wine or espresso, but would you like a cup of water?"
"Do I look like I'm MADE of money?!"
Seriously though, nothing gave me culture shock during my trip to Europe quite like learning that it wasn't unusual to pay 2-5€ for a glass of water, and sometimes even more if I wanted just a small bottle of it from a shop. As someone who tries to stay hydrated (lest I get bad headaches), it made up a surprising amount of my budget in the end. Food in general was quite pricey; a restaurant meal that might've cost me $25 (including a tip) back home could easily go for 40€. I think I recall paying ~35€ for two Subway sandwiches for myself and my wife, at one point.
And yes, I knew to ask for tap water, specifically. Still got charged at some establishments, regardless.
Most of Europe it's a legal requirement to provide free water if the premises is licensed to sell alcohol. They can charge if it's iced.
You probably only went to tourist traps.
Also, a bottle of water is like 50 cents in the supermarket including recycling fee, you just keep that with you and refill it throughout the day.
Oh, undoubtedly. But we also stayed off and on with people we'd met online before the trip, so it was a mix. Knew we'd be getting the tourist experience, but that's also where a lot of the fun was, too. The trip itself was budgeted with the assumption of seeing all the tacky, popular stuff, with some more down-to-earth locations in between, seen on foot. Spent a whole day in a botanical garden that was downright gorgeous and completely free.
Which country did you go? Some places pride themselves in milking tourists for every penny. Italy is really bad when it comes to that, they will keep 2 different menu's with different pricing for tourists and locals.
Some places you only get served by foreign students so they know what it's like to be in a strange country
As an American who studied abroad for a few years in college, I had thought this was largely just a stereotype until around 1997 when I was in a McDonalds in the Hampstead area of London watching an Englishman berating the cashier over a hamburger before storming out and then an American man, who was next in line, berate the same cashier about cola.
It is pretty cool to be able to get a beer with your Whopper in Paris...
McDonalds does have an espresso machine though
I'm glad his body is in better shape, good for him. Now if only his behavior followed suit
The real American coffee thing when you get to Europe “where is the gigantic, strong, iced cup of nuclear coffee fuel”. Europe is a good place to ween off caffeine, ironically since they do of course drink a lot of coffee. It’s just small, and spread out, and fairly weak (ironic because of the stereotype of American coffee, but that is decades out of date at this point).
Also one of the prime American tourists in Europe is the one that unbelievably, desperately, yearns to be mistaken for a local.
And I don’t mean respecting local customs and speaking the local language, etc. I mean scoffing at American tourists wearing “American clothes” and things like that, as if it matters at all. Newsflash: though this will pain you deeply, you are also a tourist.
I’ve always wondered what the local opinion on people like that is.
We're Jamon, Jamon, Jamon. I hope you like Jamon too.
The same with people who go on mission trips and take jobs from locals and then come back and talk about how no one can understand their life changing experience.
Why do you want American things when you spend money to not be in America?
Every time I travel internationally I try to enjoy the local food (as much as I can).
Bro nobody on this hemisphere is gonna smoke a pork shoulder better than your uncle using a trash can.
Just eat the pickles and rice
Where the hell do you find cafes serving wines, i live in europe, this has to be a stereotype.
About the espresso though, true, reletable lol
McDonalds does pride itself on serving the same cheeseburger worldwide however.
Does Europe have more smokers? If so I never want to go because I already think the US has too many smokers
Zero chance any American student doesn't jump at the chance to order a royale with cheese
Wait
Is that reference not relevant anymore?
Oh god.
'Merica bad ya ya, the study abroad crowd I was with was the hippy brand compared to this, but I guess everyones experience is different!
this made me really want a croque madame. france is wrong about a lot (as is the usa shhh) but man they do sandwiches so right
Do they not make coffee at Mcdonalds in America? Y'all don't have McCafe?
God this sub sucks so hard
When I went to work in Germany, I didn't mind the walking, but the smoking is absolutely obnoxious. I came to hate smokers who don't respect the desire for others to breathe clean air and just light up wherever. It's one thing when it is your own home or a private area, it's another to light up in a crowded festival or even just a courtyard with kids.
That said, when I came back, I did miss a lot of the amenities Germany had, but I only spent 3 years over there, so it isn't like I became a full-blooded German/European.
On the flip side, having nice internet in America is worth way more to me than most of the niceties in Germany. Fiberoptic in my building and the best a company right down the street could do for me was 16kbps. I had to find another company (1&1) to get 180mbps and even then with the distance I only really got 120. Kinda pathetic for an hour or 2 from Frankfurt, which I know is a pretty major hub for European internet traffic.
damned... he got the french..
He should have used the bidet..