Depending where you're from and what country you're visiting, normal conversational volume may feel like a whisper. I remember a short car journey with my wife and two other fellow Americans in Yorkshire. We chatted for a moment, whereupon I asked "why are we whispering?" We had all unconsciously adopted the British convention of the time: that it's rude to speak loudly in public. We all felt like we could stretch out in conversational comfort when we started speaking at a normal American sound level.

Years later, though ten years ago now, I remember repeatedly gesturing to my nearly-sixteen-year-old son and his friend to lower their voices during a stay in France. Their typically boisterous American teen voices were obnoxiously loud by French standards.