Originally Posted by
OccasionalFlyerPerson
Sleeping compartments in night trains in Iran are, unless you specifically book otherwise, mixed gender.
In Poland, cars will stop for you if you're waiting by a pedestrian crossing to cross the road.
Not that many people in Berlin speak English.
Australia is really big. I mean, I thought it was big. I was still surprised to find out how really big it is.
Humous and Falafel may appear to go together, but seem mutually exclusive in much of the world. In Iran there's plenty of falafel, but no hummus. In Poland, there's plenty of humous, albeit of seemingly poor quality, but no falafel. In Paris, some Arab guys selling crepes laughed at me (in a good way) trying to find a place that sells humous falafel wraps.
In Paris, in the late 1990s, I found absolutely loads of flavours of vegan yogurts that weren't even available in the UK.
Cars stopping at pedestrian crossings is the law in New Zealand - probably the same in Poland!
And yes, Aussie is huge. I remember doing a Sydney-Canberra trip. On the map I thought they were next to each other. Not quite. In NZ it's easy to forget you could probably drive the length of the country in less than 24 hours.
Things I've learned
1. Often you can't learn as much about the history of the country as you think because, unsurprisingly, all the museums are in the native tongue... and heaps of the locals don't care about their history either!
2. Croatia (Dalmatia) and Greece (islands) look similar from the sky, have similar weather, similar ingredients, but completely different foods and culture.
3. You can muddle through most of eastern Europe with a generic "Slavish" lingo, until you hit Hungary (non Indo European language)
4. The civilisation level of a country is directly correlated to their queueing etiquette
5. Bakeries in Europe are much more willing to put Nutella (or "Eurocreme") on pastries, which is something bakeries in NZ need to emulate more
6. Everyone who doesn't speak English natively learns English, embarrassing those of us who are largely monolingual (I always feel terrible when some Polish academic can analyse my papers and yet I can barely say "hello")