when i travel aboard, besides the language, culture, currency, history, etc, there are little things that are so different or you don’t see in america that make the feeling of being outside of the country more poignant and fun or funny depending on what it is.

in regard to my latest trip to finland, estonia, latvia, and lithuania, i maintained a list of little things that were different or things you never see in america. without a bunch more blah blah, here is the list.

- in estonia especially, before the traffic light turns green, the light shows yellow and red at the same time.

- the toilet has two buttons. one for #1 and another for #2. basically, the smaller button fills the basin with a little water, the bigger one flushes with much more water. cool system to conserve resources.

- telephone booths like the ones superman would change in, like ones you see in London. i don’t recall seeing the pay phone stand style that we have in new york.

- almost all the traffic signs are symbol based. barely any words are used. guess it is due to having a multi-lingual society.

- on the same thread of traffic signs, when you enter the city limits, there is a sign with a silhouette of a city skyline. when you leave the city, the city skyline sign has a big red diagonal through it. the same applies to names of towns. there is a sign with the town you are entering and below is the name of the town you are leaving with a big red diagonal through it. quite funny.

- you see different makes of cars such as citroen, morgan (picture of the silver car is the morgan. i was shocked when i saw it. i didn’t even know this one existed, and it is HOT!), lata and a whole bunch more of european cars such as alfa romeo and peugeot

- taxis are now BMWs, Mercedes, Volvo, Audi. taxis are more expensive is basically why.

- cashiers put your change on a little tray in front of you instead of in your hand. sometimes they hand it to you, but 99% of the time, it goes in the tray, along with the receipt.
- all bars have coffee and espresso machines. such a great idea. john had his cappuccino and i had my beer.
- i had to pay for ketchup!!! And a plastic grocery bag!!!!
- unisex toilets – one door opens into a room with sinks and several more doors leading to toilets. men and women are in the common room.
- many accordian, flute, and saxophone musicians playing various tunes. the saxophone and flute players kept playing the pink panther theme over and over again. da-dum, da-dum, da-dum-da-dum-da-dum, daaaa-dum …
- the countries were a homogeneous white society. rarely did we see an asian or african.
- gated and not gated tunnels through buildings leading to the parking lot or a courtyard or to another street.

- two dollar coins
- on the chairs outside on the terraces of most coffee shops and bars were blankets people could use while sitting outside.
- this one wasn’t constant, but became so common that it ended up on the list. restaurants had napkins on the table, but they were tiny cocktail napkins. rarely would you get the large napkins that we are used to in the states.
- instead of a store posting sale of 50% off, they would post -50% in the windows.
- stores post operational hours in international time.
- stores don’t post abbreviated days when they are open or closed, instead they post a clever way of showing when they are open. i saw a store that had the numbers 1-7 with the times next to the number. another store had a strip with seven squares where opaque squares meant open and transparent squares meant closed (at least that’s what i deduced since a store would be open more than closed, right?). i thought it was pretty cool way to use symbols and numbers for a multi-lingual environment.

ok, that’s it. pretty neat, huh? anyways, i am fully aware that these things exist in other places in a more global sense. i regret not maintaining a list such as this when i was in thailand. there was a ton of little things from the toilet system (flush bucket) to the way the food is delivered to your table as it is ready instead of waiting for all the dishes for the table to be ready.