What in your country/area is totally normal but visitors get excited for?
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I've eaten armadillo (yes, it tastes like chicken). This was before I found out they can apparently spread leprosy to humans.
same, but I already knew
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Raccoons.
The tourists visiting Mount Royal park in Montréal are often charmed by the raccoons. Enough so that they feed them and some even let the raccoons climb on them. The city tries to warn people but they obviously ignore the signs. So now we have gangs of raccoons begging for food near the two most popular view points.
I go camping in provincial parks and the same seems to happen there. It's obviously also locals doing this but, people feed the raccoons, they come back, they harass you for food, they can carry rabies, and it's annoying as hell. I watch people hiking and camping in other countries, like the UK, and I'm constantly jealous that they can keep their food and cook near their tents. Doing this here will result in frequent annoying visits from raccoons (if not bigger animals).
Rabies. Once symptoms appear, the result is virtually always death.[1] The time period between contracting the disease and the start of symptoms is usually one to three months but can vary from less than one week to more than one year.[1]
Symptoms can include:
anxiety seizures confusion hyperactivity hallucinations strange behaviour and general agitation fear of water (hydrophobia) fear of fresh air or drafts of air (aerophobia)Once symptoms appear it's too late, you are fucked
I hate Trash Pandas. But at least in the West Coast of NA I don't have to worry about fucking the rabies. That shit scares the ever living shit out of me.
Exceptionally rare case below but still, holy fucking NOPE
Rabies with an incubation period of 19 years and 6 months.
G Iurasog, A Rosenberg, N Opreanu
A woman was bitten on the leg by a rabid dog in September 1945 and was admitted to hospital for antibiotic treatment, details of which were not available. In March 1965 she developed rabies, which began with pains at the site of the original bite. At autopsy no Negri bodies could be found, but there were inclusions in the cytoplasm and nuclei of the neurones of the diencephalon, glial cells and vascular endothelium. Rabies developed in rabbits inoculated with autopsy material. No history of a more recent animal bite could be obtained, and there was no rabies in the latter place of residence of the patient. The authors therefore conclude that this was a case of rabies with an incubation period of 19 years and 6 months. D. J. Bauer.
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Damn, that's an old church, I know there are a few still standing from around the Norman conquest
wrote last edited by [email protected]to be fair it wasn't the complete church, it was rebuilt in part in the mid 1700s
<Edit> it looks like the church is mostly intact from the very early 1300's (first vicar 1309) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Cuthbert's_Church,_Darlington.
NZ was first settled about (current data) 1320-1350 (the earliest date that I've seen is about 1280)
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I live in the US northeast coast in a touristy area. People have been surprised to see: white beach sand, seashells, docks, boats, seagulls, deer, opossums. I could go on. I get most people don’t live coastal, so none of these reactions surprised me except the white sand one. Apparently a lot of lakes in the mainland just have dirt at their shores. Never would’ve guessed.
I'm down the shore right now, and holiday weekends especially bring out folks who may not come often, and one thing that certainly grinds my gears is seeing someone feeding seagulls, or parents watching their kids doing it and not stopping them. I have a fairly strict don't feed wildlife anywhere, ever, policy, but seagulls especially are an issue. Like, they're like this because asshats have fed them for so long, and now I need to guard my sandwich.
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to be fair it wasn't the complete church, it was rebuilt in part in the mid 1700s
<Edit> it looks like the church is mostly intact from the very early 1300's (first vicar 1309) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Cuthbert's_Church,_Darlington.
NZ was first settled about (current data) 1320-1350 (the earliest date that I've seen is about 1280)
Still, something that old, is always special to behold
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Hot air balloons. I see them in the sky most mornings when I go for a walk, weather permitting.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Where are you located? I thought hot air balloons are really rare these days, like less than 200 in the world
Or am I thinking of blimps?
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I've only been abroad one time, and there were little gecko/lizard things everywhere, climbing up walls and scurrying across roads, and nobody cared. I was constantly fascinated but to the locals they're just kinda there.
Bonus question to anyone who visited the UK - was there anything that fascinated you but I'd be taking for granted?
Pic unrelated.
School mass shootings. For some reason the rest of the world loses their minds over them.
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Raccoons.
The tourists visiting Mount Royal park in Montréal are often charmed by the raccoons. Enough so that they feed them and some even let the raccoons climb on them. The city tries to warn people but they obviously ignore the signs. So now we have gangs of raccoons begging for food near the two most popular view points.
I go camping in provincial parks and the same seems to happen there. It's obviously also locals doing this but, people feed the raccoons, they come back, they harass you for food, they can carry rabies, and it's annoying as hell. I watch people hiking and camping in other countries, like the UK, and I'm constantly jealous that they can keep their food and cook near their tents. Doing this here will result in frequent annoying visits from raccoons (if not bigger animals).
I've seen raccoons and white tail deer in a zoo in Mexico. They are both nuisance animals in the PNW. But then again I loved watching Mexican racoons everywhere (coati). Guess we all like seeing new and different animals.
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I live in the US northeast coast in a touristy area. People have been surprised to see: white beach sand, seashells, docks, boats, seagulls, deer, opossums. I could go on. I get most people don’t live coastal, so none of these reactions surprised me except the white sand one. Apparently a lot of lakes in the mainland just have dirt at their shores. Never would’ve guessed.
People that live in former glacial areas don't realize the difference if you don't. They made a lot of sand and lakes.
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Haha I backpack/camp, too, and have seen that experience firsthand as well.
Felt bad about purposefully letting her sweat a bit as the sun went down and I started a fire. At the same time I tried to tell her that merely speaking out loud would run off any animals larger than a lizard.
Later, she tried to throw me under the bus with my wife. Now I wish I had tortured her for real!
"Yeah... We're gonna have to spend another hour here. I'm waiting to see that panther that was here last week."
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School mass shootings. For some reason the rest of the world loses their minds over them.
It's the high concentration of Likes and Prayers.
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Don't forget cicadas!
Nothing new to me, but I was in Nashville for the Great Cicada Apocalypse of '24. My god. I have never experienced anything like that in my life.
Not only were they deafening, they we're spazzing around, sticking to your clothes, corpses everywhere. LOL, my office swept the bodies out every night. Birds were having a feast!
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I've only been abroad one time, and there were little gecko/lizard things everywhere, climbing up walls and scurrying across roads, and nobody cared. I was constantly fascinated but to the locals they're just kinda there.
Bonus question to anyone who visited the UK - was there anything that fascinated you but I'd be taking for granted?
Pic unrelated.
Montreal. I don't understand the people that excitedly wait for the metro to arrive and take pictures. It's a subway.
People that take panoramic shots of downtown of people walking on the sidewalk.
I guess some tourists come from places with no rail or sidewalks.
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I'm lucky enough that I see these little guys on a regular basis.
The first time I went to London, the size of the Ravens caught me off guard. I couldn't get enough of seeing those things. We only really see Grackles in South Texas that regularly and they're half the size, so I'm sure I was the weird bird guy that day to many people.
Grackles being half the size is a bit of an understate, a common grackle tops out at about 5 oz & 13" with a wingspan up to 18". A raven's common size, on the larger end, is 4½ lbs & 28" with a 60" wingspan.
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Norwegian fjords. I live here, and to me it's mundane landscape.
Slartibartfast won an award for those.
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Squirrels
Awww. As a kiwi (no squirrels here) I can confirm.
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I've only been abroad one time, and there were little gecko/lizard things everywhere, climbing up walls and scurrying across roads, and nobody cared. I was constantly fascinated but to the locals they're just kinda there.
Bonus question to anyone who visited the UK - was there anything that fascinated you but I'd be taking for granted?
Pic unrelated.
So I do Uber in a small town tourist trap in a very red state. Convention center has a gun show what seems like every other month. I picked up some people from another country at the hotel next to the convention center on one of these all too common days. A dude was in the cross walk with some kinda hunting rifle on his back, and they immediately started trying to take pictures. Granted I have never seen the dude at McDonald's/Baskin Robbins with an AR strap to himself and two other pistols on his hip, so this city is at least that civilized.
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I've only been abroad one time, and there were little gecko/lizard things everywhere, climbing up walls and scurrying across roads, and nobody cared. I was constantly fascinated but to the locals they're just kinda there.
Bonus question to anyone who visited the UK - was there anything that fascinated you but I'd be taking for granted?
Pic unrelated.
When I lived in the US, I lived in cities on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. People who weren't used to river traffic would get excited about riverboats and barges.
And people from other climates always got excited about snow. Even the slightest flurries were cause for celebration.
Now I live in the Andes, and the exciting things here that the locals take for granted (or even count as nuisances) are the volcanoes. I can see one from my apartment. Four years in, and I still admire it every day.
In the UK, the thing I thought was fascinating was just the sheer amount of history literally everywhere. Like, 2000-year-old stone monuments in people's sheep pastures. It made me understand how extraordinarily young my native country and my current home country both are.
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It's the high concentration of Likes and Prayers.
I knew god was personally responsible for the few thousand children killed every year by gun violence!
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Montreal. I don't understand the people that excitedly wait for the metro to arrive and take pictures. It's a subway.
People that take panoramic shots of downtown of people walking on the sidewalk.
I guess some tourists come from places with no rail or sidewalks.
As someone who has never ridden a train (unless you count the thing they use to get around the Atlanta airport or the slow ones at a theme park or zoo), I wouldn't be shocked if I ended up doing something similar. I just think trains are neat and would love to ride one someday.
