When do you stop being surprised?
 

A colleague of mine is going to our UK office for some meetings, and then onto mainland Europe - they've never been to either before.

They were asking me for hints and tips, so I was advising them on the area and mentioned that they need to take a small amount of cash. Mainly for personal things, eg snacks as paying for small items by card in the UK can be difficult, and for using public loos etc. The conversation went like this:

I can take dollars, right?
No, they aren't accepted in the UK. You need some pounds.
Really? I can't use dollars?
No. In the same way I can't spend British pounds here, you can't use US dollars in British shops.
Oh, but I'm going to Europe. I'll just take Euros then.
Well, yes you'll need them for Europe, but you'll still need British pounds in England.
Really? I can't use Euros?
Well, in the odd shop in towns with ports, maybe, but, no the only currency where you are going is Pounds Sterling.
Oh, but I don't understand pence. I dont know what pence coins look like and won't know what I'm paying. Are you sure I can't use dollars?

This is a college educated person working for a multi-national company. I won't bore you with the details at their horror of only getting British tv channels and not US cable in the hotel while they're there, and their relief at having a McDonalds nearby. But really - I thought such attitudes were apocryphal amongst professional type staff. Obviously not!

I'm not sure how much practice it will take for me to master my face and voice into a more professional tone than the one I took today....

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

Makes a change from them thinking it's all foggy and cobbled :lol:

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

I think that many Americans think or assume that Britain uses the Euro. It's been mentioned to me on more than one occasion. That said - assuming you can purchase things in the UK using the American $ is beyond ridiculous!!

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

It's kind of weird. My office is 4 people, me, my boss born in Germany, mother brought her here 40 years ago I think, one colleague local, but Puerto Rican heritage, went to London 20 years ago and still raves about it, and the other has Spanish parents and a Cuban husband. Not a "Yank" amongst us:)

Furthermore, not highly educated, but certainly aware of worldy things like pounds and Euros.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

Hotel porn is hotel porn, so who cares about the local cable channels.

Who actually watches tele in the hotel anyway, other than the weather/news?

Tell him he can get shit faced in a pub and eat at the same time....at lunch....with clients....and it won't be a dirty little perverted thing equal to touching little children.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

Ah, classic Bobisms, and on a Monday too!!

Thanks for the chuckle. :thumbsup: :rofl:

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

For many Americans, their introduction to foreign travel is a trip to Canada or Mexico. It isn't really necessary to change money when visiting tourist destinations in either country, as dollars are widely accepted in both places. Some may presume that this situation is typical elsewhere in the world.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

The wide held belief in the ubiquitousness of the dollar is odd, RoadWarrior partially explains it, I also think it might be because many hear that the world economy runs on the dollar and this gets extrapolated to, everyone takes the dollar.

Shared taxis were the norm when I lived in Korea, I'd often find myself sharing one with an American, when they got out I would sometime find myself forced in to an ad hoc money changer because dollars is all they had, and they did not understand why the driver looked like he was about to punch them.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

On reflection, I think I'm just going to have to keep my mouth shut and avoid these type of situations because I have a terrible poker face....

A few of us are heading to the European meeting, and the company has said outright that they are fine with us extending our stay (and having guests join us) provided we pay our own excess accommodation. No-one in my office is doing it apart from me. None of them have been to this historical city before, but they shrug and ask why they would want to do that.

Now, I know not everyone is interested in travel and some people have family commitments, but if you had an all expenses paid business trip to somewhere interesting, and you were unlikely ever to be back there again, why wouldn't you take even one day to explore?

We're not talking executive level here, this is normal cube and office dwellers. I'm mystified - when we have similar meetings here, European colleagues nearly always take an extra day or so to do something here, and our US colleagues go straight home.

It's the lack of curiosity that gets me, I suppose that's how we end up with people not knowing about currency etc.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

I think a lot of American's work 'frightened' that they may be sacked for daring to take holiday or take an extra day after a trip like that.
Sometimes I do try and take a day or two but sometimes I do just want to get home to my family. It depends on the type of trip to be honest. Some trips I'm on 12 +hrs 7 days a week and those I just want to get home, but put me somewhere interesting and I'll try and make time to see at least a bit.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

To be fair, back in the 80's when I was backpacking in Europe and North Africa I always used to carry some dollars, especially if I wasn't really sure which countries I would be visiting. They were useful in a pinch on a few occasions - far more acceptable than Pounds, especially the further east or south you got. But that was then. Pre-Euro. Backpacking - just one step above living on the street. I cannot imagine going on a business trip and not even knowing what the local currency was. If they haven't even bothered to find that out, what about finiding out any other little local customs that may impact on a business relationship with a foreginer. Maybe a bit nanyish, but in my last job many moons ago, if we booked a trip though the internal travel agent, along with the tickets we used to get a little executive summary of the basics of the country - currency, government, trade, religion, customs, taboos, etiquette etc. Not comprehensive by any means, but could help you avoid pissing off the contact in the first 30 seconds!

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

When my daughter decided to go to uni in Canada...other mums insisted she was going overseas. I tried to explain there was no sea between the US and Canada...that it was in fact the same land mass. In the end I gave up.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

Exactly! NOT understandable or excusable at first glance, BUT 'tis true when you haven't crossed the pond. Also, back in the day when I lived in Germany, on the shopping runs to the "Crystal border" they WANTED dollars, not marks.....

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

The US Department of Defense publishes (or used to publish) little handbooks to foreign countries for service members going overseas. We have a number of them from the 40s and 50s in our Government Document collection here in the library. Here's a quote from the Pocket Guide to French Morocco, published in 1956;

So true!

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

You people deal with some true dumbasses.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

That's the human condition, not specific to America!

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

I went to Italy several times before they changed to the Euro. Except for restaurants and hotels I found that most shops took US dollars. They actually preferred them and I got a better rate when purchasing as well.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

When contacting Expedia a few years ago, I asked about flights to London, and the lady said "That's in France, right?"

She wasn't joking.
She just worked for an international travel company.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

I have had tourists try to pay for their bar and or restaurant bills in Euros. Some of them just couldn't understand why we wouldn't accept them. I have been left tips in Euros as well.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

That's the thing that puzzles me most. I know folk here who don't even have a passport, and have maybe been to one or two neighboring states, but that is as far as they go.

The others that irritate me are the ex-military who profess to know all about Europe because they spent 6 months in Germany once.
On questioning, it usually transpires they never even left the military base, and had no idea there was a foreign country beyond it. Used to see this all the time when visiting friends on USAF bases in East Anglia, they never even changed currency :frown:

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

I live in Manhattan. There are people her who live in the other boroughs (Queens, Brooklyn etc) Who have never even been to Manhattan!

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

They are called barracks rats, however normally their stay in the host nation extends beyond 6 months unless they are TDY. If they don't leave the base then they have no need of exchanging currency....

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

Perhaps they are under the impression that the Great Lakes are part of one vast ocean...

I presume that they did this in order to make it easier to separate tourists and servicemen from their money (which was likely accompanied by a less than optimal exchange rate.)

Not quite the same thing, but in the Aran Islands, I saw tourist shops with large signs advertising their "sweaters" for sale. The Irish don't use that term, but they apparently must get a lot of American tourists who wouldn't be particularly interested in buying a jumper.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

You presumed correctly, and they gave VERY good exchange rates, so.....

:D I still cherish and seldom get to wear the Icelandic sweaters sold by LN vendors in the Netherlands.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

I used to wonder at that too. I just couldn't understand the lack of interest in international travel. We used to travel internationally a lot - from European/US family holidays as kids, through Europe/Africa/Asia backpacking as students and then onto the "comfy years" (pre-kids) of staying in top notch hotels all over the place. Then we got here, and started traveling round the US, and now, apart from trips to see the family, we've traveled very little internationally in the last decade.

There is a lot to see here, and I can see why people don't feel the need to travel abroad, although I still miss it. However, I don't think "there's a lot to do here" is a valid reason for a lot of people, because a lot of the folk I know don't travel at all, even to get to know their own country, or visit family one state over. I don't know if it is lack of time off, lack of finances, lack of interest, or if they are just homebodies. Each to their own. My BIL hadn't seen his sister in 7 years, and she lived next state across:confused: The other BIL had never left his home state till he came to Texas to get married! And now he rarely goes back. He got a passport, did one overseas trip (Taiwan) and declared overseas was crap and he was never doing it again:D

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

There's the CIA FactBook which gives a good basic overview for countries. Here's Canada's entry: https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...k/geos/ca.html

Skipper the Penguin: What continent is this?
Marty the Zebra: Manhattan.
Skipper the Penguin: Hoover Dam! We're still in New York! Abort! Dive! Dive! Dive!

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

Do they know they need a passport?

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

I have to admit my son had a schoolfriend in England whose parents had never been abroad. Apparently they did board a cross-channel ferry once, but took fright when it docked at Calais and stayed on for the trip back.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

Don't feel bad.

I live in Hawaii, and I've had mainlanders ask me if we take American dollars, if we speak English, or if they'd need a passport to visit.

I once got into a phone argument with what felt like the entire sales department of a software company when they refused to sell me encryption software.... because it was non-exportable technology.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

They were probably in the hotel or restaurant business themselves and were getting revenge for all the times Americans wanted to pay them in USD. :D

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

Maybe the company belonged to "birthers". :sneaky:

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

This has probably been discussed many times already on the forum - sorry for bringing it up again! I get that the USA is a huge and varied country, and you can spend all your free time exploring and still not see everything, so many folk never get round to going abroad. Plus I know people too in the UK who are homebodies who have no interest in travel.

My surprise in the OP was mainly because I thought the stereotype of the ill informed USA traveler was a bit of an over-exaggeration. I'm a bit disappointed to find it confirmed TBH.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

A relative of mine worked for a large US multinational that you will of heard of, anyway he went to Paris with two of his American colleagues and they were in a five-star hotel, my relative told me the entire time they were there his colleagues were too scared to go out anywhere except to the meeting they were there for. He couldn't even get them to use the hotel restaurant, they had to have room service. And bear in mind their meeting was with a French govt. agency.

The British can be just as bad though, lost count of the number of British people I've seen stopped in Florida for having an open container in a public place.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

I actually didn't mind being tipped in Euros. It worked out better for me in the end!

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

funny you should mention that, my colleague was asking me whether people would have a go at them because they're American. I'm wondering whether part of that is the general media thing of portraying the world as a scary place and anti-American.

A lot of it is perception - I'd love to visit Mexico but am put off by the stories of increasing numbers of violent attacks on tourists, yet other colleagues have no worries about going there at all and think I'm a worry-guts for being concerned!

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

Oh, a better one than that, I had a "North America" plan on my phone and I asked the company if that covered the Caribbean. What I meant was, did it cover places that used the +1 dialling code, like The Bahamas (242 area code).

So anyway first of all it transpired the person I was talking to had no idea what countries were in North America, other than the US and Canada. Then I realized after he put me "on hold to check" that what he was trying to do is figure out where the country called the "Caribbean" was. He was actually asking around the office, I could hear him asking other people in the cubicles around him.

So I had to explain to him that the Caribbean consisted of different jurisdictions and The Bahamas is considered to be a North American country.

Took me about 20 minutes to establish I couldn't call The Bahamas on my plan. :unsure:

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

..... which is obviously much more of a threat to public safety and order than, say, a pistol? :confused:

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

But at least you do speak English... one of my best friends is Puerto Rican.

OMG, some of the arguments she gets into with people.

"Why do they have Spanish on this product/why is there an option for Spanish on this voicemail menu, etc?"

"Because of Puerto Rico."

"Why do we care about Puerto Rico?"

"Because it's part of the United States."

(Often followed by look of surprise)

"Well they should all speak English."

"What, we should train 4 million people to speak English? Spanish is the native language."

Usually followed by some stupid comment about how they're not really American then.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

To throw in another reversal story, in Britain I had a hard time getting to pay the 'Mediterranean' price for travel insurance for a trip to Syria. I am not sure where they thought it was. This was a travel agent.

Re: When do you stop being surprised?
 

Well I know I feel safer in a town centre in the US on a Friday or Saturday night than in one in the UK, that's for sure. :lol: