Things in Other Countries Americans Find Ridiculous Compared to US

Things in Other Countries Americans Find Ridiculous Compared to US

Browse more guides: United States travel | Americas destinations

Things in Other Countries Americans Find Ridiculous Compared to US

Last updated: April 2026 · 12 min read

I'm American. I lived in Europe for two years, spent a long stint in Asia, and I've been to roughly thirty countries on a US passport with a US wallet and a US set of expectations. Plus plus plus the first three weeks of every long trip, my brain throws the same little tantrum: "Wait, that costs HOW much? Where's the rest of my drink? Why is the bathroom locked?" Then around week four, I stop noticing.

This list is for the first three weeks. So it's the stuff that genuinely surprises American visitors abroad . Not the food, not the architecture, not the language. The everyday small things. Refrigerators. Coffee. Toilets. The plastic mechanics of daily life that we never think about until we're standing in a German Edeka on a Sunday wondering why the lights are off.

I've tried to keep this honest in both directions. But some of these things are objectively annoying when you're tired and thirsty. Some of them are quietly better than what we do at home. Most are just different.

TL;DR: The five most jarring things for first-time American travelers are tiny portions, paid public bathrooms, no air conditioning, no free refills, and sales tax already included in the price. The single biggest tip: don't fight any of it. You're there for two weeks. Drink less soda, pay the half-euro for the toilet, sweat a little, and you'll have a much better time than the American at the next table demanding ice and a manager.

Why this list exists (it's not a complaint)

I want to be careful here because "things Americans find weird abroad" lists usually slide into one of two ditches. But but one ditch is the smug American who thinks 32-ounce sodas and central air are the pinnacle of human civilization. The other ditch is the smug American who's been in Berlin for six months and now sneers at anyone who asks for ice water.

I'm aiming for the middle. These differences are real. But but they genuinely throw people off. And most of them have boring, sensible reasons behind them , energy costs, building age, labor laws, tax structure, climate, history. Once you know why a thing is the way it's, it stops feeling like an attack on your way of life and starts feeling like a different solution to the same problem.

The list below is ordered roughly by how often I've watched American friends visibly malfunction in real time. Plus plus your mileage will vary. If you're a tea drinker who hates ice and walks everywhere, you'll barely notice half of this. If you're a Texan who orders a Big Gulp with breakfast, brace yourself.

#1 Tiny portions vs US giant plates

The portion thing is the one nobody can prepare you for in advance. You read about it. You think you understand. Then your "large soda" arrives in Bordeaux and it's a 25cl bottle , about 8 ounces, roughly a third of what an American gas station calls a small , and it costs about the same as a 32-ounce refillable cup at a US diner. You stare at it. You wonder if there's been a mistake.

Same story with pasta plates in Italy (the primo is a portion, not a meal), curry rice in Tokyo (the small is small), pints in Paris (the demi is half a US pint), fries everywhere. A small fries at a Tokyo McDonald's is genuinely smaller than a small fries at a US McDonald's. Same brand. Plus same logo. Different planet.

The fix isn't to order three of everything. Plus plus the fix is to eat the way locals eat: smaller individual portions, more courses, longer meal, less rush. You'll leave the table satisfied. You'll also realize about ten days in that you feel weirdly better than you do at home, and that this isn't a coincidence.

#2 Paid public bathrooms (€0.50-€1)

In most of continental Europe, using a public bathroom , at a train station, a highway rest stop, sometimes a department store . Costs between fifty cents and a euro. And there's a turnstile. There's an attendant. Sometimes there's a little dish for coins. The first time it happens to you in Munich Hauptbahnhof when you really, really need to go and you only have a card, it feels personal.

It isn't. The math is simple: someone has to clean the bathroom, and in countries where labor is well-paid and unionized, that someone gets paid by you instead of by a department store absorbing the cost. And the bathrooms are also, almost without exception, cleaner than the free ones in a US gas station. You pay, you get a tiled, mopped, stocked stall. And you don't pay, you get. well, you've seen American interstate rest stops.

Carry coins. Plus always carry coins. Especially on travel days. Plus cafes are usually a workaround , buy an espresso for €1.20 and the bathroom comes with it . But only if the cafe is open and you've time to sit down.

#3 No air conditioning (Europe especially)

Most European apartments don't have air conditioning. A lot of European hotels in the mid-range don't either, or they have a single weak unit per room that struggles in a real heat wave. Restaurants often rely on open doors and fans. Plus the London tube has, famously, almost none.

This isn't a conspiracy against Americans. European electricity is two to four times the price of US electricity, buildings are old and built to hold heat in winter rather than expel it in summer, and historically European summers were milder than American ones. Plus those last two are changing fast , recent summers have been brutal, and AC is creeping in . But the building stock takes decades to catch up.

If you're traveling in Europe in July or August, three rules. One, splurge on a hotel that explicitly lists air conditioning, not "fan." Two, close the shutters during the day like locals do . The slatted wooden things on the windows aren't decorative, they're how the room stays cool. Three, eat dinner late and outside. But but plus the 9 pm restaurant slot exists for a reason.

#4 No free refills on drinks

In the US, a soda or iced tea at a sit-down restaurant comes with infinite refills, often delivered by a waiter who notices your glass is half-empty before you do. But in Europe and Asia, you order one drink. You drink that drink. You order another drink, which costs more money. There's no brown-tray miracle.

This applies to fountain soda, iced tea, coffee at most cafes, and yes, water. Tap water is sometimes free (France, often, by law), sometimes not (Italy, almost never , you'll get a bottle of still or sparkling and pay €1-3 for it). But at a Milan trattoria, water service is a line item, and asking pointedly for "tap water" can range from totally fine to mildly irritating to the staff depending on the city and the price of the restaurant.

I've watched American tourists genuinely upset by this. The thing to understand is that the price is built into the menu math. Plus but a €4 glass of wine in Italy is cheap because the restaurant isn't subsidizing your fourteen Diet Coke refills. You're paying for what you actually drink.

#5 Sales tax baked into the price

The sticker price is the price you pay. Plus full stop. €5 on the menu means €5 out of your wallet. €12.50 on the price tag means €12.50 at the register. But there's no "and then a fee gets added at checkout."

For Americans this is genuinely disorienting because we've been trained to do a small mental math problem at every transaction . Sticker plus state plus local plus sometimes city plus sometimes a fee. A $5 item in Chicago becomes about $5.55. And but a $5 item in Portland Oregon stays $5. Plus a $5 item in Berlin or Tokyo or Seoul stays $5 in the local currency, every time, no exceptions.

The reason is VAT, which is included in displayed prices by law in the EU and by convention in most of Asia. Whether VAT-inclusive pricing is "better" is a real economic argument I'll skip. But and as a traveler it's just easier. You always know what you're paying. You can budget exactly. The receipt shows the tax breakdown for your own information, not as a final-step surprise.

#6 Tiny refrigerators and smaller grocery stores

Walk into an Italian apartment rental and there's a decent chance the refrigerator is the size of what an American calls a "dorm fridge" . Plus knee-height, slides under the counter, holds about two days of food for two people. And freezers are even smaller. Sometimes a freezer is just a single drawer.

Grocery stores follow the same logic. A neighborhood Carrefour Express in Paris or an Edeka in Berlin or a 7-Eleven in Tokyo is sized for someone walking in, buying tonight's dinner and tomorrow's breakfast, and walking back out. There are big-box stores , French hypermarkets, German Kauflands, Japanese AEON malls , but they're outside city centers and you drive to them.

The American instinct is to do a giant Sunday Costco run and stuff a side-by-side fridge for the week. Europeans and Japanese mostly shop daily, on foot, on the way home. The smaller fridge isn't a flaw in their kitchen, it's a feature that matches the rest of how they live. Once you adjust, it's actually pleasant. You eat fresher food and you stop throwing out wilted lettuce.

#7 Sunday store closures (Germany)

Germany takes Sunday seriously. Under the Ladenschlussgesetz , the shop-trading law . Most retail stores are required to be closed on Sundays. This includes the supermarket. This includes the supermarket on the corner that looked open. It isn't open. It's closed. And it will reopen Monday morning.

Bakeries can sell bread for a few hours. And train station shops are exempt. Restaurants and cafes operate normally. Pharmacies rotate emergency duty. But if you arrive in Berlin on a Sunday afternoon and assume you'll do a quick Edeka run for snacks before checking into your hotel, you'll be eating from the train-station kiosk and you'll be paying train-station kiosk prices.

The rest of Europe varies. France has loosened its Sunday rules considerably and Paris in particular has plenty of Sunday options. But the UK Sunday Trading Act of 1994 limits large stores to six trading hours on Sundays , usually 10 to 4 or 11 to 5 , but small shops are exempt. But spain and Italy have regional rules that change by city. And germany is the strict one. Plan accordingly.

#8 Restaurant kitchens close 9 pm (UK and much of EU)

In the United States, "the restaurant is open until 11" means you can walk in at 10:45 and order food. And in the UK and large parts of continental Europe, "the restaurant is open until 11" means the bar is open until 11. And the kitchen stopped taking orders at 9 or 9:30. If you show up hungry at 10, you're getting crisps.

UK pub kitchens routinely shut at 9 or 9:30. Italian restaurants are interesting in the opposite direction , they often don't seat anyone before 8 and stop seating at 9:30 or 10 even if the place is "open" until midnight, because the meal itself takes two hours and the staff want to go home at a reasonable hour. But but spain runs later (10 pm dinner is normal). France is somewhere in the middle.

The fix: eat earlier than you think you should, or commit to eating Spanish-late and pick a country that supports it. The worst-case American mistake is to wander out of a museum at 8:45 in London assuming you'll find a proper sit-down dinner. Plus plus you won't. You'll find a kebab shop, which honestly might be the better outcome anyway.

#9 Tipping not customary (Asia and parts of EU)

Tipping in the US is essentially mandatory and has crept upward to 20% as a baseline at sit-down restaurants, more at fancy ones. Almost nowhere else does this. Plus plus the map looks roughly like this:

Japan and South Korea: zero tip. Plus plus leaving money on the table can be confusing or mildly insulting and the server may chase you down to return it. So service is included in the price and the staff are paid a real wage. Don't tip.

China, Taiwan, most of Southeast Asia: zero to 5% in tourist-facing places. Generally not expected, sometimes appreciated, never required.

France and Italy: service compris is often already included on the bill (look for "service" or "coperto" plus "servizio"). Plus plus if it's included, leave nothing extra, or round up a euro or two if the meal was great. If it's not included, 5-10% is generous.

UK: 10-15% at sit-down restaurants, often added automatically for groups. Not tipped at pubs where you order at the bar.

Germany, Netherlands, Scandinavia: round up the bill or add 5-10%. Hand it to the server when you pay; don't leave it on the table.

US baseline: 18-20% at any sit-down meal, 20%+ at fancy places, plus tipping bartenders, hotel staff, taxi drivers, food delivery, baristas at tip-jar cafes. The cumulative load is much higher than visitors realize and it's, by international standards, genuinely unusual.

I'd link our quick guide on US tipping vs Europe for a longer breakdown . The country-by-country detail matters and the gap between expectation and reality is where awkward moments happen.

#10 No ice in drinks

Order a Coke at a Roman cafe. It comes in a small bottle, not from a fountain, and there are zero ice cubes in your glass. Plus not "less ice." Zero. Plus plus if you ask for ice, you might get two cubes, delivered with the slight expression of a waiter who has done this for tourists before.

Same in much of Asia. Same in France, Spain, Germany. Iced water at restaurants is rare; room-temperature still or sparkling water is the default. Iced coffee exists but it's a deliberate menu item, not a default upgrade. The instinct to fill a glass with ice and then add liquid is specifically American and most of the world finds it slightly weird.

The reasons are practical. Old buildings have small freezers. Ice machines are commercial equipment most non-US restaurants didn't historically install. There's also an inherited belief, only partly true now, that ice in tap water can carry whatever's in the tap. Mostly, though, drinks are just served the way the local cuisine has always served them. Plus so plus cold-but-not-iced is the global standard, not the exception.

Other small ones: shoes-off, espresso vs filter coffee, chip-and-pin

A few smaller jolts in rapid fire.

Shoes off indoors. Standard in Japan, Korea, much of Southeast Asia, parts of Northern Europe. Coming into a home with shoes on is rude. Some restaurants and even some clinics have a shoe-swap entryway. There will be slippers. Use the slippers.

Espresso, not filter. A standing-bar espresso in Rome or Milan is 25-30ml . Literally a quarter of an American "small" coffee . And costs €1-1.50. A Berlin Italian-style standing bar runs about €1.20. The same caffeine in a Starbucks back home runs $3.50 in a 12oz cup. Filter coffee exists in Europe but it's not the default and "American coffee" or "caffe lungo" is sometimes a faintly apologetic menu item.

Chip-and-PIN, contactless everywhere. Europe and Asia moved to chip-and-PIN credit cards in the 2000s and contactless tap payments shortly after. The US spent the 2010s still using magnetic stripes. American visitors today won't usually have the stripe problem anymore, but you'll occasionally meet a card reader that wants a four-digit PIN your US bank never gave you. Get a travel card that supports chip-and-PIN before you go. Apple Pay and Google Pay work nearly everywhere now and solve most of this. Counterintuitively, free public WiFi is sparser in some European countries than in the US , they expect you to use cellular data, which is cheap on local SIMs and an absolute fortune on a US carrier's roaming plan. Get an eSIM.

Tiny cars. Italian Fiat 500s, UK Minis, Spanish SEATs, the entire Japanese kei car category. They look toy-sized to American eyes. They fit the streets, the parking spaces, and the fuel prices, all of which are smaller and more expensive than what we're used to. Renting an SUV in central Rome is a punishment, not a luxury.

Bathrooms in general. Showers are smaller. Bathtubs are shorter. The toilet is sometimes in its own separate tiny room (the water closet) away from the sink. Bidets exist. The handheld shower head on a hose isn't a malfunction. None of this is a problem; it's just different.

Guns are rare. This isn't a daily-life thing you'll notice as a tourist, but it's the underlying reality of why some other differences exist (police presence, building security culture, public-space norms). Almost every country except the US treats civilian firearm ownership as an unusual licensed activity rather than a default right. American visitors sometimes notice the absence as a kind of background quietness they didn't expect.

Summary table

Difference Country pattern What to do
Tiny portions Most of Europe and Asia Eat more courses, slower; don't order American-size
Paid bathrooms Continental Europe Carry €0.50-1 in coins, especially train days
No air conditioning Europe, esp. UK/France/Italy Book hotels with confirmed AC in summer
No free refills Everywhere outside US Order water or budget for second drinks
Tax included in price EU and most of Asia Sticker price is final price; just enjoy it
Tiny refrigerators Italy, Japan, urban Europe Shop daily for what you'll eat that day
Sunday closures Germany strictest, UK limited Stock up Saturday; train stations exempt
Early kitchen close UK/Ireland 9 pm, Italy seats by 9:30 Eat earlier or pick Spain
Tipping not customary Japan/Korea 0%, EU 5-10% Check bill for "service included" first
No ice Italy, France, much of Asia Drink it as served; ask once if you must
Chip-and-PIN required EU, increasingly global Get a PIN-capable travel card; use Apple Pay
Tiny cars Italy, UK, Japan Rent the smallest car you'll fit in

Paid bathrooms in Europe , full tips guide covers the coin-carrying logistics in more depth, and Americans abroad first time bundles a lot of these into one prep checklist.

Why these things are actually fine once you adjust

Honest take: half this list is just the rest of the world figuring out what restraint looks like before America did. The portion sizes and free refills and 24/7 grocery stores aren't "better" . They're the version of consumer culture that turned up the volume to 11. Other countries kept the volume at 7 and spend the saved energy on 8-week summer vacations and walkable cities. Both versions have trade-offs.

The American version is more convenient, hour to hour, day to day. You can buy anything any time. You can drink as much soda as you want for the price of one drink. So the bathroom is free and the AC is cold and the car is huge and the fridge is huge and the fries are huge.

The other version asks you to plan a little, walk a little, sit a little longer at dinner, drink less and taste more, sweat a bit in August, and let Sunday be Sunday. In return you get cities that feel like cities, food that feels like food, and a culture where six weeks of vacation is a normal thing a normal person takes.

You don't have to pick a side. You're a tourist for two weeks. Just notice it. And pay the half-euro for the toilet. Drink the espresso standing up at the bar. Eat dinner at 9. Go home and resume your life with the bigger fridge. The next time someone in your American group chat complains about ice cubes, you'll just smile.

For the longer version of "how do I prep my brain for this," our European portion sizes explained and sales tax explained for travelers pieces are good follow-ups.

FAQ

Is it rude to ask for ice in Italy or France?
No. It's mildly unusual but waiters are used to American tourists asking. You'll get one or two cubes, sometimes none if they don't have any. Ask politely, accept whatever arrives, don't ask twice.

Can I tip in Japan if the service was great?
Better not to. The polite version is to thank the server warmly, say "gochisousama deshita" at the end of the meal, and leave. If you really want to mark a special occasion, a small gift (a souvenir from your country) is more culturally appropriate than cash.

Will my US credit card work in Europe?
Mostly yes, especially if it's chip-enabled. Some unmanned terminals (train ticket machines, gas pumps, parking meters) require a true four-digit PIN that some US cards don't support. Bring at least one card that has a PIN, and use Apple Pay or Google Pay where possible . They bypass the issue entirely.

Why don't European hotels have air conditioning?
A combination of historically mild summers, expensive electricity, and old buildings that were designed to retain heat in winter rather than expel it in summer. AC is becoming more common in newer builds and renovated hotels, but the existing stock takes decades to update. Always check the listing, and don't trust "fan" as a substitute in July or August.

How do I find a bathroom in Europe without paying?
Buy a coffee at a cafe and use theirs. Most museums and department stores have free bathrooms inside. Some cities (Berlin, Amsterdam) have well-marked free public toilets in central areas. The €0.50-1 paid ones at train stations and rest stops are usually the cleanest option and worth the coin.

Are German stores really all closed on Sunday?
Most retail, yes. Supermarkets, clothing stores, electronics . Closed under the Ladenschlussgesetz. Exceptions: bakeries (limited hours), train station shops, pharmacies (rotating emergency duty), tourist-zone kiosks, restaurants and cafes. Plan your shopping for Saturday or use a train station shop in a pinch.

Is the US "weird" version of all this, or is the rest of the world?
Both, depending on which side of the comparison you're standing on. The honest answer is that the US scaled up consumer convenience further than anywhere else, and most of the rest of the developed world chose a more restrained version. Neither is objectively correct. Travel is just the part where you notice that there were ever choices being made.

Useful resources

Related Guides

Comments

Post a Comment