My favorite thing is that Europe is spooky because it’s old and America is spooky because it’s big
“The difference between America and England is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, while the English think 100 miles is a long way.” –Earle Hitchner
A fave of mine was always the american tales where people freaked out because ‘someone died in this house’ and all the europeans would go ‘…Yes? That would be pretty much every house over 40 years old.’
‘…My school is older than your entire town.’
‘Sorry, you think *how far* is okay to travel for a shopping trip?’
*American looks up at the beams in a country pub* ‘Uh, this place has woodworm, isn’t that a bit unsafe?’ ‘Eh, the woodworm’s 400 years old, it’s holding those beams together.’
A few years ago when I was in college I did a summer program at Cambridge aimed specifically at Americans and Canadians, and my year it was all Americans and one Australian. We ended the program with a week in Wessex, and on the last day as we all piled onto the bus in Salisbury (or Bath? I can’t remember), the professors went to the front to warn us that we wouldn’t be making any stops unless absolutely necessary. We’re headed to Heathrow to drop off anyone flying off the same day, then back to Cambridge.
“All right, it’s going to be a long bus ride, so make sure you’re prepared for that.”
We all brace ourselves. A long bus ride? How long? We’re Americans; a long bus ride for us is a minimum of six hours with the double digits perfectly plausible. We can handle a twelve hour bus ride as long as we get a bathroom break.
The answer. “Two hours.”
Oh.
English people trying to travel around Australia and wildly underestimating distance are my favourite thing
a tour guide in France told my school group that a particular cathedral wouldn’t interest us much because “it’s not very old; only from the early 1600s”
to which we had to respond that it was still older than the oldest surviving European-style buildings in our country
China is both old and big. I had some Chinese colleagues over; we were discussing whether they wanted to see the Vasa ship (hugely expensive war ship which sank on it’s maiden voyage after 12 min). They asked if it was old, I said “not THAT old” (bearing in mind they were Chinese) “it’s from the 1500s.” To my surprise they still looked impressed, nodding enthusiatically. Then I realised I’d forgotten something: “…I mean it’s from the 1500s AFTER the birth of Christ” and they went “oh, AFTER…”.
My dad’s favorite quote from various tours in Italy was “Pay no attention to the tower – it was a [scornful tone] tenth century addition.”
My last boss was Chinese, and she said when her parents came to visit her from Beijing they pronounced Chicago “A very nice village.”
Even within America the definition of a long distance or travel time varies. I had always live in big west coast states (California and Utah), but I went to college in New England (rural Vermont).
At one point, as a 3-day weekend was aoproaching, there was a girl in my dorm who was despairing about not being able to visit her family. As someone who’s family lived on the other side of the country, I attempted to sympathize. The conversation went as follows:
Her: “I’m super bummed that I won’t be able to visit my family for the long weekend, since I live so far away!”
Me: “Yeah, me too! I live real far away as well, where are you from?”
Her: *in a very dramatic and kinda snotty tone* “Upstate New York!”
At this point, I would like to note that I had to take a moment to collect my self-control and not slap her. I then changed my approach.
Me: “Okay… so how long does it take you to drive there?”
Her: *in an even more dramatic tone* “5 Hours!!”
Once again, I had to take a cleansing breath to nor deck her.
Me: “Oh. It would take 2-3 days with very few stops for me to drive home. A 5 hour drive in any direction from my house would still be in the same state, and I live in the northern part of the state…. So, yeah…”
At the same time… it was a 25 minute drive to the nearest McDonald’s, and 45 minutes to the nearest Target (Wal-Mart was over a half-hour) from the school. Back in Utah all those things were a 3-8 minute drive away, depending on traffic.
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