Overview
of my Travels to Western Europe and the UK
This narrative is about my opinions and observations
of the differences and similarities between my life in Canada compared with my travels in
Western Europe and the UK in September and October 2016.
First of all, I couldn’t help but notice that we, in
Canada, take living space very much for granted. Everything, like houses and buildings, are
built much closer together and the houses are smaller. The streets are much narrower. The rooms in our hotels were usually smaller,
though not always. In my hotel rooms, I
noticed that, in many cases, the tub in the bathroom was narrower, making it
somewhat awkward to take a bath.
Sometimes a shower stall was provided, but many times it was not. And, a few times, the toilet was in a
separate room beside the room with the sink and the tub. That was strange to me.
Sometimes, particularly if the bedroom portion of
the hotel room was small, there was a single bed. That was fine for a single traveller like me,
but I wondered what happened when there two single travellers. Did they have two single beds? Was their room big enough for two
people? If a married couple had a small
bedroom, was their bed big enough for the two of them? I couldn’t help but wonder what that
situation was like. When I asked one of
the single travellers who had a single travel companion about this, she said
that it was very uncomfortable for both since one of them had to sleep on a
fold-out couch, which usually is uncomfortable at the best of times, even at
home in Canada. I assumed that they took
turns sleeping on a fold-out couch whenever there was one.
Another thing that was different was the
toilets. Did you know that there are dozens of
ways to flush a toilet? There was the
button on the top of the toilet tank or on the wall; there was the chain in the
ceiling; there was the button or bubble on the floor; there was the usual
handle on the left or right on the toilet tank; there was even hand-waving in
front of a wall sensor! It was amazing
to me that there were so many ways to flush!
The best example of something different regarding the toilet was
something I saw in Germany at a public rest stop where we saw a toilet that
used “new toilet technology”! You’d have
to see it to believe it! It was amusing
to watch it operate. The toilet seat
rotated around and around after being sprinkled with water and/or disinfectant
(I’m not sure what that liquid was) and then you had to wave your hand in front
of a wall sensor to get it to flush!
Very funny!
The other thing that was different about public
toilets was that there was sometimes a charge for using them. It was usually only about 50 pence (in the
UK) or 70 cents (on the continent), but still, there was a charge. God knows what would happen if you really had
to go, but you didn’t have any change!
The bus was different in the UK. As you may already know, drivers drive on the
left side of the road. That means that
the side the driver sits on is the right front side. The left front side is where the front door
is. There is a side door for mounting or
dismounting and that is on the right side in the middle of the bus. In Europe, however, drivers drive on the
right side of the road. The buses there
are similar to the ones I am used to using in Canada. The right front side is where the front door
is. The side door, though, is still on
the right side in the middle of the bus.
This tour was different this time round in Western Europe
and the UK compared to my European tour in June 1981.
That time, there were people from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia,
Canada, and the USA on the tour. This
time, there were people only from Canada, the USA, and Australia. There were no Asians or Africans on this
tour. And, this tour was not exactly a
budget tour either like my previous one had been. The hotels were of a better quality. We had hotel porters to help with the
baggage; we didn’t have to share our shower and bathroom facilities with the
rest of the floor in our hotels. The hotel
rooms, in general, were a lot nicer and more comfy. And, the food, in general, was of a better
quality no matter where we were eating our meals.
Something else that was definitely different is
computer technology. Everyone has a cell
phone and uses it regularly. Road signs
were computerized at times; advertising signs were computerized at times; hotel
signs were computerized at times. In
fact, computer knowledge is just as great as in Canada and the USA. In June 1981, computers were still rarely
used. In 1981, we had to bring
travellers’ cheques and some cash with us on vacations overseas; in 2016, we
could use ATM machines in foreign countries to withdraw cash from our bank
accounts or credit cards in whatever currency we needed at the time, so we
weren’t so limited in the cash we brought.
The only real security restriction is that, today, any amount over
$10,000 in Canadian, US, or Euro-dollars, or 10,000 pounds Sterling would have
been questioned by border police. The
security restriction was probably instituted so that people couldn’t bring drug
money into or out of a country for whatever reason. Or, the reason may have had more to do with discouraging
the financing of terrorist activities with drug money.
Finally, the
television programming that I saw overseas, especially in the UK, was
excellent! BBC News programming covers
world issues thoroughly so that people like me understand them better. BBC game shows were a hoot to watch! Even BBC television programs were intriguing
to me, especially since I rarely watch television programs, and never news
programs, at home. Of all of these types
of programming, I liked BBC News the best.
Given the chance to watch BBC programs of any kind on the continent as
well as in the UK, I chose BBC every time.
The nearest rival at home in Canada would be CTV News, which also does a
pretty good job of covering world issues.
Perhaps in the near future, I will watch CTV News more often, if only to
stay up to date. Another good
alternative is CP24 News, which I’ve been watching at my hotel, Homewood
Suites, in Ajax, Ontario on a regular basis.
All in all, travel overseas no matter where you
choose to go is an education of sorts.
You get to see how people in other parts of the world live, how their
lives are similar to ours and how they’re different. So, I can’t wait for my next overseas
vacation to Scandinavia so that I can learn more about my own family’s heritage
(Finnish) and about how people in Finland and other Scandinavian countries
live.
copyright 2016 - Anne Shier
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