Differences an Australian tourist (me) might notice when travelling overseas

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I recently wrote about what tourists might find strange when visiting Australia. I wanted to write more but I thought the post was long enough so this post deals with things I found unusual when visiting Europe and Ireland. I used to tease the son who lives in Ireland that going from A to B when it was only an inch on the map couldn’t possibly takes two hours but when we were there travelling in our motor home quickly found out that the average speed on the roads (not the motorways and toll roads) is considerably less than what we’re able to achieve in Australia. We absolutely loved the long twilights and were often astounded to find it was 9pm and we still hadn’t eaten, let along cooked, our dinner. We also weren’t used to going out for the evening at 9 or 10pm. A lot of the entertainment didn’t start to what seemed to us a very late hour. Tipping isn’t common in Australia so that was something we had to come to terms with. On our visits to Asian countries we found bartering was often expected, especially in the marketplaces. This was something we weren’t used to either. We weren’t accustomed to being able to buy alcohol in supermarkets, at service stations and almost, it seemed, anywhere else. We could even buy a Guinness in a hardware store. Not the rat-killer in the background of the photo. I’d never seen a washing machine and dryer installed in a kitchen before and I found most houses very tiny and crowded compared to Australian homes. Please don’t read this and think I’m being critical. I only wanted to document some of the differences I came across between Australia and other countries.