Overseas Tour

You know you're just back from an overseas tour when:

...store-bought food tastes funny...Familiar, but funny.
...you're surprised that when the commentator mentions football, he's really talking about football!
...you find yourself trying to convert the prices of things from dollars to dollars.
...you find it odd to have to search thru the paper for soccer scores.
...you find it odd that all the women in the paper are fully dressed.
...you recognize all the names in the headlines, but none of the ones on the music charts.
...something you saw in the theatre last month is in the video store today.
...wearing a cowboy hat and claiming to be from Texas doesn't get you free drinks at the bar.
...other drivers get out of YOUR way.
...Taco Bell food has assumed a mythic place in your mind, but McDonald's is just another fast food joint.
...you go into great detail telling the waitress how you want your food cooked, and that's how they were gonna serve it anyway.
...you talk quite naturally about trips taken to places no one else has ever heard of.
...they catch you 'playing' with the central heating controls for the sheer joy of it. ("I throw the switch to 'HEAT' and we get heat!")
...you go to shift gears and open the car door, instead.
...you go to flip through the channels, and after 5 seconds you're still flipping!
...you tell your child 'we're guests in this country' and even he knows to laugh at you.
...you have more than one electrical device that requires an adapter.
...the mention of 'soccer hooligans' makes you paranoid.
...for the first time in your life, you find yourself correcting other people's terminology. ("The people are Scots or Scottish, 'scotch' is a drink.")
...you find it odd to be in a crowd and not be able to see over everyone's head.
...when someone mentions 'haggis' you: (a) Know what it is (b) Know what it tastes like (c) Have eaten worse.
...you find it odd that even drunks are speaking in words you can understand.
...you find yourself spending less time telling a joke than you spend explaining the cultural differences that make it funny.

Return to the Big Index

Navy and military index.