I’ve only been abroad one time, and there were little gecko/lizard things everywhere, climbing up walls and scurrying across roads, and nobody cared. I was constantly fascinated but to the locals they’re just kinda there.
Bonus question to anyone who visited the UK - was there anything that fascinated you but I’d be taking for granted?
Pic unrelated.
Black squirrels. They’re very normal to us but I find a lot of people who travel here, especially from the U.S. are shocked to see them lol
Here’s a fun little story about the first time we saw black squirrels.
We had just moved to Norfolk, Virginia. My mom is driving through Norfolk, Virginia. Have you been to Norfolk, Virginia? Norfolk, Virginia is heavily African American. Heavily. We are white.
My mom is driving, downtown Norfolk. It’s very heavy traffic, we’re going slow. It’s one of those areas where you worry about someone randomly starts cleaning your windshield, or if it’s late at night you might you may worry about carjackings. We do not have air-conditioning, and our windows are down.
My mom sees a group of black squirrels for the first time in her life. And she yells out “OH MY GOD THEY’RE BLACK! THEY’RE ALL BLACK”
I swear to you, I have never seen turn so pale so quick. She looks around and sees that lots and lots of people walking around have, indeed, heard her.
Luckily, traffic was moving fast enough there wasn’t too long of an awkward time with the people on the street.
Given the reaction everyone has to black squirrel I’m pretty sure the folks on the street knew why she’d yelled, but we didn’t know that at the time. Lol
This sounds like a pretty Calgarian response. While I know that there are black variants of eastern grey squirrels in pockets all over North America, ours were specifically introduced as such. They’ve subsequently pushed out local squirrel and chipmunk populations. I don’t think you can even find a squirrel in Calgary that isn’t black.