15 People Who Had a Fascinating Adventure When Traveling Abroad

When traveling, we tend to socialize more and pay more attention to what is going on around us. We notice strange or nice fellow travelers, striking cultural peculiarities, or even almost unbelievable coincidences. In this article, you’ll find stories that can happen when travelling abroad.

• My first morning in Peru, I went out to breakfast at a restaurant. I ordered coffee and breakfast, and a few minutes later the waiter came back with black coffee, sugar packets, and a big white squeeze bottle type thing. I figured it must be some kind of non-dairy creamer, or maybe people in Peru take their coffee with sweetened condensed milk or something.
  I squeezed the white stuff into my coffee and started stirring. Instead of blending into the coffee, it just broke up into big oily globules across the top of the mug. Because it was mayonnaise. Which is the default condiment, a la ketchup in the US, in a lot of South America.
  It turns out that milk does not come standard with coffee in Peruvian restaurants, you have to specifically ask for it or order a latte or the like. © bmadisonthrowaway / Reddit
• In 1999, I was living and working in Barcelona, Spain and took a business trip to San Diego, California. Delta Air Lines misplaced my bags and promised they would deliver them to the Hyatt Regency where I was staying, although it wouldn’t be for a day.
  The next day, I received a phone call to my hotel room (this was pre-smartphone days) from my brother who lived in Washington, DC. I was surprised to hear from him and asked how he knew to reach me at a hotel in San Diego. He told me that he was also in San Diego on business, staying at the same hotel, and the hotel had mistakenly delivered my bags to his hotel room!
  If the hotel had not delivered my luggage to his room, we likely would have stayed in the same hotel for 3 days and not seen each other. As it turned out, we were able to enjoy some unplanned time together! © Mike Fawkes / Quora
• I was once travelling on an international flight. I had an aisle seat in the left section. There was a woman in her late twenties in the middle seat. She didn’t look very pleased to see me.
  As soon as I sat down after putting my carry-on in the overhead compartment, she asked me annoyingly if I would be willing to switch my seat with the lady sitting in the aisle seat in the center section. I thought she wanted to sit with her friend. Though I was not very happy, I said fine.
  She then tried to get the attention of the young lady by saying, “Excuse me!! Excuse me!!” As soon as the woman in the aisle seat looks at my neighbor, my neighbor says, “Can you switch your seat with him?” No “please,” nothing. The other woman is a bit confused as to what’s happening.
  I turn to this woman and ask, “You don’t know her?” She says, “No. Why?” I am shocked by her audacity. I said, “Then why do you want me to switch my seat with her?” She replied, “Because I don’t want to sit with a man.”
  I was speechless for a few moments. “So, because you don’t want to sit with a guy, you want 2 other people to switch their seats? Wow. I am not changing my seat, you can change yours.” After some back and forth arguments, she got up and moved to toward the front, and I think the flight attendant gave her another seat. © hishaks / Reddit

“These feet right next to my daughter on a flight”

• Between 2001 and 2005, my wife and I were living in Tokyo, and we were often passing by an apartment with a little garden which I always said to my wife, “European people must live here, the BBQ and the way the garden is arranged definitely don’t look like the Japanese way.” And we always said we should ring at the door and try to connect with those people as it was a quiet Japanese neighborhood, but we never did.
  Several years later we moved to Vienna, Austria, with our newborn baby (born in Tokyo 7 weeks previously); we moved in and went for the first time to the new pediatrician. We showed him the Japanese health book from the clinic where our son was born. The doctor looked at us and told us, “OMG, I have a family with the same health book and a little girl more or less the same age as your son; you should contact them!”
  So, we called them letting them know we were living in Tokyo and the Viennese pediatrician recognized your and our baby’s health books as coming from the same clinic. So, they started to ask us where we lived in Tokyo.
  At that point we realized we were living pretty close to each other in Tokyo, and then we asked if they were living in the corner building with a small garden on the ground floor with a big BBQ in the garden and the swing. So, we were really neighbors in Tokyo, but we met 7,500 miles from there and became friends. Small world! © Jean-Michel Becar / Quora
• I was a chubby girl at school until I fell in love with sports thanks to my older sister. And when it was time to choose a college, I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t like anything but fitness. So, I entered the Academy of Physical Culture, even though it didn’t seem very prestigious to my parents. I wanted to train other people and instill love for sports in them.
  It didn’t happen right away. I finished my studies and for a long time I couldn’t find a job that would suit me. Then a friend moved to Bali and invited me to visit her. I went there and accidentally found a job there as a fitness instructor. © Chamber 6 / VK

• I was 27, and my family couldn’t accept the fact that I was single. My mom was always telling me about the guy who rented my grandmother’s flat. He’s handsome, athletic, works in a travel agency. So, my family forced me to go out with my grandmother’s tenant.
  And I suddenly liked him. We decided to go abroad together: he had cheap tickets. I agreed. When I arrived at the airport, he wasn’t there, he got ill.
  But instead of feeling hurt, I met my future husband on the plane. We sat next to each other and got acquainted. I’m madly in love with my husband. For the first time, I didn’t regret that they decided to fix me up with someone. © Not everyone will understand / VK
• The first time I went to Austria by train. In Poland, it was necessary to change to another train, but I didn’t know about it. All the people got off, and I was quietly eating an apple when a railway worker came in and started explaining something to me in Polish. Somehow I guessed that I had to get off with him.
  The train on which I had to go was already moving away, the man took my bag and my hand, and we rushed off. We barely caught up with the last carriage, the man threw my bag. For the rest of the journey, I was thanking my savior. © Irina Michelitsch
• I am studying in China. I was cycling home and I saw this: a guy and a girl were standing on a pedestrian crossing with a dog between them. After all the cars passed, they suddenly said, “Let’s go.” Then the dog got up, gave one paw to the guy and the other to the girl, and crossed the road with them on its hind legs. © Overheard / Ideer

• I travelled to Uganda, on my own for the first one ever traveling overseas. I was scared witless. Nobody in airport arrivals to meet me. Made my way out into the sunshine and stood there thinking, “What do I do now?”
  Then a little voice, “Daddy!” And a little girl threw herself into my arms. A child that had never seen me before in her life just accepted I was going to be her new dad. She’s a grown woman now with children of her own, and I still love her deeply. © Kevin Thorpe / Quora
• Bratislava, my friend and I are waiting in line for ice cream, and we overhear an offer to a kid for a free scoop if he’ll take it without a cone. The line busted out laughing watching this mischievous 10-year-old scurry out the store triumphantly with a fistful of ice cream. Kids are kids everywhere! © TheNahh / Reddit
• I went to a Turkish hammam on “women’s day” — only women are allowed in the bath on this day. A cheerful bath attendant of about 60 years old laid me down on a hot marble slab, pulled off my swimsuit with a sharp movement and started rubbing me with a special brush.
  Suddenly she turned to the wall, and when she turned back, I was stunned. A Turkish woman was showing me a packet of cheese bread. She said, “Shall we crunch them together?”
  I’m covered in foam from head to toe, I don’t need snacks! I said no. And she happily ate a couple of them and continued washing me. © Maria Model

• France, I’m an exchange student living with a family. I went to take a shower in their fancy bathroom, came out, and the whole family was staring at me in shock. I asked them what was wrong, and they are like, “What were you doing in there?”
  I told them I was taking a shower. And they said with wide eyes, “What? There’s no hot water for days.” I hadn’t noticed. The water was room temperature. © gezawatt*** / Pikabu
• I booked accommodation in Montreal before the weekend, arrived, said hello to the owners and decided to move my car. And apparently, somewhere along the way, my passport fell out onto the snowy street.
  I realized it an hour later when I was in the restaurant. I searched my entire bag, car, suitcase, looked in the snow — it was nowhere to be found. I was nervous, but decided not to do anything until Monday, when the embassy opens.
  And on Sunday I suddenly decided to check my Facebook, although I try to keep off of the site during my travels as a personal preference. And I found a message from a local resident who had found my passport.
  He wrote that he took it to the hotel across the road from where he found it. I wanted to thank him in some way, but he said that making my day was all he needed in return. All in all, I had a great weekend, although I was a bit nervous. © cambrianw***e / Reddit

“In summer, umbrellas are put up at Seoul’s intersections, so pedestrians can wait for a green traffic signal in the shade.”

• I had just moved to Bangkok and one night I was singing in a bar. I met a British couple that I chatted to for a while. It went really well, and we exchanged FB info and made plans to meet up again soon.
  A few days later, I got a message from my cousin in London, who had seen a picture of me on Facebook. The couple I’d met had been at my cousin’s wedding a month earlier, he was actually the best man. They had already met my brother and a large part of my family.
  After that we became friends, not just because of this coincidence, but because we had a lot in common anyway. © Shamala / Quora
• Last year on my first trip I took a suitcase, because why not? Well, predictably it got sent all points nowhere, so for the first few days I only had the absolute basics.
  I was avoiding spending on clothes so much out of principle. I had insurance, etc. so it should’ve been okay. Me being me, I was pissed off the whole time. On a tour with a bunch of others.
  On the first afternoon, as we got back to the hotel, one of the Canadian ladies who was on the trip, snuck away and bought me a few shirts and stuff as extras. I spent most of the trip with her and her husband, but how did I repay them on the last night?
  We went for dinner at some Indian restaurant in Belfast and after eating, the wife put her jacket on the chair and went to the toilet as the waiter came to clear the table. He began stacking up some plates, and I said, “You wouldn’t carry it all at once.” The waiter took the challenge, stacked everything up, and then promptly dropped it all over the jacket.
  They didn’t even apologize or offer her a discount or a drink or anything, but I guess it was my fault? © IowaContact2 / Reddit

And these gestures can get you in trouble while abroad. Check them out.