Expressive - Even though we could not speak French when Stephanie, our teacher would translate we could see their reaction to her words in their faces. The students as well as many of the adults showed their feelings in their faces and their bodies language.
No Billboards - the country side in England as well as France had no billboards and the street signs would tell us the name of the city but not if it was north our south. When we first arrived in France we stayed at an Abby converted into a hotel. Luckily Stephanie knew were it was as there were no streetlights or huge gaudy signs announcing the location.
Street Signs - we take it for granted that there will be signs announcing places to eat as well as places to fuel. We took a car tour through the south of England and it was difficult to find places to eat and it was by accident we found a grocery store with a gas station to fuel the car. When in Bristol, England we could not find any street signs till we looked up and at the side of the buildings. They were on the buildings if there was a street sign.
Manual Cars - Most cars are manual and if you want an automatic you have to reserve it and pay much more. Our youngest daughter decided on the car trip and she rented the car. Seeing her sitting on the right side with the gear shifter on her left side was amusing and somewhat frightening.
Roundabouts - Our family goal when traveling is to stay off of main throughways and also to not eat at chain restaurants. This made travel in England very interesting as we all learned high-speed roundabouts and saw very few traffic signals, all while driving on the wrong side of the road. In many places the roads were very narrow and one car would stop as the other car passed. We did not see cars that had been sideswiped or any accidents on these small roads. The only accident we saw was a on a two lane carriageway.
Traffic Lights - The lights turn from Green - Yellow - Red and in Europe they also use Red - Yellow - Green and for those drag racers when the light turns Yellow you can hear the cars revving up to go on green...
Parking and Bikes - As a driver you have to be on high alert as cars park in the roadway. If half of the car will fit on the sidewalk or in front of a house they park. As a traveler you stop as cars go by in the opposite direction or you zip by in the other lane. This is common and the other lanes will move over so you can pass the parked car or a bike. The many bicycles and riders seem to be in their own world and take their half of the road with no concern about speed. Walkers also use the roadway at their leisure.
Dogs - We saw dogs everywhere including restaurants. One sign on a restaurant said "Friendly Dogs Welcome". Many places had water dishes set out for the dogs as they entered the restaurant. We saw dogs on the sidewalks, under tables, and sitting beside their owners. Some were on leashes and some were not. We saw a LOT of dogs and we did not see one bad dog. The dogs that were loose stayed close to their owners and behaved. The dogs in the restaurants laid under the table or sat beside their master. Some did feed their dogs snacks but the dogs stayed well behaved. Very few dogs barked and if they did it was at another dog and I saw none of them pulling their master down the road. We saw many spaniels, one German Shepard, a
nd a lot of long short dogs. We saw one dog that looked like a big brown bear and weighed over 100 pounds easily with a very small girl of about two holding the leash and walking it. I was very very impressed with the dogs and their behavior.
Trucks - Most of the trucks we saw and trailers had sidebars. The sidebars appeared to us as a guard to keep a motorist from running underneath the vehicle.
The rear of the trucks are very massive and it was hard to imagine a car being able to run underneath the trailer or the rear of a straight truck.
During all of our side road trips over the weekend we did not see any trucks. We also did not see any scales so not sure how the rules are enforced. Along side of the carriageways we saw several cameras. There also has to be a standard speed on the carriageways, as we saw no speed limit signs.