TODAY’S POST IS OSTENSIBLY ABOUT THE TINY DIFFERENCES YOU NOTICE WHEN YOU TRAVEL. BUT REALLY IT’S ABOUT WHY I’M NOT COOL AT HOME OR ABROAD!

When heading off on an overseas trip, this His & Hers writer tends to think of just a few things on the way to the airport. They include: Have I left my straighteners / the oven on? Have I somehow managed to leave the door unlocked or a stray window open? And why can’t I be one of those people who buys their currency at a good rate in advance, rather than at the airport?

I will almost certainly have pondered how to get from A to B when I land and will aim to bring my sub-GCSE level grasp of French or Spanish to the table if relevant (this will mainly involve attempting to thank waiters in their native tongue. I will do this badly).

Like most people, I’ll think about the big stuff like the logistics of the journey from the airport, the language, the currency and the likely weather conditions. However, it’s the small stuff that’s likely to trip me up. Here are just a few examples:

Italy is no place for tea drinkers:

If coffee’s your drink, of course you’ll find few better places in the world to savour it at its finest than in Italy. In fact the Italians do coffee so well that really the only logical thing to do is to join them in a cup of the strong stuff. When in Rome and all that. But yet the lure of the first cup of tea of the morning is so strong that I found myself in Milan a few years ago desperately negotiating with a waiter who was quite reasonably trying to steer me towards their excellent coffee selection of which they were justifiably proud, rather than tea which they were clearly in no way practically or psychologically geared up to make. I achieved a victory of sorts when a tea bag was eventually found, but my sense of accomplishment ebbed pretty swiftly as my tea was served to me with a frothy head and a look of disappointment from the waiter, like a weird tea / cappucino hybrid. I drank it, of course, but not with the insouciance of my fellow caffeine addicts, all of whom were looking perfectly poised with their coffees. I, meanwhile, felt far too British to blend in Italy’s chic coffee bars. In short, I blended roughly this well…

Brand names have a quirky twist:

Tea aside, I promise that I really do tend to embrace (and by embrace I mean unselfconsciously feast upon) the local food and drink wherever I’m staying,  but I am sufficiently immature to smile when I spot a familiar brand name with a twist.

According to online label company https://www.data-label.co.uk/ The reasoning behind brands having different names and logos in different countries is usually due to one of the following factors:

• Language – for example, Kentucky Fried Chicken is known by PFK in Canada’s French speaking Quebec region due to local laws dictating that the restaurant takes the initials of the French name, Poulet Frit Kentucky.
• Existing brands and trademarks – when Burger King expanded into Australia, it quickly became apparent that their iconic name was already being used. As a result, Hungry Jack’s was named after the Australian franchisee, Jack Cowin – a name they already held trademarks for.
• Translation issues – the Chevrolet Nova might have sounded like a good idea in English, but to those who understood Spanish, the translation of “no va” as “doesn’t go” isn’t the best option for a new car.
• Previous connotations – across Europe, Diet Coke is known as Coca-Cola Light as the word “light” is associated more with lower-calorie items than “diet” is in these areas.

And although I really feel like I shouldn’t admit this, I had until now been living my life strangely unaware of the fact that Lay’s crisps were in fact just Walkers crisps by another name (although the similarities between the logos are all too clear now that I see them side-by-side!)

Women’s clothes sizes don’t mean anything any more!

It’s been pretty well documented that on the British high street, if you buy a garment with the same size on the label in several different stores, you’ll probably get several different fits. And plenty of European and American retailers also cut to fit their target customer, rather than creating a range of sizes to fit everyone. So, whether at home or abroad, it’s always worth trying stuff on, rather than trusting the label!

I was very proud to write this feature for Data Label. The facts and figures are all theirs, but the words (and embarrassing stories from my travels) are all my own.

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