The right to roam was something I found really charming and fascinating when I visited Scotland. We took a tour to see some standing stones and other ancient monuments, and I was shocked to find out that several of our destinations were in people’s sheep pastures.

Our guide was really strict about our not littering (duh) or feeding the sheep (which I never would have dreamed of doing). He said that in some of the more popular places, the farmers have lost livestock to idiot tourists feeding them whatever junk food they have on hand.

But some people apparently really want fudge, pancakes, and old-time photographs!

I always lived in states where deer hunting was a pretty common pastime. The first time I went to a zoo in South America, I cracked up when we got to the display of white-tailed deer.

When I lived in the US, I lived in cities on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. People who weren’t used to river traffic would get excited about riverboats and barges.

And people from other climates always got excited about snow. Even the slightest flurries were cause for celebration.

Now I live in the Andes, and the exciting things here that the locals take for granted (or even count as nuisances) are the volcanoes. I can see one from my apartment. Four years in, and I still admire it every day.

In the UK, the thing I thought was fascinating was just the sheer amount of history literally everywhere. Like, 2000-year-old stone monuments in people’s sheep pastures. It made me understand how extraordinarily young my native country and my current home country both are.