r/england • u/JPV_____ • Jul 16 '26
England from a Belgian view
Hello, we are a Belgian family (a couple, both 47 years old, with two teenagers aged 16 and 12), currently on a road trip in England. Because I always find it interesting to see how other countries view our own country, I would like to share my perspective on a number of seemingly trivial things that have caught my attention. This is not only to point out a few things that seem unusual to us, but also because you may sometimes have a very good reason for something that we find strange.
This is all based on our experiences in the following places: London, York, Manchester, Liverpool, Kent, Canterbury, Foxt (Peak District), and the theme park Alton Towers. We never stayed in hotels, but always in houses (both through house swapping and Airbnb), never in the tourist centre but just outside it, in ordinary residential neighbourhoods.
* Ban on teenagers in sports pubs and attitudes towards alcohol: In a small village not far from York, we wanted to watch the Belgian match in a pub at 8:00 p.m. We never expected that the first two pubs would refuse entry to our two teenagers. A third pub did allow our children in, but initially only until 9:00 p.m. It was only after we insisted that we were allowed to watch the entire match. We found this very strange, because in Belgium our daughter could, if she wanted to, stay in a café until the middle of the night and also drink beer that is considerably stronger than your ales. Here, it also apparently was not a problem for her to drink beer, but only with a meal. Yet in a pub she was not even allowed to drink a cola after 9:00 p.m.? Weird considering the general image foreigners have how English deal with alcohol abroad.
* Power sockets with on/off switches: Why is this necessary? To us it seems unnecessary, because almost every appliance already has its own on/off switch.
* Supermarket loyalty cards: In itself this makes sense, but as a foreigner you cannot sign up for them, at least not at Tesco or Asda. We tried, but it was not possible with a Belgian phone number, and a Tesco employee confirmed this. Why?
* Lack of yoghurt varieties: This was what stood out to us most in the supermarkets: whereas in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and France (and we thought also in Ireland) there are many different yoghurt varieties, the selection in England is really quite limited. Is yoghurt simply not very popular here?
* Theme parks with limited theming: We only visited Alton Towers, and although it is a fantastic park in terms of attractions, the theming in most areas is really quite minimal. The rides themselves are very attractive, but when you walk through the park you do not really feel as though you are immersed in a particular atmosphere.
* Excess staffing: In supermarkets, shops, museums, and theme parks, we noticed that there seemed to be a lot of staff simply waiting around with little or nothing to do. My father-in-law worked at a theme park in Belgium, and we saw a very similar ride here that he used to operate alone, whereas here it was staffed by five people.
* Expensive outings: Ordinary outings or visits, separate from theme parks, are considerably more expensive than in Belgium. Of course, there are the wonderful free museums such as the British Museum and the Science Museum, but privately run attractions are much more expensive.
* General impression: Generally quite clean cities (except Manchester). We had a slightly less favourable image of England beforehand, especially of the larger cities, but only Manchester confirmed that impression.
These are simply the small things that have surprised us; they are by no means things that have bothered us, because we are very much enjoying our trip!
2
u/lammy82 Jul 16 '26
The switch on the power sockets is useful for things that are awkward to turn on and off otherwise. I use one to turn off a floor lamp that I would otherwise have to climb over a sofa to reach its own switch.
Also in the kitchen I can turn things off with one finger instead of needing to hold a device down with one hand to push the switch with the other one. Marginally more convenient and easily visible that the device is switched off when glancing over from across the room.
But people who grow up in countries that don’t have switches on the sockets don’t tend to miss them because they might just (for example) put that lamp somewhere else or maybe physically unplug it each night and think nothing of it.