This June, I traveled out of the U.S. for the first time ever to study Theatre in London, England. I, like many people, kind of thought that an English-speaking, first-world country couldn't be that different from America, and in many ways I was right. There are tons of small and large differences, though, so I thought I'd make a short list of some that surprised me.

1. People are totally silent on the subway.

First, it's called the "tube" there and on the platform where they wait for it. No matter how packed a space is, you won't hear anything but the train speeding along. Thus, you can imagine that Londoners don't take well to people breaking the unspoken agreement of silence. I can't tell you the number of times my American friends had loud conversations on the tube and were glared at by an entire car of British commuters. It's just not done, and breaking the rule results in a lot of quiet rage.

2. We call America the melting pot, but London is the biggest multi-cultural hub I've ever seen.

There were people from all over the globe who had come to Europe's shining beacon of a city to live and work. Additionally, it felt to me as if all of those people — locals and immigrants alike — meshed with a lot more ease than we do in America. Boisterous Italian bands moving from one tube car to the next were glared at just like everyone else who broke the silence, and women in hijabs weren't looked at twice. It truly felt like a city where everyone was welcome; or at least, where any annoyance toward outsiders was due to differences in norms rather than race, as is often the case in America.

3. Most Londoners don't really care if you're an American.

I was very self-aware of my accent and mannerisms during my first couple of weeks there, but slowly realized that they didn't make much of a difference. People weren't tripped easily, and we usually acknowledged our Americanism more than the locals did. Of course, there were some exceptions. One man at a tube station overheard my group talking, and immediately walked over to ask if we knew what the capitol of Iowa was. We didn't.

London has its own culture and norms, and natives demand respect for them; however, I felt as if they respected other places' customs as well. It was nice to know that if the residents disliked me, it wasn't because of where I came from — it was just because I might have been acting a fool.