saying “it’s my first time here!“

when you go into a store or a restaurant or administrative building or volunteering thing or really any place where it’s your first time and they cleeeearly have some sort of inscrutable little system in place, just say this. this seems so silly but it is extremely effective, people will usually be very nice to you and tell you that you have to order the ice cream and THEN show the receipt to the person scooping or whatever the hell situation it is that is not intuitive and not explained anywhere else. just say this in a cheerful voice and it literally makes everything so much easier. x 100 when you’re not a native language speaker, this helps pre-empt lots of questions or awkward miscommunications.