what is that you usually do or see in your country or area but is weird to do in other area you have traveled or vice versa?? like it is unusual to wear footwear indoors in asia.
Easy: school shootings, together with politician denial about the causes of this, guns, and lack of regulation for who owns them, make owning guns easier than getting a driver’s license.
Super sad, but here we are.
The police kills more people every year than the amount of people killed in mass shootings since 1983. They also repeatedly ignore reports of people who go on to commit school shootings.
You should look into common sense pig control. I think that would save more lives than just being hysterical about AR-15s.
2024
Police- 1270
Mass shootings- 500ish (actually a down year)
While I agree we need police reform, let’s be accurate.
Both problems need extensive work.
In Germany people seem to like opening windows when entering a room, even in the middle of the winter. Or maybe I only know weird Germans.
A few central/northern European countries also don’t believe in curtains.
German here. The Germans you describe seem fairly normal. Air quality > temperature
I understand, it’s just a weird behavior from a southern Europe point of view: when it’s cold outside we close the windows to keep it out.
Also weird from my UK point of view: it’s fucking freezing out them I’m not opening the windows. I do get that it’s nice to have fresh air and you can always put the window in the vent position, but even when it’s really cold you can feel it.
To be fair: Every single appartment/house stayed in in the UK was so poorly isolated that it felt fresh and cold already when entering a room with outside walls/windows. In Germany/Switzerland many modern houses are basically pretty much airtightly sealed and well isolated
Some people open the windows for they cool fresh air and turn on the heat or set the fire place.
I’ve read some time ago that in some region of the world it is normal to leave a baby outside in a crib (bundled up, of course) in freezing temperatures or around freezing temps. Seems to provide some health benefit. I imagine the temp is not too far below freezing.
Monoculture. I live in Canada, and it’s pretty rare for a person, and especially a group, to have only one culture they draw from to firm their habits and identity. Even immigrants have their home and whatever mishmash of a culture their work ends up with. Its somewhat easy to tell travelers apart from residents by them having a discernible accent. If I can tell your accent is Irish, and not just some combination of Irish, British and Ukrainian, then your not here permanently.
I had a prof in college from Canada, whose parents were German and Korean, and you could hear both accents at the same time. I never encountered such a thing. Also funny that he didn’t have a single bit of Canadian accent.
And honestly that’s what I love about Canada and why we are the best country in the world. We’re a mosaic rather than a melting pot. Each culture that comes here contributes something to the Canadian Zeitgeist that gets disseminated to everyone else, like spicing up an otherwise boring W.A.S.P existence.
When my family moved here from Portugal, they managed an apartment building in order to have a place to live while my father worked construction and my mother was a housekeeper. (Yeah…yeah…I know…it doesn’t get any more Portuguese than that)
Anyway, I was just a toddler and the family was immediately befriended by the older Ukrainian lady next door and we soon became a part of her extended family for everything from christmas to birthdays, etc. My first memories are of toddling down the hall in my pjamas first thing in the morning to “Auntie Anne’s” apartment. She was more my grandmother than my biological grandmothers who lived in Portugal at the time.
Through them, we learned kaiser. My mother learned how to make peirogies, cabbage rolls, etc…
We are without a doubt the most Ukrainian Portuguese family to have ever existed and I love it.
Sorry…got nostalgic there for a moment. Auntie Anne passed away decades ago and I still think about her sometimes.
Italy: always offering (and accepting) food or drinks while visiting. It’s impossible and/or incredibly rude to pass by a friend’s house without getting at least a coffee or a glass of water.
Netherlands: cold lunch. Traditionally, you’d have only one hot meal a day, and lunch would be sandwiches. I don’t mean to say that sandwiches don’t happen in other countries, but that hot lunches are basically unheard of in NL.
US: everyone has one or multiple cars. Walking to the grocery store means you are basically destitute. (That was quite the culture shock!)
The Italian food thing is pretty common in many cultures, I’ve seen it in a few countries myself and it’s big deal here in Lebanon. My own parents used to be livid about me bringing friends over and not offering anything to eat when I was younger. It’s a part of my culture I’m a bit resistant to doing, I don’t know, it’s pretty intuitive if it’s time to eat or not, and if someone’s dropping by between meals I am totally fine not setting the whole ass table. Maybe a beer or coffee (the good stuff, it’s a nice thing to share) nowadays.
The Dutch food thing has zero resemblance to my culture but it is in line with something I’ve read before about western (at least the description I read was western) food habits. Going completely off the top of my head here. As far as I remember, historically you had one heavy meal and everything else was a smaller meal. I think I was looking up “dinner” vs “supper”. The impression was that the word “dinner” was originally for the big meal of the day, and that “supper” was for a light meal at the very end of the day. “Breakfast” is more of literally breaking a fast than it is a whole meal and lunch referred to a small mid-workday meal.
So I think the idea of temperature might be connected to the size or heaviness of the meal in your Dutch thing.
Or maybe my nerves are completely cooked after work and this is more word salad than word coherent comment.
As a clarification, that last one is definitely NOT true about all places in the US, it very much depends on which area you live in. In NYC few people own a car even if they’re quite well off. No one here drives to get their regular groceries.
I lived in NJ. When i randomly said i didn’t have a car, some colleagues gave me pitying looks. I heard NY is its own little microcosm, but it seemed in general US is very car centric, so much so that there were areas I literally couldn’t reach by foot.
Germany: public benches are specifically placed to be full view of the sun for as long as possible, a wild proportion of people have bread slicing machines, and you’re not allowed to prevent someone from using even a private toilet if they really need it.
It’s so pleasant that DM has clean toilets for when I’ve poorly planned my liquid intake, shops in France don’t generally have toilets for the public and the malls that do don’t really care if they’re clean it seems.
Tipping as a social obligation when eating at dine in restaurants which in turn allows the waiter to be paid less by the employer and theoretically lowers menu prices.
Yeah, but many servers make serious bank. You won’t find those people bitching about tips. Worked IT at a payroll firm, frequently saw the numbers.
Servers who bust serious ass make serious bank. Worked as a server. Bad servers have bad numbers, skilled servers have good numbers
The Asshole Subsidy. Extra money is taken from the people who are kind enough to worry about the waiter getting paid, effectively giving assholes who choose not to tip a discount.
Are you calling non tippers the assholes, and not the business owners or practice of tipping in general? Tipping is out of control and a stupid obligation as it is currently being used.
Civilians openly carrying handguns
I’m with the other commenter below. I’m not sure this is terribly usual, even where legal.
I keep an eye out for this sort of thing just sort of out a professional interest, and in terms of openly carrying firearms (not knives), I’ve only spotted two people doing it this year. And one of them was a guy who I think was intending to carry concealed, but was not doing a very good job due to an ill-fitting shirt.
France.
You’re at the grocery store and want to buy a single bottle of milk or coke, but they’re only sold in packs of 6? Just tear open a pack and take one bottle.
I see that lots in Canada as well, but often the 6-pack is way cheaper per unit, to the point where sometimes a 6-pack is the same price as a single.
Being very touchy and physical.
Cheek kisses are usual for strangers. And it’s normal to touch people you barely know or have a small friendship.
Country is Spain.
How small does the friendship need to be for me to casually smooch all the pretty members of your society?
Our scientific branch of government telling people paracetamol (acetaminophen) can cause autism and leucovorin (a anti cancer treatment regimen) may cure autism. Also legelise ivermectin (worm pills) over the counter for COVID
Our government endorses them.
In Canada, people do not run from the rain… if they are out and about and it starts raining, they just ignore it, they don’t walk faster, rarely improvise coverage, etc
In Venezuela, my country of origin, people run from the rain like it’s lava falling from the sky
Not much point in running from it, you’re already getting wet if you’re caught out in it 🤷♀️. I’ll run if I hear thunder though, don’t want to get electrocuted.
When I visited London (around the year 2000), I noticed that every man walking in the streets either wore a hat or carried an umbrella.
Huh, thought everyone ran from the rain. I usually have a hat if I’m outside so the rain doesn’t annoy me.
Canadian here, from the wet coast. I’ve run in the rain before, but it needs to be monsoon level before that’s necessary. Anything less is just meh.
Well, you don’t wear shoes indoors in any of the Nordic countries.
We have pineapple and banana and kebab and salad on pizza¹. Apparently it is considered weird.
¹ not the same pizza, obviously. That would be weird.
Taking your shoes off is expected in some parts of America, almost unheard of in other parts. Chicago? Shoes off. Florida? Why?
Most of Asia and Canada also… You take your shoes off because shit is outside on the ground, and I don’t want that tracked into the house!
People don’t wear shoes indoors in any civilised country. Only Americans do that.
Pineapple and kebab on pizza is available in Germany too, although I think it may be illegal in Italy.
Indoors meaning a home, right? Because i doubt everyone is kicking their shoes off once they get to school/work/grocery stores
I had to take off my shoes in multiple resturants, “hotels” and museums in Japan for example.
Own a musket for home defense, since that’s what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. “What the devil?” As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he’s dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it’s smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, “Tally ho lads” the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion.He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up, Just as the founding fathers intended.
Close enough
Welcome back, Kevin McCallister
Mass shootings in the US. It’s become so common here that most if not all are desensitized.
Being able to go basically anywhere by bike, foot, or public transport. And just our bike infrastructure in general. I honestly don’t know how I could live in most other countries because it seems like basically everything happens by car or foot. Being able to bike anywhere is so much nicer and gives a lot of freedom from an early age.
Strangely we Dutch people also seem to be quite alone in our view that helmets on normal bikes are not really necessary. They make bikes more prevalent imo, because you don’t have to drag a helmet along everywhere. You just park you bike and the only thing you have with you because of it is a key, no special clothes, helmets, etc. I think that’s also possible because of our bicycle infrastructure and culture.
Kids learn to bike from a young age, in traffic. You see very young kids just cycle on their smol little bike with a parent on the outside sort of shielding them from traffic. Safely on bike roads, but also just on shared roads with cars. In general kids are quite free to just play outside. I live close to a school and I see plenty of kids all across the neighborhood, just playing without parental supervision. It’s what we did back in the day too, without mobile phones or anything. We’d usually be home on time for dinner or our parents would find us somewhere in the neighborhood and tell us it was time to get home.
