Biggest cultural shock you have come across?

Street children in Brazil, I mean really young, and seeing signs in hotels saying it was now illegal for adults to solicit children and to take them to their room, the law had only come into effect a few years before we visited. So sad. I'll never forget those poor children in door ways.

superbeagle Interesting... Where else have you lived to compare it to? Obv Amsterdam doesn't count

Streets full of limos in New York. I stayed in a hotel with a nightclub underneath and every night, around 40-50 limos would pull up outside. Also bizarre, seeing fruit and veg shops open at 3am. And those horrible gaps on either side of public toilet doors in the US, so everyone queuing can have a good gander at you.

The beauty of some parts of Italy, in complete contrast with other parts that were full of rubbish, graffiti, thieves and illegal immigrants hassling you on every corner to buy their fake goods.

The first time I went to Spain and how the heat hits you as you step foot off the plane, plus eating in restaurants with lizards crawling up the walls! Also, how many Europeans still smoke. In the UK it seems to be becoming more unacceptable, but in Europe every one and their dog seems to be lighting up.

Nice culture shock though, seeing the Amish people and their wonderfully simple way of life. It's fascinating how they go about their daily lives while being constantly stared at and photographed by hordes of tourists.

Visiting (local) friends in the Middle East who were wealthy and had three servants from SE Asia. I'd have used a better word but they were treated like servants and that shocked me. We mostly met outside the house but on the few occasions we went to their house I was horrified that these women were expected to silently wait on them hand and foot - no one in the family said thank you to them for, e.g., clearing cups away or even acknowledged they were in the room unless it was to tell them to do something.

Agree with the German nudity thing. It's definitely made me less prudish out of necessity!

I also agree with whoever said waking up the morning after the Brexit vote and watching all the anti immigration interviews on TV. The biggest shock for me though was,, as a teenager, going through Stansted airport a few months after 9/11 and seeing British armed police everywhere. I'd never seen a British policeman noticeably armed before in real life and it really shocked me to my core. I still don't like seeing it. I remember feeling like it was a huge turning point.

a long queue of people ranged exactly one foot behind one another deep in newspapers :o :o :o

This is what I LOVE about being British! Not only do we queue, we read newspapers in the queue and have an automatic sense of personal space!

Euphemia re Glasgow and Edinburgh, so true! I'm from chatty, open-hearted blunt Yorkshire and feel so much more at home in Glasgow. Edinburgh is so dour and uptight and I constantly feel like I've overstepped the mark with whatever I say.

Edinburgh friend went through to Glasgow once and went to a chippy. Chippy man decided friend was wearing fake specs as a fashion item (he wasn't, he just wore specs!) and started trying to poke the lenses to see if they really had glass in :o When he realised they were real specs he apologised and they ended up having a long chat and putting the world to rights.

In Edinburgh that would NEVER happen.

As a student on placement in Switzerland about 30 years ago I was gobsmacked at not being allowed to hang my washing out on a Sunday and the extent to which my landlady felt justified in sticking her nose into my business. However, it was normal for her son to keep his army rifle (? not great at firearm ID) at home and fiddle about with in on the communal landing with no visible safety precautions whatsoever.

YY to whole families plus domestic animals on a single moped in various countries in SE Asia. And a man chopping the legs off live frogs on a market in Malaysia and casually throwing the twitching bodies aside into a bucket.

Having lived in continental Europe for many years I've acquired a bit of the laid-back attitude to naked bodies on display. Still more fussed than the locals, but it is indeed very liberating not to have to do the excruciating towel dance in changing rooms, on beaches, etc. and at home we really don't bother about it.

When back in the UK I hate having to share fight over a double quilt with DH, as I've got used to having one each. It also really bugs me that there's never anywhere to hang your coat up in pubs, cafés etc. And don't get me started about the public transport!

Experiencing blatant sexism in Switzerland - yes still very much accepted there....

also, going to certain parts of Scotland and feeling unwelcome because of an English accent (my husband's family are all from Scotland .... going back many generations, but my husband's father moved to London for a job - hence my husband has an English accent....)

Polly Yes, I do.

Whilst living in London experiencing racism first hand - it was Asian on Black and it shocked me to the core. Wasn't violent, just words but I was incredibly upset by it. I genuinely had no idea this was a thing - I moved from Ireland to London. Several years later at my dd's nursery seeing a large white man, there to collect his child, speak in a demeaning and racist way to two young girls wearing a veil on their heads. I felt threatened, heaven knows what those young girls felt. That angered me and I reported it.

Having to choose between a squat toilet and a cubicle with a normal loo - but occupied by a massive dog. That made me laugh.

Interesting about the Deep South/ North Florida. I've never been, but I've watched too many horror films, and I'd feel sure I'd be kidnapped and murdered at a gas station or Motel if I went to the Deep South.... Bill Bryson said similar in his books. I would really like to visit there though.

@Nellyphants def still done. It's almost a requirement in my dh office!

The shanty town on the main road outside Durban airport. It hit me like a battering ram.

Maybe I should have said 'obvious' or 'easy to find', then, because I don't remember seeing pages of large colour adverts for escorts in the classified section of your average UK daily paper.

My DH thinks every culture that isn't Scandinavian (he's Norwegian) wraps their children in cotton wool

Erm, has your DH travelled outside of Europe?

It's no more "prevalent" in Australia than anywhere else, and being legal makes it much easier to regulate and much safer on the whole.
Really superbeagle? Do you live in Australia then?

As someone else has said, how very Deep South Florida is away from the Disneyfied bit.

People followed around Fort Worth by Texans who had never heard British accents in real life. I was only about 16 and started to find it a bit unsettling after a while. Though have to say, found Texans really lovely, there must be unpleasant ones but I didn't meet one in the couple of months I was there.

I arrived in the U.K. as a student just after the death of Princess Diana, and I remember watching all the hysterical grief and flower-laying on the news during my first few days and thinking 'That's nuts', and then looking out the window onto a city centre bus stop and seeing a long queue of people ranged exactly one foot behind one another deep in newspapers, and thought 'That's nuts'.

DartmoorDoughnut
Not so much cultural but I was in Antigua for the cricket World Cup and they'd only just finished the stadium, there were absolutely massive rocks all over the place but they wouldn't let you keep the lid to your bottle of water in case you threw it!

We're not allowed bottle lids in football stadiums in Spain either (La Liga teams, I don't know about others).

LaLegue Training of armed police where we are is nowhere near the standard of the UK (I'd like to think no firearms unit officer in the UK would use their weapon as a handy hip seat for a toddler!)

I'm also not convinced that if it came to it, armed guards here would stand their ground. So we have all the dangers of a society with guns, with little of the security. It's a complete illusion.

When I used to pick OH's little sister up from a different school occasionally no one questioned me when she went home with me, even though they had no idea who I was

That's hilarious. MIL works in a nursery near to my office and I pop in every once in a while and it's like getting into Fort Knox.

Regarding prostitution, I take the view that it is going to happen anyway, so legalising it makes it safer for the women (and male prostitutes obvs) involved, so a good thing. Same for drugs - no-one who doesn't already do drugs is going to get wind of a clean and safe drug taking facility and think 'do you know what, I'll give that a go at the weekend'.

In the UK I believe that it is legal to offer paid sexual services from one's own home as long as only one person does it. However, it is not legal for two women who share a flat or whatever, to both do it and look out for each other while they do. Because that counts as running a brothel, which is illegal .

Drinking during the working day in London, I worked there early to mid 90s. A friend tells me it's still done

Having to choose between a squat toilet and a cubicle with a normal loo - but occupied by a massive dog. That was at a restaurant in Macau.

My DH thinks every culture that isn't Scandinavian (he's Norwegian) wraps their children in cotton wool.

How prevalent legalised prostitution is in Australia. I always thought it was a lovely sunny, wholesome kind of place.

It's no more "prevalent" in Australia than anywhere else, and being legal makes it much easier to regulate and much safer on the whole.

In the same way that safe injection sites don't make drug use more "prevalent", they make drug use safer.