Things that baffle you about another country

[Soubriquet]

America:-

Why are the gaps in the toilet doors so wide? Do you really enjoy an audience?

Why can’t tax be included in the price? If I want to buy something for a dollar it should be a dollar! Not dollar plus tax!

Australia:-

Still weird that you have Christmas in summer.

Wonder if they have different Christmas songs there.

Can’t see walking in a winter land being a big hit.

More like hiding from a hot heatwave

That's not the funeral though is it? That's going to look at a dead body.
It's part of the funeral in Ireland. Anyone who wishes can go to see the body laid out in an open coffin (usually in the home of the deceased) and give their condolences to the family.

@intheenddoesitreallymatter

I love this!

Americans - is it true that you spend on average £10k a year per person for health insurance?
Why does everyone carry guns and why is restricting them such a big deal?
Is it true it's normal to drive an hour to the supermarket, to work etc?
What is the hype about Target? Is it like a big Asda?

Europeans -
Do your kids really have 10pm bedtimes?
Do they really eat as late as 9pm?
Why do they seem so placid/well behaved?

Health insurance can indeed cost 10K a year BUT usually employers subsidise around 80% of this, so you pay 20%, which is taken out of your paycheck. This is actually a bit similar to Germany (where you pay 17% of your pay toward insurance).

You can choose between plans with low monthly rates but large payments if you actually need treatment, or higher monthly rates but low charges for treatment.

In general this whole system works okay-ish, the problem has always been for people who do not get insurance through their employer. There's Medicaid and Medicare for people on benefits and pensioners, but that still leaves out a lot of people. This is what Obama tried to fix but unfortunately it does cost a fortune to get insurance on your own.

All of this is too entrenched to switch to an NHS system. It's not that Americans are too stupid, it's just such a radical switch. It would be easier to switch to something like the German system actually, which also has insurance but the government pays it for you if you can't afford it.

My DH and I got caught by undercover transport police on our 1st day in Berlin having not validated

Just to say be very careful with that one. I can't comment on Germany itself, but certainly in Poland and the Czech Republic, some of them aren't undercover police at all, but gangs extorting "fines" out of the unwary

To me washing up in a bowl would be like my whole family sharing one bath when we're covered in mud and grime. Nobody would actually get very clean.

@TheGravelRoad

To me washing up in a bowl would be like my whole family sharing one bath when we're covered in mud and grime. Nobody would actually get very clean.

So how do you wash your dishes? Do you fill a sink each time you wash one item?

What are you on about? A heatwave will be ten days at most. There is no need for environmentally disastrous aircon for a few days of heat.

I don't mean the 35+ temperatures. That's REALLY hot weather. I mean everything else, 20s still causes you to sweat! And it's gotten more humid over the years as well. And it's that way for much longer than '10 days'.

I'm also adding: why do British people think that it's not hot unless it's classed as a heatwave 😂

As an American expat living in the U.K. for over 20 years, and who has also lived in Germany, here are my “drives me nuts” on all sides. There will be some gross generalisations but most are affectionately directed.

Drives me nuts about Americans:
-switching cutlery from one hand to the other after cutting their food is just wrong
-they are way, way, way too attached to their guns
-they expect a prescription to be available for, and cure, every possible ailment
-they expect 21 year-olds to wake up on their birthday able to handle alcohol, because that’s the earliest they will have had a legal drink
-funeral wakes’ social obligations can be obscenely hard on immediate survivors of a dead lived one
-political campaigns take far too long

Drives me nuts about Brits:
-they expect clothes somehow to dry by themselves in the winter
-they iron everything that moves
-their toilets don’t always get everything down in one go
-the fights I had with DH about putting in mixer taps when we were putting in a new bathroom almost broke us up (same with a tumble dryer right after I’d had a baby)
-I can’t dry my hair in the bathroom (and I don’t believe it’s because the electricity voltage is too high - the Continent is on the same voltage and I never had a problem using a hair dryer in the bathroom)
-funerals take place obscenely long after death

I’m sure there are more. Fascinating thread in any event.

I must say I’m confused though about the US kettle thing: my DM and DSis both live in New Jersey and both became tea drinkers long before I moved abroad. I know my DM has an electric kettle and I’m reasonably certain my DSis does too.

The water-in-the-toilet thing frightened the bejesus out of my DD the first time she flushed in a US toilet - just so happened to be in Newark Airport as we were waiting to go into an immigration queue. The blood-curdling shriek could be heard all the way up to the border guards. 😃

2) Why do the washing machines and tumble dryers open at the top and not at the front like the rest of the world?

I love this! The number of times I put washing on and turn around to find a sock lying on the floor, adding it to the machine is a breeze. With front loaders it's a drama to add anything else.

Tumble dryers are front loading though, never seen a top one.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

My DH and I got caught by undercover transport police on our 1st day in Berlin having not validated

Just to say be very careful with that one. I can't comment on Germany itself, but certainly in Poland and the Czech Republic, some of them aren't undercover police at all, but gangs extorting "fines" out of the unwary

Even in Berlin, they're not actually undercover transport police, they're just contractors and usually rather thuggish. They have daily quotas and intimidate the fuck out of people. Everyone hates them.

One of the things I like most about moving back to the UK is having an oyster card again! And proper train staff! You take it for granted when you're here.

Re: laundry in kitchen - why do You Foreigners not have washing machines and tumble dryers in the bathroom? This is by far the most common solution in Sweden if there is no room for a separate laundry room. Also, our bathrooms are always completely waterproofed with a drain in the floor, so if overflowing happens it doesn't go into the walls/floor. I've understood that this is not the case in the US for example, hence the overflow drain on baths.

@NorbertMeubles

I went to a country where the men all seemed to spit and internally make some sort of phlegm making sound which made me feel sick every time I heard it. In buses, in bars, in the street. It was rank. Obviously not all men but it was noticeable to be unusual for me.

South Africa?

@GingerGill

‘UK’ is not over populated! Other home nations might be but Scotland less densely populated than USA!

In fairness, England isn't densely populated either. On the Coronavirus threads this is trotted out as a reason why the situation continues to be so bad, despite the UK not having one city in the top 40 most densely populated European ones apparently.

@banivani

Re: laundry in kitchen - why do You Foreigners not have washing machines and tumble dryers in the bathroom? This is by far the most common solution in Sweden if there is no room for a separate laundry room. Also, our bathrooms are always completely waterproofed with a drain in the floor, so if overflowing happens it doesn't go into the walls/floor. I've understood that this is not the case in the US for example, hence the overflow drain on baths.

In the UK bathrooms are usually small and they never have plug sockets.

@Nancydrawn you are right about not being allowed to pump your own gas in New Jersey but as far as I’m aware it isn’t the only state where that applies: unless the law has changed in the last 20 years, Oregon also didn’t allow people to pump their own gas.

And lest people think it was just a way to increase the price of petrol, it was almost always much cheaper to fill up in New Jersey than over the bridge in New York. We had among the lowest gas prices in the country when I was growing up.

@banivani, quite a few UK bathrooms have carpet, let alone drainage :)

But apart from that, Captain - do they really NEVER have plug sockets? Anyway other foreigners then. I've seen washing machines in kitchens in France and Spain too.

Our bathrooms can be small too but they tend to put in a "laundry column" if possible.

My biggest one is the US though - they can drive at 16, sign up for the military at 18, they have a disturbingly high level of child marriage, you can vote at 18 but.... you can't have a drink until you're 21? WTAF?

That's a hangover from the Prohibition thing; it may have been repealed, but for some it never really died

Countless Americans love alcohol, but with some, invite them for a drink and that's just what it means ... a drink. Offer them another and it's as if you've suggested an threesome with their grandma

@Hardbackwriter

Europeans - Do your kids really have 10pm bedtimes? Do they really eat as late as 9pm? Why do they seem so placid/well behaved?

Big generalisations about 'Europeans' here! In southern Italy kids do go to bed and eat late compared to British ones but they are definitely not well behaved and placid!

British children are European.

banivani UK bathrooms never ever have electric sockets. The nearest you get is a thing for plugging a shaver in to.

But does your building code forbid electricity in bathrooms altogether? No, because you have lights. So it's possible - why does no-one do it when for example building a new house or renovating?

Speaking of eggs, but a UK question.
Why do English people smash in the top of a boiled egg and then spend ages picking tiny bits of eggshell off it.
I'm Scottish and slice the top of with a knife and then scoop out the top with a spoon - much less faff!

We have lights in bathrooms but the switch is either outside the room or if it's inside, it's on a string.

@ItsGoingTibiaK

Electric kettles are used in America, but they’re not as common. They use 120V, rather than out 240V, so take longer to boil.

They do combine two 120V rails at the consumer unit to provide 240V for some appliances, such as tumble driers, but I don’t know if it’s ever done to provide 240V just for a kettle.

We have electric kettles here in Canada and ours switch off when the water has boiled (haven't used a stove kettle for 20 years). Apparently it's not volts that boil the water, it's the watts. If you and I each have 1500 watt kettles, they would boil in the same time.

My question would be why does the UK would have clothes washers in the kitchen?

Sorry posted too soon - it must be against the law because no new builds or any renovated properties would ever be allowed to have them. Building regulations etc seem to be getting more stringent with time, not less.