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

Overly cautious @OrangutanLibrarianGivesAnOok (well obv there's always a risk that electricity is badly wired but my experience of Poland is that risk is low).

However, the question for Poland is why so many bathrooms and toilets don't have locks. They go by some sort of honour system.

This is how I wash the dishes if we don't use the dishwasher. I take soapy sponge, "scrub" with it bowls, plates, cups etc and then, rinse everything under the running tap. Everything dries on a rack.

[quote LaceyBetty]@prettypebbles so true! It's amazing what is regulated and how in different countries. I'm always amazed that I can buy ibuprofen by the hundreds (literally) in Canada and marijuana, but can't buy booze in corner stores in certain provinces. [/quote]
Yes, it's like that here, although my little province seems to have an alcohol problem. So much so, the health authorities were worried about people suffering from alcohol withdrawal during the first lockdown. After a week of lockdown, the liquor stores were listed as essential services.

@mommybunny

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. 😃

I used to iron a lot of things.

Now, even without a tumble dryer I rarely iron anything - unless linen or a dress/skirt etc which needs to be ironed.

I do have one of those wooden French tall with ropes drying racks though.

Drying hair in a bathroom or an electric socket there is a big no no but growing up and in other houses in the hall/drying area outside the bathroom there was an electric socket and I've dried hair there.

Generally - unless for certain religions who require immediate burial/cremation etc - I have no idea why we wait - but usually it's 2-3 weeks from experience.

@5zeds Last year in the US there were 3,791,792 live births in the US and 700 maternal deaths. Pretty good considering our statistics include women coming over our southern border to give birth who have had little or no prenatal care.

Why are american portions so huge, even McDonalds? Why do they eat plastic cheese? Why do so many seem to eat on paper plates?

Yes, it's like that here, although my little province seems to have an alcohol problemsad. So much so, the health authorities were worried about people suffering from alcohol withdrawal during the first lockdown. After a week of lockdown, the liquor stores were listed as essential services.

Places that sell booze like off licences were deemed essential here in the uk too during lockdown 1.

This thread is endlessly fascinating! I'm British and I only have a washing up bowl to soak feet in The very thought of using one to wash the pans we don't put in the dishwasher makes me feel queasy.

Can I ask, why don't American houses have radiators? On all the shows I watch they seem to have blowy things on the floor, do they heat the house sufficiently?

I'd bloody love electric sockets in the bathroom, being able to dry my hair without dh having to wake up early on his day off would be brilliant.

Here's one: why does California have massive underground car parks? The Getty Center has 7 storeys, and I wonder if that's wise. Yes I know they build them "for the last earthquake", but I guess it would save the eventual cost of a car crushing deal

And why do we use 12am and 12pm when they're both on the cusp so don't really exist? 12 noon or 12 midnight would make sense, but surely not that?

@Gwenhwyfar According to the UN 2019 Global Study of Homicide the US homicide rate is below average.

"I hold the dish (or whatever) under the tap to wash off all debris, then I remove it from the running water and rub it with a soapy sponge to really clean it, then I put the dish back under the running water to wash off the soap.

It's pretty much like how a person washes in a shower, I guess."

This is unenvironmental, but efficient and hygienic as you're washing and rinsing at the same time. I do this if I only have one thing to wash. If I have a few, I do a mix of this and the bowl method where I'll wash a dish in this way, but collect water in the bowl and put some dirty dishes in the bowl so I'm not totally wasting the water. I'm used to only having one sink so if I want to rinse, I have to do so under a running tap.

"- high school "isvak" where kids learn about safety on the ice by literally jumping through a hole cut in the ice"

And I thought rolling in the snow after a sauna was bad enough!

Italy - Why are you so bad at saying foreign names? Making up a fake name / word for every foreigner you know is not cute and funny.

It's a passive aggressive strategy we adopted after we heard you calling our ragù "spag bol". That and bruschetta (pronounced bruh-sketta, not bru-shetta).

I'm actually amazed at the revelation re washing dishes. I have genuinely never heard or seen any of my friends or relatives doing this.

There are aspects of the British education system that I'll never in a million years get comfortable with:

Turned 4 on the 31st of August? Come on, uniform on, off you go to school, it'll be trigraphs and multiplication for you next year. 1st of September? Yeah, you go play in the mud for another year and enjoy your childhood. Likewise the frequency of testing.

And at the other end, UCAS and uni admissions. Conditional and unconditional offers, only applying to five universities, the cult of Oxbridge at all costs.

@SleepingStandingUp

baffled too as to why so many kids are put to bed so early. I think the parents just want them out of the way yup, us Brits just hate out kids... Think is we have to be out the house at 8 for school at 8.45. so we're up at 7 to be ready. If he's going up at 9 and not getting to sleep until closer to 10 that isn't enough sleep. If you've got to drop them at the child minders at 8 so up at 6, again they need to get enough sleep

My DM admitted she put us to bed way too early because she needed a break. We were allowed to play for hours in our rooms as long as we didn't come downstairs.

@SquirrelFan

From the States originally, so these are all about the UK : No closets! Or significant storage. I don't know if it's just me, but why are light fixtures /lampshades that don't show the bulb so hard to find? I hate the inquisitorial glare of the light bulb every time I flip on the overhead light! Washing-up bowls - what's wrong with using the sink? And finally: Why are mixer taps not standard?!

I don't mind about the A/C or tumble dryer issue-better for the environment, anyway.

Pretty sure the lack of mixer taps thing was because we’d have water tanks in the loft spaces so it wasn’t safe to mix hot water for cleaning with cold water for drinking but now with most homes having combi boilers it’s not an issue.

Also it was infinitely easier to sort air in the pipes from the hot water with the cold tap if they were separate

"South Africa?"

I've seen north African men living in Europe do this as well. I asked a friend once why they thought it was polite and he sais 'of course we know it's not polite'.
Then I moved back to Wales and in the rough area where I lived I regularly saw both men and women spitting in the street, having thought it was a dying custom (remember the 'no gobbing' signs on buses).

@JaneJeffer

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.

Yes, but you were talking about it being at the chapel of rest so it's not a family vigil. Only done by very close family I think.

@banivani

Overly cautious *@OrangutanLibrarianGivesAnOok* (well obv there's always a risk that electricity is badly wired but my experience of Poland is that risk is low).

However, the question for Poland is why so many bathrooms and toilets don't have locks. They go by some sort of honour system.

It's true with washing machine in bathroom, I imagine it's for practical reasons - you undress before getting into the shower/bath and put your clothes directly into the washing machine. I haven't really seen anyone's bathroom/toilet missing lock in Poland, but had to install one myself in my flat in London!

Also, UK why 2 taps?

During the initial lockdown, Pennsylvania closed all the liquor stores. I live in Maryland and there were people driving down to buy alcohol.

Which brings me onto another topic--alcohol regulations! We lived in Pennsylvania before and their laws are absolutely bonkers. If you want to buy wine or spirits you buy it in a state owned store (several US states and most Canadian provinces have government stores). If you want to buy a case of beer, you go to the beer distributor. And if you want a six pack of beer you go to a place that does carry-out beer. They finally let some grocery stores get carry-out licenses and some sell wine now.

Meanwhile in California you can buy anything at the supermarket just like the UK.

Heating: I complained upthread about missing radiators. Some North American houses have them here, usually older ones in my experience, but European style panel radiators are rare. The two more common ways are either hot water baseboard heating, or forced-air heat. Forced-air is popular in much of the country, especially in newer houses, as it allows a single set of ducts for both heating and air-con. There's a push to use electric heat pumps for both heating and air-con, rather than gas central heating. In older houses in the Northeast that don't have gas mains, they have oil fired furnaces.

I am not a fan of the baseboards and think they aren't quite as good as radiators, but the heat is fine. Forced air is very dry. With the weather round here we need both the heat and the air conditioning.

Thought of another point re: built in storage in the UK vs US: house construction is different here. A lot of homes in the UK are brick-built and predate 1960, so a built-in cupboard will have solid brick walls. It's not easy or cheap to retrofit to a house that doesn't have one, and in a terraced house adding a built-in cupboard or ensuite is going to make a small room feel even smaller.

In the US, housing stock is generally newer, particularly outside of Manhattan, and walls are stud walls, which are plaster over a timber frame, hollow on the inside. It's cheaper and easier to build, knock down or redo, and rooms are generally larger, so adding a closet makes sense.

We were allowed to play for hours in our rooms as long as we didn't come downstairs.

I do this with DD (5). Bedtime is 7pm and she's allowed to read/play for an hour after that if she wants to, then she generally puts herself to bed. Is that not normal? I can't sit with her until she falls asleep!

@RaraRachael

That's funny Captain . I had English relatives as they all smashed the top. I've also seen loads of people do it on TV. We were watching something the other night and the character cut the top off his egg and I remarked that he must be Scottish, and he was!

It depends on your technique. If its a fresh egg and the shell is gently broken then you can peel it away using the membrane underneath.

Another Scotland v England thing with eggs (in our household at least!) I will break an egg on the side of the pan/bowl before dispensing the contents, whereas DH will gingerly tap at it using a knife until it breaks. I don't like this because it chips off very small bits of shell that you don't find until you're eating the egg.

I always crack an egg into a cup first before putting it in the frying pan or cake mix. In case there are bits or in case it's off (never happened so far).

@mimi0708

UK not washing bum after a poo, was really horrified when I first arrived here and knowing about this

No space for utility room, where do you put all your washing to dry?!

I was horrified when found out some people wash their bums after poo. I just wash it once a day when shower 😂

Alcohol varies wildly through the USA.
In my Midwest state my local supermarket has several bars and shopping while drinking was normal at night ( pre COVID)

In other Midwest states we visited it has hard to find any alcohol apart from in dodgy liquor stores.