Questions you have about other nationalities!

[WatermelonWaveclub]

Just for fun. DD and I were just watching a video where Americans were asking questions about the UK. What are your questions (can be for any nationality from any nationality)? And please feel free to answer other people's questions!

I'll start with some questions for Americans:

Are your grocery bags really those ones without handles? They look really awkward to carry!

Why do you not have electric kettles?

In High school films the English teacher for example always gives them some homework to do by the next day and says 'see you tomorrow' - do you have the same classes every day? We just had English twice a week or something!

We also refer to them as Daddy Long Legs. The spiders that is.

The flying ones, I think are crane flies. Or in our house, 'the flying thing'.

Both just make their way out on their own, we just leave them alone.

I had a run in with a scorpion yesterday. I was bringing in wood for the fire, and its obviously had a nice little snug spot there on a log. It scurried off, so I have no idea where it is now.....

@BrioNotBiro In the Isle of Man they say going ‘across’ or (for the very politically Manx) ‘The Adjacent Isle’.

never the mainland.

It's much healthier to squat when you have a bowel movement . Or so my old yoga teacher said !

I love watching UK house decorating shows and I have noticed the hallways are usually narrow and in lot of houses there is no place for shoe closet. Where do you keep them?
Most UK housing stock is Victorian and follows the same or similar floor plan with a narrow hall, two reception rooms off it, hall dog-legging around the staircase (sometimes the hall stops and the staircase is in the rear reception) then kitchen at the back.

ANYWAY: places I have seen shoes kept:

Bespoke drawers built into the space under the stairs. Inside people’s wardrobes. On racks directly inside the front door (wider hallways). On a rack in the rear reception. In the utility room (if you fancy). In covered porches. IKEA does a roaring trade in shallow-depth shoe storage. But generally they are stuffed in the hallway – ours are under the stairs in a Kallax – but won’t be shown in a decorating show because it doesn’t fit the elegant vibe.

Roast every Sunday here unless it's hot. My father was brought up on a farm so it would be odd not to. However dh family is from the Caribbean so that meal is served with rice and peas (coco rose beans, coconut rice) and salad. I don't make this often and it is frowned upon to use tinned beans. Remembering to soak overnight etc is for special occasions only. Ditto carrot juice which is a Guiness, carrot and Irish moss concoction. That one I really dislike.

They aren’t. It is all related to manners and social class, very much like in the UK.

If you go to Magaluf you would think all UK people are loud and rowdy, while if you go to a place visited by rich people you will find them soft spoken, incredibly polite and very very tactful. It is the same with Chinese people. I have not seen any loud Japanese yet.

Because that's how we roll - you talk about the weather and all its quirks, we talk about food and all its quirks :)

My question is for Australians, what do you do if you find a spider in your house - do you kill/remove it even if it could attack you?

I leave any spiders in the house alone, they're invariably huntsmen, so while often of an impressive size, are harmless. Outside I only pile into spiders' webs on the window. I haven't killed any spiders yet, but might take action if children came to my house. There was a redback lived underneath a garden bench for a couple of years, but seems to have moved on.

I was brought up to see killing spiders bad luck, which has coloured my attitude.

Different response to that… No, you hardly ever use sunscreen (mostly only when you are on holidays) but you go out of your way to walk in the shadow and stay indoors at times when sun rays are more damaging.

Make up doesn’t melt because there is air conditioning EVERYWHERE.

@PrachtStück Friday 13th really only became known in Spain because of the American film of the same title. The real bad luck day in Spain is definitely Tuesday 13th. You know the saying on Tuesday the 13th "ni te cases ni te embarques" (don´t get married and don´t start a voyage).
And as for pranks on December 28, yeah I agree it is more a teen thing and then tv programmes and newspapers sometimes pull their viewers and readers´legs...

But then I am generation X not a young thing...

For anyone in Italy/Spain/Greece - what's the best time for a siesta?

Right, let me tell you how it works in Italy.

First of all, siesta is what the Spanish people do, we get what it means but in Italy nobody calls it that way. In Tuscany we call it Riposino, but in other parts of Italy they may have their name.

And in winter when the weather is cold nobody takes a sleeping break in the middle of the day but in the summer when it's really super hot (and at the moment has been consistently 35-38 since May) you may need to sleep a little during your lunch break because the best hours to live are late night and early morning, that eats into your night time sleep (normally in the summer Italians will sleep only about 5/6 hours per night, hence the need of a strong coffee early in the morning and an additional nap in the afternoon. That is also why the Italian working day is divided in two blocks: 8-12 and 16-20 (or 15-19).

A question for Americans: why do public toilets in restaurants/airports/stores have big gaps at the sides of the door so that people waiting can see in? Also, why do orange juice and eggs come in such big bottles/boxes? Great big bottles of orange juice and a dozen eggs seems standard in films.

I'm not sure it's true that the voltage issue doesn't have anything to do with the relative scarcity of electric kettles in the states. We lived over there for two years and picked one up in Walmart as one of our first purchases. Took way longer than a UK kettle to boil so we quickly switched to using a stovetop kettle which worked perfectly well, and quickly. The electric one came on many road trips so we could make a cup of tea in a motel room though. Whenever I went to my friend's house if I wanted a cuppa she'd microwave the water for it.

France - no to 2hr lunch breaks as a general rule. However everywhere Ive worked people take a good hour on a normal day and if not a lot of work on, they'll take 90 minutes.

But Ive never had set working hours, just a set number of days (with some madatory hours). Ive usually 9am - 7 or 8pm for most of my working life. The 35 hour week does not apply to a lot of workers.

For schools, it varies. Break of 75 - 100 minutes

The Italy breaks in the day - does this happen in schools, too?

I’m not American, but an American friend once answered this for me. Apparently the original expression is ‘I could care less, but not much’, which makes more sense - it’s just been shortened over time. So to British ears it doesn’t make sense because the ‘but…’ isn’t implied.

In Italy I don[t know anyone who takes a siesta apart from when they are on holiday at the beach. When we are at the beach we always go home (or to the hotel) and have a nap after lunch. At work this is not possible - I barely get a lunch break!

Can someone unpick why I (UK) always feel inferior to the French?

Why do Americans say carmel instead of caramel (maybe more in the southern states?). There is quite distinctly an a in the middle and it’s not silent?

Why do Australian men still love mullets (and always have, it seems, as they were still wearing them back in the 90s when they were old fashioned and still wear today).

Do Americans wish the total price of an item was what is on the price tag? How can you budget a shop if you don’t know what the end total is going to be?

I'm English and don't know anyone that actually does this (not even when I was small/a kid!) so it's not a given!

Do you not have door knockers in America. In films people always rap on the door with their knuckles

HRTFT Yet, but enjoying this immensely 😀
It's rare throughout Europe to find a kettle, even in holiday homes in my experience.
Also, Italians always boil huge pans of pasta water from the cold tap, so it takes forever to come to the boil.
I am always advising them to buy a kettle and use already boiling water in the pan..
This goes down as well as you can imagine 😂

I'm Australian (white European heritage) and have the 'traditional' meal but turkey served as cold cuts, plus cold lobster.

I’ve always wondered about this - does no one in Italy commute? In the UK, particularly in London, a commute of an hour to 90 minutes is not uncommon (although less so pre-Covid). A long break in the middle of the day would be useless to many, as they’d have nowhere to go. Does everyone just live really close to work?

For Americans- laundry.
Why are washing machines top-loaders and not front-loaders? And do people who live in apartments really share communal washing machines/dryers in the basement and not have their own ones in their flats?