What things do you struggle with that are culturally acceptable?

[Amapoleon]

Yesterday I was in the dr's waiting room and watched a mother repeatedly smack her child. The child was very aggressive [I wonder why] and every time he was aggressive she whacked him.

Although illegal in Spain, smacking in some quarters is still acceptable. I am only speaking from my experience in my area and don't want to make sweeping generalisations that all Spanish people smack their kids. There were 4 or 5 other mothers and no one batted an eyelid.

DH always enjoyed driving in UK as it was so relaxed in comparison to German autobahnen.

I find the Swiss and French more courteous when driving than the Germans.

Well, any other European nation really. The Germans are generally road hoggers. The "I am driving as close to the middle of the road as possible, it is MY lane" attitude that is so different to the Italian "We can fit 4 cars side by side on a normal road, lets all overtake at the same time".

We noticed that Italians often move to the side of the road to allow others to overtake.

Yes, that's what we do in South Africa. But DH finds that a bit scary strange. But when you're driving on long, straight roads for 10s of kms at a time, you have to keep the traffic moving!

Ah Belgo, I have made an extensive study of the fast-lane hogging phenomenon and have come to the conclusion that Southerners Can't Drive Properly (I am a southerner who lives in Scotland so have much evidence accumulated from driving up and down the M6/M1). You will find that until you reach about Manchester, people know how to use motorways properly, but after that things gradually change until by the time you reach Milton Keynes it is as if the whole M-way organisation has been swapped over - the fast lane is completely full, and the slow lane is completely empty of cars - only lorries. You can't even get into the fast lane most of the time.

It drives me WILD.

Sorry, rant over.

Here the main thing that bugs me in traffic is that no-one thinks about anyone but themselves. Ever. Hence.

1. It is the rush hour. You park in the right hand lane so that everyone else has to squeeze past and so cause massive jam. Ditto delivery drivers who really MUST deliver concrete/tractors/anything that causes the most inconvenience between the hours of 7 and 9am.

1. There are traffic lights. One lane is for turning right, the other for turning left. You want to turn right, but the left hand lane is moving quicker, so you drive in that lane until you get to the front, then try to push in. The drivers in the right hand lane aren't happy about your cheek so try to stop you. Hence you then hold up all the traffic behind you in the left lane, when the light is green.

1. You are on the motorway and your exit is coming up. You stay in the outside lane til the very last minute and then do a quick swerve across all lanes of traffic (indicators optional) frightening unsuspecting expats half to death in the process.

1. You see the person in the next lane indicating to pull into the large gap that is front of you. You laugh at the fact that they are bothering to indicate at all and accelerate quickly to fill the gap so that they can't change lanes.

etc etc. How my dd hasn't got a huge repertoire of English swear words I'll never know.

Lol Portofino. A lot of that applies hee too, although most Italians do at least use their indicators. I've been guilty of the werving across 3 lanes to get tot he exit thing in the past, mainly because on Italian motorways the sign of the exit is approx 10m in front of said exit and if you're doing anything over 30kmh (which of course everybody is) you miss it.

I think it's a conspiracy with the oil companies to get everyone to do extra unnecesary km to the next exit and turn back again.

Also, A roads that mysteriously peter out and you suddenly find about 20 arrows indicating a 180° bend when you're doing about 100 and end up doing the bend on 2 wheels.

Needless to say I haven't driven in Italy since.

OMG portofino and I found driving in Germany scarey

Brange is it just some parts of Italy where people use indicators then? When I was in Naples absolutely no one but me ever seemed to use them and I kept getting people swivelling right round in their seats to look at me like I had a total screw loose. This was not helped by the hire car having Milano number plates.

In fact they told me at the hotel in Naples that I'd be dead lucky if my car was still standing in the morning with Milano number plates. This was accompanied by a lot of head shaking and smiling and it sounded a bit as if this was a good thing. Even more head shaking in the morning mind you when it was still there. They seemed utterly amazed at that.

Hmm...I've certainly noticed that I gesticulate at other drivers a lot more since driving in France

I recently posted on another forum some advice for driving in Italy, specifically the Amalfi Coast.

I could not believe how many of the other posters (mainly American) advised the OP to not drive in Italy, and certainly not the Amalfi Coast.

Iam not the world's most confident driver but I drove in that area and it was really fine. (most of the time). A bit hairy in places but ok.

I remember being lost for words when dd's entire class at the French school in Berlin "blacked up" with boot polish to sing African songs at an end of term concert. I and the only other English parent at the school could talk of little for the rest of the day - noone else batted an eyelid or thought it was in anyway inappropriate and this included a considerable number of Africans who had children at the school.

No, Naples is a case apart. Non neapolitans joke about driving in Naples and thre are so many horror stories about it. A friend of mine who is married to a Neapolitan drove down a couple of summers ago in her brand new BMW and gained a few grey hairs on the way.

Her examples of scary driving were:
-2 lane highways magically become 4 lanes and overtaking is done from all sides
-if you stop at a red light you risk someone going into the back of you, so you just don't stop
-you're going down a one way street and suddenly find a car coming at you the wrong way at speed
-when they finally parked her husband paid some layabout 50 euros to keep an eye on their car so it wouldn't get stolen/dismantled/vandalised.

She went back last year but went by train.

French mums shouting at and sometimes smacking their children in public.

The unbelievable mind-numbing slowness of French people while working, driving, and especially serving (servers in restaurants, cashiers in stores, employees in post office, etc). It's like watching paint dry. I've lost the will to live several times this way and was afterwards pleasantly surprised to see my hair hasn't all turned white. I do have quite a few more white hairs than when I moved down here, though.

Dogs pooing everywhere in Monaco and not one owner bothering to pick up the deed. Fortunately all roads & pavements are washed with soapy water every morning, but by early afternoon, you really need to watch where you step.

I can't get over it. How is that OK?

CoteAzur
I thought that was the Swiss that were so slooooow. Jeez, I stood one time while the guy on the meat counter packaged up my cold meat with the same kind of care and attention that you would use when wrapping your PFB's first birthday present. I wanted to shout "Just bung it in a bag and put the price on it, FFS" but managed to restrain myself.

Compared to the French, and especially Southern French, the Swiss are whizzing examples of efficiency.

And at least they are punctual - I get an appointment from an electrician, wait at home for four hours, he doesn't show up. He doesn't call. Next day, I call and ask what happened. He says "Oh, I was tired and went home"

My personal favourite: DB was visiting and had to leave at 5:30 AM to catch his plane back home. So I arranged a taxi the night before. He said he would be here at 5:30 AM.

Next morning, he shows up 40 minutes late. DB barely makes it to the airport. When asked why he was so late, driver says "Oh, alarm rang, but I turned it off and went back to sleep"

Seriously, they are unbelievable.

excellent restraint there ML but I'm wondering if it had something to do with figuring out which articles to use

Oh yes brange that brings back memories. We wondered why the heck they bother having traffic lights AT ALL in Naples. No one stops at them, not even the police cars. We figured out after a bit the way to go was to rush the crossing at full speed, hooping repeatedly in the hope you'd scare any other comers away and get the hell across as soon as possible.

I think the drivers there are amazing though. They drive like madfolk but they can drive. They zig zag about all over the place but don't collide. Now try doing that whilst ignoring traffic lights and scorning the indicator.

Ach was, the Swiss, the French... You have to experience Portugal. Now I loved it there but I have never experienced anything like the tempo of Portugese service staff. We had this waiter bring us 1 drink at a time over a period of about 10 minutes, then 1 plate at a time. Very odd. THe restaurant was practically empty too and crawling with service staff.

The classic example was once when we decided since it always takes AGES and dd was hungry to just stop off at some burger place and get dd a quick take-away. There was one guy loping about, he'd take an order in about 15 minutes and then he'd moon about casually filling one drink, walking off into another room to return with one straw and so on.

There were Germans in the queue directly behind us rolling their eyes and even laughing out loud, even the Italians behind them were getting restless.

LilianGish - yes, and blacking up to be the three wise men at Christmas too!

This thread is so interesting....
I am always interested by the fact that policemen in Paris walk around in 3s....

I am always shocked and saddened by the racism in France, it's just appalling.

Smacking.Hate it.

Controlled crying - everyone here recommends it.

Total ignorance about any other methods eg when enrolling ds in nursery the director asked us about his home life and what his bedroom was like. When we said we co-slept she said "you must stop that immediately, it's very damaging for the child and not healthy. It will make him timid and unconfident". Ah, this is the same unconfident 4 year old who ran into the dentist surgery for the first time yesterday, climbed onto the chair and said "go on, then" to the 6 foot white coated masked dentist...?

Treating doctors like God. You can't question them and they get very confused and narked if you do. Pregnancy was fun, as you can imagine! I was told "you don't need antenatal classes, we'll tell you what to do when you get there". Apparently I "didn't need to know" what changes my body was undergoing and what to expect.

Where are you, kitbit?

kitbit - speaking from experience in France I think a lot of confusion goes on here between perceived lack of confidence in children who spend more time than average with their parents - and boredom with childish activitities.

My DD (4.4) sometimes gets earmarked by people who don't know her very well as lacking in confidence. Actually, she just doesn't like being patronised by adults who treat her like a baby... So she stands back from them.

Southern Spain, quite a rural area which probably explains some of it! Yes, your point about confidence strikes a chord! Sounds a lot like ds

I've seen my DD stand back totally bemused by adults behaving in a truly moronic way (think party entertainers) - she just isn't used to being patronised to that extent and to having to join in inane group actitivities. Some children are put in crèche since birth and are hardened!

ah yes, the "directness" too I don't find it rude any more, but it still takes me off guard sometimes. And I have to be careful not to do it myself when back in England, where it would most certainly be rude.

MIL was laughing at this one:

At the butchers in England "Sorry, yes, could you possibly cut me a bit of that piece there? Yes, the one at the front, if that's OK. Lovely, thank you. No, I don't mind waiting. oh, sorry I don't have the right change" etc etc
At the butchers in Spain "Give me that one. What price? Give me a bag."

Spanish subtext: