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Expats, tell me what aspect or social norm of your new country was strange to you?

993 replies

AjasLipstick · 18/03/2018 06:53

I am a Brit in Oz and for me, the hardest thing to get used to was Sunday trading hours being like the UK in the 70s.

The weirdest thing was how much less formal people are...kids are dressed very informally and parties for children never have kids dressed up in party dresses but in shorts and t shirts. I like it now I'm used to it though.

OP posts:
BothersomeCrow · 28/03/2018 14:04

Brit in America.
Toilet seat covers in US public toilets (especially the clingfilm type ones which slide from one end of the U-shaped toilet seat to the other when you flush, only usually the mechanism is broken so the toilet seat is covered in bunched-up clingfilm)

Ice taking up most of a drink. Incomprehension at a drink without ice. I was hugely jetlagged at an airport once and had a rant about my smoothie not being a smoothie because it had sharp bits of ice in it.

Needing ID to pay for anything with plastic. Or to order alcoholic drinks even if you're 75. And a US passport doesn't count as ID... but passports are OK for foreigners even though staff will have even less clue whether they are fake!

'Drink' only means alcoholic drink, except when it doesn't. So when it was 35 degrees DH and I agreed we were desperate for a drink and cousins looked disapproving and said 'bit early for alcohol?' We only wanted water!

Rural America:
Effects of being so spread out - photocopier engineer arriving by helicopter, milkman comes once a week and would leave 144 pints (cardboard cartons, a gallon each) in the garage. Learning to drive and the instructor not understanding why I slowed for a level crossing. ('It's a railway!'). Turned out there's two trains a year each way, for the harvest. Giving 14yos driving licences with any excuse. Thinking a 15yo is much safer driving anywhere than walking to school.

Paranoia about alcohol, local paper headlines about students and their parents getting jailed when some 20 year olds had a party that got a bit wild, not because of the noise disturbing the neighbours, but because alcohol was being drunk in the kids' own home!

But the main culture shock is just how the Government is seen as 'other' and imposed, and to be resisted at all costs, rather than hoping 'our' lot get in. Which leads to acceptance that you have to choose between which prescribed meds to take, have to apply to charities to get hearing aids, and ongoing treatment like physio just isn't a consideration (hence the opioid epidemic) even with fairly good insurance. And the Flint water scandal again just being accepted as one of those things.

Church being the default place to meet a long-term partner - I find it hilarious when my cousins hit their late 20s and all start going to church regularly for the first time since leaving home. Once they find someone it drops off and then they mostly stop completely after marriage.

All very different to New York and other US cities.

BitOutOfPractice · 28/03/2018 14:07

Can we have another thread when this one's full. I have loved it!

shesalady · 28/03/2018 14:10

Shows how different America is! Nobody gets carded where I am! Hardly anyone goes to church either!

And as for paying for stuff, I actually use dh's card all the time and his cheques and forge his signature! Grin

We do also get our mail by plane or helicopter though. And quite often I hire a plane to get places as it quicker and cheaper than driving.

When I was pregnant dh actually got me a McDonalds I was craving flown to the house.

Bartering surprises me here. Most people accept goods or services instead of payment.

shesalady · 28/03/2018 14:11

I love love love the changing toilet seat covers. They make every part of me very happy.

LiquoriceTea · 28/03/2018 14:18

Why do people need toilet seat covers!?

AjasLipstick · 28/03/2018 14:24

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3206840-Continuation-of-expats-finding-things-abroad-weird-new-thread?watched=1

Outofpractice I started a new one for you. Grin

OP posts:
sashh · 28/03/2018 14:36

choseausername1

'Crack' was used very much in 1980s East Lancashire.

What's the crack - what's happening here
That's a good crack - a good job.

It must be an Irish import.

DullAndOld · 28/03/2018 14:45

'I am just here for the craic' said my friend outside a party in London when the police asked him what he was doing there...next thing the party was busted!

Grin
BitOutOfPractice · 28/03/2018 14:49

Ajas you are a love. Thank you!

expatinscotland · 28/03/2018 14:59

This is a superb thread.

YouCantGetHereFromThere · 28/03/2018 16:14

Bartering surprises me here. Most people accept goods or services instead of payment.

Yes, I'm a web designed and I quite often do websites in return for goods or services rather than payment. My garden is beautiful, my skin is pampered, and I have all the popcorn I can eat :-D

TeaAddict235 · 28/03/2018 16:31

@elisenbrunnen whereabouts in Germany are you? Cloud cuckoo land??

mathanxiety · 28/03/2018 17:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TheDowagerCuntess · 28/03/2018 17:11

One of the first things DH says when he arrives home from work is 'any craic?' 'What's the craic?'

There never is any - I'm usually getting dinner on - but it's nice that he thinks there might be. 

mathanxiety · 28/03/2018 17:12

Wrong thread Blush whoops..

BagelGoesWalking · 28/03/2018 17:23

TheDowager 😂😂😂

TheDowagerCuntess · 28/03/2018 17:33

Have to say, I 💚 the word and have adopted it myself.

He'll ask how my day was - my response 'gas craic'.

I get an interested 'oh really?!' from him.

No, of course it wasn't, I was at work! Ah, the hours fly at our place.

VianneRocher · 28/03/2018 19:09

What an interesting thread!

Have to say ive been shaking my head at a few of the comments re the U.K.

I have never waited more than 48 hrs to see my gp. I live in inner London Do not a leafy under subscribed practice by far.

We are so defensive of our NHS because it is under attack from this Tory government.

No one says its perfect, but uts not 'appalling' and it has saved mine and one of my childrens lives without putting us in financial hardship or bankrupting me.

Any of those unhappy with the NHS is free use private healthcare as we have that too.

Whats all this about hot water and buttons?
I have always had access to instant hot water and mixer taps. Im in my 40s and all of this was the norm in my childhood.

British hospitality...The nature of hospitality can vary regionally but I have rarely visited anywhere and not been offered a drink at the least and a full on meal at the other end of the scale.

Great thread but some of it was like reading one of those annoying buzzfeed articles '15 things about brits' Grin

YouCantGetHereFromThere · 28/03/2018 19:18

Great thread but some of it was like reading one of those annoying buzzfeed articles '15 things about brits'

It's also like reading one of those annoying buzzfeed articles '15 things about Americans' where you wonder if the writer has ever even been there.

Lweji · 29/03/2018 07:46

Speaking of duvet covers, you read this and just know the author and the editor are on MN: Grin

www.inverse.com/article/42949-top-sheets-millennials-bedding-duvet-cover?

elisenbrunnen · 29/03/2018 09:39

TeaAddict - what part of my post from 11 days ago is 'cloud cuckoo land'?

FYI - North-Rhein Westfalia. OK?

LockedOutOfMN · 29/03/2018 09:49

Seems relevant as it's Holy Week.

Spain. The Holy Week processions. Amazing.

Also, we have fresh milk sold in reusable bags, but it's not that popular, most people use long life milk.

LockedOutOfMN · 29/03/2018 10:11

BitOutOfPractice
topless bathing seems to be very much in the minority in France and Spain though

Not in my experience (I'm French and still visit every year, have lived in Spain for years).

shesalady · 29/03/2018 12:15

@Lweji that article is all confused. They're talking about the foul American practice of having a duvet without a cover. Envy>not envy or having a cover and using a sheet too and not washing the cover. Bleurgh. Foul.

shesalady · 29/03/2018 12:16

Most hotels now will have a duvet with NO cover on. They'll have a sheet they wash and a hairy blanket on top. That means you're sleeping in bedding that's rarely or never washed. Vom.

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