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Moving Day is an example of something I thought was normal but only realized was a local custom when I moved to another country. Frozen thinly-sliced fondue me
by monkbroc 8y ago
Moving Day is an example of something I thought was normal but only realized was a local custom when I moved to another country.
Frozen thinly-sliced fondue meat (beef, pork, turkey) being available at any grocery store was another one. Fondue in a pot of beef broth is a popular dish for dinner parties in Québec since it scales no matter how many guests you have and each guest can eat however much or little they want. In the US the closest I can find is beef bulgogi from a Korean grocery store.
What are some examples of things you thought were "normal" until you moved elsewhere?
- NicoJuicy 8y agoWe Belgians have a "washandje" to wash our face with it. You can stick your hand in it and use it. It's not known anywhere else and we actually laugh with it :p
- guiomie 8y agoI had fondue in Los Gatos, and the meat what in cubes, cubes!!!!
- cperciva 8y agoLooking out the window and seeing trees and mountains.
- nhf 8y agoIf your area has a Chinatown or large Chinese grocer, you can get your fondue meat by asking for "hotpot meat" there.
- xiaq 8y agoFunnily enough, “cheese hotpot” is exactly how many Chinese call fondues.
- alister 8y agoIn Montreal, people line up in a neat straight long single file to board a bus, or for other kinds of queues. In many other parts of Canada/US, people either huddle around the entrance ready to push in or reluctantly make a disorganized line. Switching to Brazil, I have a long list of things that people from the US or Canada would think of as normal, but don't exist in Brazil or are very rare (like garburators, limousines, and bathtubs -- not kidding about bathtubs!): http://brazilsense.com/index.php?title=Common_in_the_USA_and_Canada_but_rare_in_Brazil http://brazilsense.com/index.php?title=Common_in_the_USA_and...
- miguelrochefort 8y agoBrits to the same.
- clearly 8y agoWe will queue for anything. However we won’t generally complain openly if someone jumps the line... just mutter under our breath.
- cwe 8y agoThis doesn’t seem to apply at busy metro stations, sadly
- zmk_ 8y agoIn the Netherlands you are often expected to remove/install floor when you move. Also, interestingly, no warm water in toilets in there either. The weirdest discrepancy between US/Can and Europe is the amount of water in and the size of toilets.
- verelo 8y agoInstall floor? Like, carpet or hard wood? This seems like a lot of work.
- rixed 8y agoHard wood, tiles... Anything until you reach the concrete.
- evandijk70 8y agoIt is, takes about a weekend with two people. But it is compensated by renter's protection, so almost every lease in the Netherlands is permanent, even if the owner sells the house. Typically, people stay in a rental for quite a while.
- verelo 8y agoSeems you get similar protections to what we get in Ontario.
- stevesimmons 8y agoDesign of toilets especially... The traditional Dutch toilet bowl has an inspection platform at the back that your poo lands on... [1]. Whereas American toilets have huge bowls full of water so whatever you excrete bobs around disconcertingly close to where you are sitting! [1] https://www.expatica.com/nl/insider-views/Everything-you-never-wanted-to-know-about-Dutch-toilets_103358.html https://www.expatica.com/nl/insider-views/Everything-you-nev...
- kiallmacinnes 8y ago
- Sytten 8y agoI feel you (from Quebec too, working abroad). The thing that shocked me the most in europe is the lack of facial tissues, cleaning stuff and many other things we generally have in the pharmacies.
- NicoJuicy 8y agoWhy would you need facial tissues from a pharmacy?
- SerLava 8y agoFor blowing your nose because you have a cold. In North America there's more space, and I think pharmacies are larger. The European pharmacies I've seen would have had to ditch 5% of their medications if they wanted to make space for a shelf of tissue boxes.
- Slartie 8y agoI'm speaking of Germany, but I think it is similar in other European countries. We consider a pharmacy to solely be a place to get medicine from, which is not allowed to be sold in other kinds of stores. They are usually located in smaller buildings where there is not much space to sell anything else (at least nothing big; most have some non-medicine but body-related products taking little space). The "pharmacies" that are actually middle-sized grocery stores with a medicine counter used to baffle me a lot for the first times I was in the US. It felt really weird to go there not needing any medicine, just to buy drinks or food.
- SerLava 8y agoYes we still have independent pharmacies that are medicine only, but a very large portion of them have been superceded by Walgreens and CVS which are 60% pharmacy/health and 40% a convenience store. It is quite nice to pick up a can of soup and some orange juice while you're buying decongestants and whatever else. This model is better for the rural and spread-out US where everything is so far apart.
- miguelrochefort 8y ago- Cheese curds being available at any grocery store. - Bagged milk - Ketchup chips
- verelo 8y agoSo I live in Canada, but grew up in Australia. In Canada, you inherit the fridge and washer/dryer of the apartment when you move in. Back in Australia, fridges and washer/dryers are often things you need to bring along on your own. They're big items, I much prefer them coming with the property (if they don't suck, which in places I've lived, often they have!)
- Declanomous 8y agoI visited a friend who had moved to Europe when I was in high school. I was astounded when I learned that German apartments came with no appliances, and if I recall correctly, things like counters were also brought with. It makes sense if you are planning on living somewhere for a long time, but it blew my mind. In my experience people didn't even move their appliances when they sold their house and moved to a new one.
- swimfar 8y agoKitchen cabinets and all the light fixtures too.
- richardw 8y agoThat sounds crazy. Can you bring kitchen cabinets with you, or are they re-installed brand new each time you move? If the latter, sounds like good business for installers! Is there a rationale or just habit?
- turbinerneiter 8y agoIt's not a general thing. My place had a kitchen with fridge when I moved in. A lot of places on the market now have too. New and renovated places often don't have a kitchen, but there are some that do. When you rent a place that had a former Tennant you often buy the installed kitchen from them. That's the situation I experienced in Munich since 2009 - may be different in other places and may be changing from how it was before. There is definitely a growing amount of places coming with a complete set of furniture - but that's just a trick to increase rent. It circumvents a law that regulates how much more expensive you can make a place for a new Tennant. Everybody hates those places.
- evincarofautumn 8y agoWell I only moved across the country (NH to CA), so the biggest differences I’ve noticed have been in dialect and food. People think I’m quaint for using “wicked” as an adverb here, but the local “hella” is both less emphatic and used slightly differently. And my accent probably comes off as “old-fashioned”. Part of it is just moving from a rural area to a suburban one, but at least among my friends & family back home, it was pretty normal to make a whole meal, or a substantial part of it, from home-grown, homemade, wild-caught, or foraged foods. I would’ve expected to see more of that here in CA considering its agricultural fertility, but I have to go out of my way to visit farmer’s markets or “localvore” restaurants. In New England it was just around—my family would grow/make/catch/find/harvest stuff and swap it with friends, neighbors, and coworkers. You knew someone who kept chickens, so you’d take some eggs off their hands so they wouldn’t go to waste; your garden produced far too many green beans, so you’d give them away—that sort of thing.
- function_seven 8y ago> but the local “hella” is both less emphatic and used slightly differently. So you're in Northern CA, I take it? In Southern California, “hella” is widely mocked. Regional differences are quite fractal :)
- evincarofautumn 8y agoYeah, SF bay area, although I didn’t actually hear “hella” that much until I started spending time in Reno, NV, where my partner is from. Most of my coworkers have been from elsewhere in the country & world.
- stevekemp 8y ago>What are some examples of things you thought were "normal" until you moved elsewhere? Where I come from, the UK, all the entrances to your house, your flat, and shops that don't have automatic/sliding doors would open _inwards_. You'd push a door to enter. Now I live in Finland an doors open outwards. There are a ton of tiny differences I've noticed since moving from the UK to Finland, another example would be that light-switches turn on/off in the opposite direction to that I'd expect. That said though I've started taking a lot of these things for granted now, so it is actually quite hard to think of more examples! One thing I'll never take for granted is that the majority of flats here in Helsinki have their laundry-machines in the bathroom. In the UK the washing-machine would ALWAYS be in the kitchen, or in a dedicated laundry area if the house was large/modern enough. (Also the UK would have all rooms of a house be carpetted, barring a reasonably modern trend of solid-wooden floors. In Finland houses are universally carpet-free, although people frequently use rugs.)
- kekeblom 8y agoIt’s actually fire safety code in Finland that doors have to open outwards. It should be easier to evacuate the building in case of a panic. You might still find old buildings where this is not true and they probably just predate the regulation.
- amelius 8y agoDid they measure the effect of the regulation?
- bodas 8y agoIt's also for fire safety reasons that doors open inwards in the UK. It means that the door can't be blocked from the outside.
- wyattpeak 8y agoWhat an interesting contrast. I wonder if there's some regional difference in behaviour, or if it's just a case of mandating something which seems superficially beneficial.
- ghshephard 8y agoSingapore - No hot water in kitchens. I thought I just had a weird apartment, but everyone swears, that outside of a few expat focussed house/apartments, 90+% of the country doesn't have hot water in the kitchen.
- evandijk70 8y agoRenter's protection. Any lease in the Netherlands was permanent until the renter left. Most still are. Living 30 years in the same rental is not exceptional.
- jdeibele 8y agoDoes the rent go up or is it fixed?
- sametmax 8y agoHaving decent bread at any corner of a street. All movies are dubbed. Only cops have weapons. On the road, roundabouts have only one way. You have an old money and a new money and you need to help old people with it. Pubs and restautants should give you free water.
- glandium 8y agoIn France, school year starts in September and ends in June.
- saalweachter 8y agoThe small city I grew up around has a weeklong street festival that is a primary fundraiser for all charitable groups within 50 miles - every church and marching band and sports club political group has a food booth, Boy Scouts sell parking, etc. Move away and get confused at everyone having these small anemic standalone pancake breakfasts and ice cream socials, find out the Fall Festival is like the second biggest street fair in the US after Mardi Gras.
- wj 8y agoMy wife grew up in St. Louis and assumed that basically all white people were Catholic and that you have to tell a joke to get candy when you are going door to door on Halloween.
- walrus01 8y agoPeople thanking the public transit bus driver in Vancouver.
- popman 8y agoJaywalking isn't a thing here. You can just walk across any road that's not a motorway, as long as you don't get hit by anything. Same with Simple trespass. Although that's the case in a lot of places.