What’s something about your country that you didn’t realize was abnormal until you traveled?
February 26, 2025
Wat is something about your country you thought was normal until you visited several other countries and saw that it isn't widespread?
35 comments
Equality, long parental leave, lgbtq-rights, free welfare/education. Basically everything a country is there to provide, otherwise it’s just subpar.
That stores are open pretty much whenever I need. They stay open later than in many countries I’ve visited.
Siesta in southern europe always catches me off guard 😀
Throwing the used paper in a small bin instead of flushing it in the toilet. Everyone’s clowning us for that.
Waving at magpies, saying thanks to bus drivers, main thing was learning half of the words I use were not being proper English but more a version of Irish English.
That what we call bread is not at all the standard bread elsewhere.
The Estonian word for bread (leib) refers to rye bread in particular. While the international wheat bread is known by a separate word (sai).
And whatever ’rye bread’ there is outside of certain countries in Eastern/Northern Europe does not cut it, because we’re talking about bread made with 100% rye, not 5% or similar.
French people complain in Estonia about having difficulties to find proper bread for their standards, while Estonians living abroad are actually lost without proper rye bread, because it is literally impossible to source in Western or Southern Europe / America / other continents.
People using academic and official titles in everyday speech.
It‘s totally common and often outright expected to address people with their titles. For example, as Frau Dr. Gruber, or Ms. Doctor Gruber in English, or Herr Mag. Müller, Mr. Magister Müller in English, when meeting them in formal and informal settings – except when doing sports or other hobbies together, or just being on a mountain.
Also, you’d add official titles before that, like for example Hofrat, literally Court Counsel.
You also add military ranks and professional titles of officials, like ministers or high-Ranking bureaucrats. If the person is no longer serving as an official, you‘d add a.D., meaning außer Dienst, or no longer in service in English, behind it.
Previously, you‘d also address their spouse with these titles as a matter of courtesy, but with a lot of women earning titles and working themselves; that has fallen out of fashion.
A lot of other countries don‘t do that.
It’s always a bit uncanny to call, for instance, a lawyer just Herr Müller, instead of Herr Dr. Müller, when I am in Germany.
Our debit card system Girocard (often still called EC card).
Shops being closed on Sunday and generally closing fairly early in general.
The quantity of political billboards everywhere in the country. But billboards in general are everywhere, advertising various things.
How overly obsessed my fellow Germans are with contracts:
Germans believe you can write absolutely anything in a contract and it will become reality for eternity.
That’s essentially true in the context of Russian aggression, as Germans, after a failed Minsk-1 and Minsk-2, still believe that Putin would go to great lengths to honour whatever is written in a future contract on Ukraine.
Putin, however, sees any contract as just a more fancy type of decorated toilet paper, which is unfathomable for many Germans.
Meal deals (the UK and Ireland have these everywhere I think). I’m not talking about having a set menu or saver meal a in restaurant, I’m talking about something like [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal_deal).
Other countries in Europe? Not as much I think, but I am starting to see more of them pop up in France (_formule_ if you’re French). But maybe I’m wrong, as I haven’t travelled that much around Europe.
Driving on the left too I guess (UK, IRE and apparently Malta) and still using miles; yards; stone; feet etc when measuring day-to-day stuff (UK). I wish that the UK could go fully metric, but people like my old classmates got confused when the science teacher told them their height in cm (don’t ask me why or how that happened).
I’m comparing the UK to the rest of Europe. I’m aware that yanks heavily use imperial and that there are other many other non-European
countries that drive on the left.
religious messages and imagery being banned from billboards and public spaces because the locals consider it “unsightly”. In general: the pretty much complete lack of interest in religion across the whole country. We take a lot of pride in that. Our churches have largely been abandoned to the point they’re just architecture except on the biggest holidays
drinking sparkling water by default, and thinking that drinking (perfectly safe, excellent quality) tap water is weird
In Italy the shops and restaurant close. When I went abroad I noticed that restaurants are open 24/7 and you can have lunch at like 4pm. That’s abnormal in Italy
From Australia I have quite a few, but the one that piqued my interest most was getting my head around the sizes of other countries.
I was shocked to learn what size countries are in the rest of the world. If you are from Europe, your country’s land mass is TINY and seems really cute to us. And yet our country is very expansive land-wise but has such a small quantity of people.
Not only does Australia have so few people (27million in total), the entire southern hemisphere only makes up 10% of the whole world population.
I knew we were somewhat isolated, but realizing this makes me feel like I may as well be on a completely different planet.
For those that want to see, here is a link to the true size of Australia overlaid on top of Europe:
Not when I travelled but while I lived abroad I realized how high our ceilings are or how low the ceilings are abriaf
That bicycle lanes are rare and it is pretty safe to ride your bicycle here. In The Netherlands this is so common that I never realised that it was special. With my parents I never went to a foreign country, so I noticed it in my twenties when I went on vacation with my husband.
When I was young (very early 90s) the Iron Curtain had just fallen and we were all just awakening to Western Culture after 50 years of North Korea like lifestyle.
We used to (and some people who lived those times still do) put ketchup on pizza. When I first went abroad and asked for ketchup with my pizza everyone looked at me like I was insane. I wanted to become small and dissappear it was so embarassing. Nowadays I still secretly enjoy it when ordering pizza at home sometimes but would never do it in a restaurant.
Fast forward a bit and I spent some time in the USA at some point and made friends with an American guy whom I admited this habit to. He looked at me and said: “That’s weird, but I’ll let you in on a secret: when I get drunk and have left over pizza in the fridge, I like to dip it in peanut butter.” I wasn’t one to judge and that’s the first time I felt at ease regarding this lol.
Interesting fact is that Romania is one of the only countries that has Heinz Spicy Ketchup in every supermarket as well which is like normal ketchup but has a bit of a kick. While I hate that we bastardise good pizza with ketchup I don’t understand why other countries don’t have spicy ketchup.
People in other countries actually have to work on sundays. Here in Germany the entire country takes that day off except for things like hospitals, airports and gas stations. There is exactly one 24/7 365 supermarket in my entire state, and that’s the one at the Frankfurt airport.
I am 40 years old and haven’t worked on a Sunday ever in my entire life.
Fun fact: That no work on Sunday rule is one of the few cases where left wing unions and conservative church organizations are in full agreement here. The unions because it’s good for the workers, and the churches because it means people can attend mass on Sunday.
Sweden here: The lack of mint ice cream. Only speciality brands carry mint ice cream and it’s very uncommon in regular grocery stores
Long parental leave (3 years),
shockingly good delivery service compared to our neighbours (home delivery guy calls me if anyone at home 5 minutes before arrival, when I order something it’s in a chosen packet box within 7-72 *hours* and in every smaller city there are at least 10 of these boxes, bigger cities can have up to a 100-500),
long opening hours even on sunday,
rather good internet speed,
most of the official things can get done online,
how seasons&rain disappeared compared to my childhood,
education can be updated according to the current needs,
speaking another language is not that big of a deal (I mean, yes it is, but I met so many people who could speak another language),
your vote can actually matter and the simplified narrative and the lack of proper mediums did not become a new standard everywhere,
I know that our country is being robbed blind, but one needs to take a step out of it to really see the contrast.
Germany: The meticulous separation of garbage, *Mülltrennung*. But actually I discover it in more and more other countries at least in a basic way, like paper – plastic – *Restmüll*, just as I was mentally prepared to throw everything in one bin 🤣
Nobody – and I mean *nobody* – outside of Iceland speaks Icelandic. And there I was thinking we were the nafli alheimsins.
In the Netherlands we have something that we call a “roepnaam” (call name if you translate it literally). It’s a name your parents pick for you to call you in daily life but it might not be on any of your legal paperwork. Your name could officially be Elisabeth Mary. But your parents could pick Sara as your roepnaam. That roepnaam is honoured practically everywhere. Like in schools or work places. The only time my official name was used a school was on my diploma. It’s totally possible to discover at a friends wedding that their official name is something completely different than what you are used to calling them.
It doesn’t have to be completely different. My mother mixed some letters of my first and second name to get my roepnaam. Some people might also have their roepnaam as a middle name. Others might have the exact same roepnaam as their legal name. I think the latter is more common now a days. But when I was born in the nineties a lot of kids still were named after relatives. Often they got a more modern roepnaam to make up for the old fashioned names of their grandparents.
I think only my direct family members and four best friends know my full name. I did a language program 1,5 years ago in Rome and used my legal name for paperwork. It was hard to explain that I preferred a totally different (and traditionally English) name than the very old fashioned Dutch name no one could pronounce.
One great advantage of this system is that you could technically change your roepnaam any time you want. My roepnaam isn’t official anyway so if I wanted to change it I just could.
Religion being seen just as window to the past. I was really shocked when I learnt that some people believe in it. At least it prepared me for 2020 when I learnt that people are able to believe literally anything.
– Being able to drink tap water.
– Being able to flush toiletpaper.
– Not having to pay for public toilets.
– Bottle and can recycling machines.
I worked in tourism in Amsterdam for a couple of years. So many visitors asked me why people don’t close their curtains or don’t have shutters. The idea that people outside can just look into your home, was shocking to them. In the Netherlands, it’s perfectly normal and it’s something we just do automatically.
How much of the schools in the country are owned by the Catholic Church. Nearly all of them are Church-owned here, and lots of them require children to be baptised, which I find loathsome.
Oh yeah and thanking the bus driver, made that mistake in London recently but he was appreciative nonetheless.
Before traffic lights turn yellow (or red in case of pedestrian traffic lights), the green light blinks four times, for exactly four seconds.
I was very confused when I first encountered traffic lights in other countries that didn’t do this. I thought they were broken somehow.
Turns out a lot of countries have blinking green lights, but only a few of them are in Europe.
Just how egalitarian and informal Denmark is.
I feel suffocated and confused abroad by how much importance people put on status, education status, wealth, titles, etc.
Not exclusive to Portugal (Spain does it too): multiple given names and multiple family names, and absolutely no fuss in using whichever you personally prefer.
I have two given names, and I go by the second one. I have three family names, and I go by the third one. This would cause me absolutely zero issues in Portugal, but suddenly it was A Big Deal in Switzerland, and in France too.
I have to get very creative in fitting in my full birth name in all its 5 name glory on my mailbox if I don’t want to risk any mail being sent back, and that’s the least of my worries when it comes to my name encountering the local bureocracy.
Not to mention the mail I must miss that gets automatically sent to Mrs. *husband’s last name*, which I very emphatically do not have and never implied in any form that I do. Almost got into hot water missing some important docs mailed to me like that.
As an American, everything. So much in the US is far from civilized compared to Europe. I really wish I had the means to emigrate.
Apparently its not necessary to eat hot meals with fork and knife every day at lunch and dinner like I was raised. Took me a while to understand that sandwiches can also be lunch or dinner. But now that I understand, given that I hate cooking, it is actually a good thing.
Kissing on the cheek among straight men who know each other is completely normal and a regular occurrence in Argentina and Uruguay. I once traveled to Spain and very naturally kissed a Spanish male relative on the cheek, and he was a little shocked at first.
It also happened with a British woman who was also shocked.
I need to stop kissing people, the world is very distant, but it’s so easy to make a mistake when you’re not paying attention
Long pillows in Spain. All my life I’ve had long pillows, pillows as long as the width of the bed they’re for. Both for individual or double beds. I used to sleep hugging a pillow that was long enough to reach my knees in my sleeping position.
I moved to Norway and tried to find those at Ikea. Non existent. I do see the benefit of having two individual pillows in a double bed and I got used to it, but sometimes, man, I do miss my long pillow.
Drinking yourself into an absolute stupor whilst having lost complete control and doing the exact same thing again the following day on a regular basis.
Walk around any Irish town at the point when the pubs and clubs close and witness [a circle of dante’s inferno](https://youtu.be/qGIKqFYkaeU?si=t98JCSUEZlTc9pCY) as everyone is unleashed onto the streets at the same time (and a little earier than they’d like)-> _Dublin not so much cuz it’s spread out and they have later (not many) bars and people aren’t unleashed together in hordes as in the rest of the country_
Assume parts of the UK can be similar but from
experience, there isn’t the same concentration of mayhem (or mayhem per capita) as in Ireland.
35 comments
Equality, long parental leave, lgbtq-rights, free welfare/education. Basically everything a country is there to provide, otherwise it’s just subpar.
That stores are open pretty much whenever I need. They stay open later than in many countries I’ve visited.
Siesta in southern europe always catches me off guard 😀
Throwing the used paper in a small bin instead of flushing it in the toilet. Everyone’s clowning us for that.
Waving at magpies, saying thanks to bus drivers, main thing was learning half of the words I use were not being proper English but more a version of Irish English.
That what we call bread is not at all the standard bread elsewhere.
The Estonian word for bread (leib) refers to rye bread in particular. While the international wheat bread is known by a separate word (sai).
And whatever ’rye bread’ there is outside of certain countries in Eastern/Northern Europe does not cut it, because we’re talking about bread made with 100% rye, not 5% or similar.
French people complain in Estonia about having difficulties to find proper bread for their standards, while Estonians living abroad are actually lost without proper rye bread, because it is literally impossible to source in Western or Southern Europe / America / other continents.
People using academic and official titles in everyday speech.
It‘s totally common and often outright expected to address people with their titles. For example, as Frau Dr. Gruber, or Ms. Doctor Gruber in English, or Herr Mag. Müller, Mr. Magister Müller in English, when meeting them in formal and informal settings – except when doing sports or other hobbies together, or just being on a mountain.
Also, you’d add official titles before that, like for example Hofrat, literally Court Counsel.
You also add military ranks and professional titles of officials, like ministers or high-Ranking bureaucrats. If the person is no longer serving as an official, you‘d add a.D., meaning außer Dienst, or no longer in service in English, behind it.
Previously, you‘d also address their spouse with these titles as a matter of courtesy, but with a lot of women earning titles and working themselves; that has fallen out of fashion.
A lot of other countries don‘t do that.
It’s always a bit uncanny to call, for instance, a lawyer just Herr Müller, instead of Herr Dr. Müller, when I am in Germany.
Our debit card system Girocard (often still called EC card).
Shops being closed on Sunday and generally closing fairly early in general.
The quantity of political billboards everywhere in the country. But billboards in general are everywhere, advertising various things.
How overly obsessed my fellow Germans are with contracts:
Germans believe you can write absolutely anything in a contract and it will become reality for eternity.
That’s essentially true in the context of Russian aggression, as Germans, after a failed Minsk-1 and Minsk-2, still believe that Putin would go to great lengths to honour whatever is written in a future contract on Ukraine.
Putin, however, sees any contract as just a more fancy type of decorated toilet paper, which is unfathomable for many Germans.
Meal deals (the UK and Ireland have these everywhere I think). I’m not talking about having a set menu or saver meal a in restaurant, I’m talking about something like [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal_deal).
Other countries in Europe? Not as much I think, but I am starting to see more of them pop up in France (_formule_ if you’re French). But maybe I’m wrong, as I haven’t travelled that much around Europe.
Driving on the left too I guess (UK, IRE and apparently Malta) and still using miles; yards; stone; feet etc when measuring day-to-day stuff (UK). I wish that the UK could go fully metric, but people like my old classmates got confused when the science teacher told them their height in cm (don’t ask me why or how that happened).
I’m comparing the UK to the rest of Europe. I’m aware that yanks heavily use imperial and that there are other many other non-European
countries that drive on the left.
religious messages and imagery being banned from billboards and public spaces because the locals consider it “unsightly”. In general: the pretty much complete lack of interest in religion across the whole country. We take a lot of pride in that. Our churches have largely been abandoned to the point they’re just architecture except on the biggest holidays
drinking sparkling water by default, and thinking that drinking (perfectly safe, excellent quality) tap water is weird
In Italy the shops and restaurant close. When I went abroad I noticed that restaurants are open 24/7 and you can have lunch at like 4pm. That’s abnormal in Italy
From Australia I have quite a few, but the one that piqued my interest most was getting my head around the sizes of other countries.
I was shocked to learn what size countries are in the rest of the world. If you are from Europe, your country’s land mass is TINY and seems really cute to us. And yet our country is very expansive land-wise but has such a small quantity of people.
Not only does Australia have so few people (27million in total), the entire southern hemisphere only makes up 10% of the whole world population.
I knew we were somewhat isolated, but realizing this makes me feel like I may as well be on a completely different planet.
For those that want to see, here is a link to the true size of Australia overlaid on top of Europe:
https://www.thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTc0MTM2ODE.NTM3NzgyMQ*MjYwNDQ0NTM(MTI4NjA4NjA~!CONTIGUOUS_US*OTQ4OTk4MA.MjY0MTMwMjI(MTc1)MA~!IN*NzMyMDkwMA.NTgzNzYxMQ)MQ~!CN*MTMzMTMwMDY.NTQ0MzAxMg(MjI1)Mg~!AU*MTQyNzUxMjA.MTMxNzUyMDg)Mw
Not when I travelled but while I lived abroad I realized how high our ceilings are or how low the ceilings are abriaf
That bicycle lanes are rare and it is pretty safe to ride your bicycle here. In The Netherlands this is so common that I never realised that it was special. With my parents I never went to a foreign country, so I noticed it in my twenties when I went on vacation with my husband.
When I was young (very early 90s) the Iron Curtain had just fallen and we were all just awakening to Western Culture after 50 years of North Korea like lifestyle.
We used to (and some people who lived those times still do) put ketchup on pizza. When I first went abroad and asked for ketchup with my pizza everyone looked at me like I was insane. I wanted to become small and dissappear it was so embarassing. Nowadays I still secretly enjoy it when ordering pizza at home sometimes but would never do it in a restaurant.
Fast forward a bit and I spent some time in the USA at some point and made friends with an American guy whom I admited this habit to. He looked at me and said: “That’s weird, but I’ll let you in on a secret: when I get drunk and have left over pizza in the fridge, I like to dip it in peanut butter.” I wasn’t one to judge and that’s the first time I felt at ease regarding this lol.
Interesting fact is that Romania is one of the only countries that has Heinz Spicy Ketchup in every supermarket as well which is like normal ketchup but has a bit of a kick. While I hate that we bastardise good pizza with ketchup I don’t understand why other countries don’t have spicy ketchup.
People in other countries actually have to work on sundays. Here in Germany the entire country takes that day off except for things like hospitals, airports and gas stations. There is exactly one 24/7 365 supermarket in my entire state, and that’s the one at the Frankfurt airport.
I am 40 years old and haven’t worked on a Sunday ever in my entire life.
Fun fact: That no work on Sunday rule is one of the few cases where left wing unions and conservative church organizations are in full agreement here. The unions because it’s good for the workers, and the churches because it means people can attend mass on Sunday.
Sweden here: The lack of mint ice cream. Only speciality brands carry mint ice cream and it’s very uncommon in regular grocery stores
Long parental leave (3 years),
shockingly good delivery service compared to our neighbours (home delivery guy calls me if anyone at home 5 minutes before arrival, when I order something it’s in a chosen packet box within 7-72 *hours* and in every smaller city there are at least 10 of these boxes, bigger cities can have up to a 100-500),
long opening hours even on sunday,
rather good internet speed,
most of the official things can get done online,
how seasons&rain disappeared compared to my childhood,
education can be updated according to the current needs,
speaking another language is not that big of a deal (I mean, yes it is, but I met so many people who could speak another language),
your vote can actually matter and the simplified narrative and the lack of proper mediums did not become a new standard everywhere,
I know that our country is being robbed blind, but one needs to take a step out of it to really see the contrast.
Germany: The meticulous separation of garbage, *Mülltrennung*. But actually I discover it in more and more other countries at least in a basic way, like paper – plastic – *Restmüll*, just as I was mentally prepared to throw everything in one bin 🤣
Nobody – and I mean *nobody* – outside of Iceland speaks Icelandic. And there I was thinking we were the nafli alheimsins.
In the Netherlands we have something that we call a “roepnaam” (call name if you translate it literally). It’s a name your parents pick for you to call you in daily life but it might not be on any of your legal paperwork. Your name could officially be Elisabeth Mary. But your parents could pick Sara as your roepnaam. That roepnaam is honoured practically everywhere. Like in schools or work places. The only time my official name was used a school was on my diploma. It’s totally possible to discover at a friends wedding that their official name is something completely different than what you are used to calling them.
It doesn’t have to be completely different. My mother mixed some letters of my first and second name to get my roepnaam. Some people might also have their roepnaam as a middle name. Others might have the exact same roepnaam as their legal name. I think the latter is more common now a days. But when I was born in the nineties a lot of kids still were named after relatives. Often they got a more modern roepnaam to make up for the old fashioned names of their grandparents.
I think only my direct family members and four best friends know my full name. I did a language program 1,5 years ago in Rome and used my legal name for paperwork. It was hard to explain that I preferred a totally different (and traditionally English) name than the very old fashioned Dutch name no one could pronounce.
One great advantage of this system is that you could technically change your roepnaam any time you want. My roepnaam isn’t official anyway so if I wanted to change it I just could.
Religion being seen just as window to the past. I was really shocked when I learnt that some people believe in it. At least it prepared me for 2020 when I learnt that people are able to believe literally anything.
– Being able to drink tap water.
– Being able to flush toiletpaper.
– Not having to pay for public toilets.
– Bottle and can recycling machines.
I worked in tourism in Amsterdam for a couple of years. So many visitors asked me why people don’t close their curtains or don’t have shutters. The idea that people outside can just look into your home, was shocking to them. In the Netherlands, it’s perfectly normal and it’s something we just do automatically.
How much of the schools in the country are owned by the Catholic Church. Nearly all of them are Church-owned here, and lots of them require children to be baptised, which I find loathsome.
Oh yeah and thanking the bus driver, made that mistake in London recently but he was appreciative nonetheless.
Before traffic lights turn yellow (or red in case of pedestrian traffic lights), the green light blinks four times, for exactly four seconds.
I was very confused when I first encountered traffic lights in other countries that didn’t do this. I thought they were broken somehow.
Turns out a lot of countries have blinking green lights, but only a few of them are in Europe.
Just how egalitarian and informal Denmark is.
I feel suffocated and confused abroad by how much importance people put on status, education status, wealth, titles, etc.
Not exclusive to Portugal (Spain does it too): multiple given names and multiple family names, and absolutely no fuss in using whichever you personally prefer.
I have two given names, and I go by the second one. I have three family names, and I go by the third one. This would cause me absolutely zero issues in Portugal, but suddenly it was A Big Deal in Switzerland, and in France too.
I have to get very creative in fitting in my full birth name in all its 5 name glory on my mailbox if I don’t want to risk any mail being sent back, and that’s the least of my worries when it comes to my name encountering the local bureocracy.
Not to mention the mail I must miss that gets automatically sent to Mrs. *husband’s last name*, which I very emphatically do not have and never implied in any form that I do. Almost got into hot water missing some important docs mailed to me like that.
As an American, everything. So much in the US is far from civilized compared to Europe. I really wish I had the means to emigrate.
Apparently its not necessary to eat hot meals with fork and knife every day at lunch and dinner like I was raised. Took me a while to understand that sandwiches can also be lunch or dinner. But now that I understand, given that I hate cooking, it is actually a good thing.
Kissing on the cheek among straight men who know each other is completely normal and a regular occurrence in Argentina and Uruguay. I once traveled to Spain and very naturally kissed a Spanish male relative on the cheek, and he was a little shocked at first.
It also happened with a British woman who was also shocked.
I need to stop kissing people, the world is very distant, but it’s so easy to make a mistake when you’re not paying attention
Long pillows in Spain. All my life I’ve had long pillows, pillows as long as the width of the bed they’re for. Both for individual or double beds. I used to sleep hugging a pillow that was long enough to reach my knees in my sleeping position.
I moved to Norway and tried to find those at Ikea. Non existent. I do see the benefit of having two individual pillows in a double bed and I got used to it, but sometimes, man, I do miss my long pillow.
Drinking yourself into an absolute stupor whilst having lost complete control and doing the exact same thing again the following day on a regular basis.
Walk around any Irish town at the point when the pubs and clubs close and witness [a circle of dante’s inferno](https://youtu.be/qGIKqFYkaeU?si=t98JCSUEZlTc9pCY) as everyone is unleashed onto the streets at the same time (and a little earier than they’d like)-> _Dublin not so much cuz it’s spread out and they have later (not many) bars and people aren’t unleashed together in hordes as in the rest of the country_
Assume parts of the UK can be similar but from
experience, there isn’t the same concentration of mayhem (or mayhem per capita) as in Ireland.