Being from Sweden, the societal view on buying sex going from Sweden to Germany. While it’s not like everyone likes it in Germany it feels more like a some care, some don’t and the ones that care it’s more like a ”ew gross you bought sex” but in Sweden it is like social suicide. Given it’s illegal, but honestly the legal consequences are lower than how you are perceived socially. It’s like you are murderer who was released from prison.
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What? Never heard of anyone saying they went to a prostitute, some people might do, but nobody talks about it, that’s a topic people don’t tell others. (German here)
God I wish that was us.
I always feel a lot of culture shock in Austria of all places. Everything is sooo similar (I’m also from Bavaria so it feels even more similar to me than for someone from Northern Germany), but then the stuff that is different gives me this weird uncanny valley feeling.
Not sure if it’s a genuine culture shock or a demographics shock. Danish, went to a conference in northern Sweden, Luleå. It felt like a third to maybe half the people there were middle eastern.
I honestly thought i was going to see the palest, most inbred swedes ever.
Being from Finland and visiting Sweden, first I was shocked by how well everybody spoke english, and nobody expected me to know any swedish. Also the amount of black people was a surprise.
Going to pay for… anything in Switzerland!
I understand why they have so many banks there.It’s so tourists can apply for a bank loan to go to a restaurant.
For me as a Finn, the way Swedes communicate is always a surprise. Soft spoken, kind, negotiating. What?! I’m used to the Finnish bluntness and orders barked at me.
We are surrounded by countries in same or worse state than us, no cultural difference what so ever… inflation, depopulation, incomptetent maniacs running the country, and broken democracy, choose Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia, BiH, Montenegro… just like here in Croatia
I was a kid in west Germany when the wall came down. My Mom’s reaction was „This is history happening. I want to see it with my own eyes and my children to see it.“ so we went to the Wall which was already open at some points. Somehow we made it to east Germany (the countries were not officially reunited yet) and found a nice family that would let us stay for the night. It was really impactful, cause it was obviously Germany as everyone was talking German but at the same time literally EVERYTHING was different than in the west. Especially their packaging for milk fascinated me (it was in plastic bags). I also remember that the houses and streets were all in very bad condition, something I only knew from TV. Last but not least it was also obvious just how much pop culture was different. I was nine years old and had just seen Star Wars for the first time, so I was talking about nothing else. The families kids who were my age have never heard of Star Wars (their parent neither by the way). Till this day I am glad and thankful my mother made that experience possible as she was right: it was history evolving in front of our eyes. We also still have pieces of the wall.
Only Denmark and its not because of the Danes or their culture… and well the shock is not exactly cultural.
How popular ice coffee (frappé) is in Greece. My family lives a stone-throw away from Greece, but cold coffee is still kind of a new thing and an odd idea to most (especially older) people. Or let’s say, the first time I saw it in Greece, it was still confined to Starbucks etc in Turkey (which was considered very fancy). I do like it myself, though the Greek one can raise the dead.
A very pro-environment ethos in Scotland. We have that here too but more in certain regions rather than nation-wide.
I find Scotland incorporates environmental values into their culture and life more widely and strongly.
American here, I’m not understanding what you are saying. Is it that prostitution is more accepted in Germany than in Sweden?
Lots of red flags and Soviet style posters in Belarus, as well as seeing police almost everywhere. People being scared to express their thoughts and getting brutally repressed also was quite shocking.
Irish here who worked in Britain. The thing that astonished me was the absolute age it takes for a funeral to occur after death.
In Ireland, you die and are buried in 72 hours. You are usually waked for two nights and funeral on the third morning.
In Britain, literal weeks passed by before the funeral occurred. I knew they didn’t have wakes but flip it was so bizarre to us that the funeral was like three weeks later.
I recently went to Villach in Austria, and was again pleasantly surprised how well the city is taken care off, compared to our capital Ljubljana – which is a dump in comparison, with bad air quality, awful or non-existant urban planning, old buildings falling apart, etc.
Other than that, the biggest surprise was that a piece of cake was cheaper than here, but coffee was pricier.
the ‘tipping’ fee in Vienna, it surprised me that they were in percentage and sometimes forced. also, the amount of rainbow flags (i went in June) on the monuments, public transport and banks, in Italy it is usually just shops who only care about attracting more costumers who do that, not the state.
Visiting Sweden, I was surprised at the amount of ready made meals in ICA. I thought it was only in America that people ate so much (crap) “just pop it in the microwave” meals.
As I’m living at the northern Finland during the winter, visiting Sweden tends to cause a shock at the check-out. When the amount is 500-and-something, it takes a while to remember that they don’t use euros.
As a Brit who tries to do a stay in Paris for her birthday (bloody love you guys!), seeing Police with guns scares me. I just can’t get used to it.
How deserted are the streets in France in general, and especially empty from 5-6 PM in most places. In Spain, there is life in the streets at any time of the day. Besides the fact that 5 PM is snack time for children and there are still four more hours of “afternoon,” even in sparsely populated towns, you still run into people in the streets until 9-10 PM.
As a french :
1. Swiss are extremely clean and well behaved compared to us
2. Italians (used to) have a whole lot of ‘hidden’ prices like you pay for water, the cutleries… Much more religious influence too, they also have their stores open super late and a ‘going out in the center/beach just for a walk’ culture also found in the Balkans that is not that present in France.
3. Spaniards wake up and go to sleep much later than us. Many young people living late with their parents (in Italy too).
4. Belgians francophones feel very much like nothern french as a southerner myself but they are more direct in their way of communicating, talking about money and showing off is much less taboo. They’re beer people. Oh and their roads are horrendous.
5. Germans feel much less hierarchical and much more ‘decentralized’ than us in the way they work or govern themselves. Many things seemed cheaper. NO KISSING when greeting someone was also pretty weird is you ask a mediterranean 🙂
To me, the worst thing was how everything was closed so early or shops not working on Sundays in most European countries. I had a feeling there was almost no life in the evening. Compared to Belgrade where nights WERE (they are not anymore) alive and vibrant, I was wondering what was wrong, why everyone was hiding.
When visited some friends from Paris, I know they said that it is strange to them that parks are not closed during the night and the availability of big 24/7 stores was strange to them.
Relatively minor thing: The first time I went to Austria it took me three days before I found a bread I liked.
I got absolutely crucified by Finns for this the last time I told this, but I’m going to say this again as it’s one of the biggest cultural differences I have noticed. In Norway funerals felt like a celebration of life, you tell about stories about the deceased, maybe a slideshow of pictures from their life, you play some music that was important to them. I’ve been to a few in Finland and they are extremely somber and you just sit in silence eating smörgåstårta maybe chatting briefly about other people around who have died as well, not that I’m expecting a funeral to be a cheerful event but they have just seemed more somber than they had to be.
Germany is still quite old fashioned. Like The Netherlands everything is digital and Germany not so much.
The way Belgians communicate and the way they see life. I know Dutch people are seen as direct and blunt. But I think we value being spontaneous, outgoing and being positive. Adn whenever there is a problem, speak out in someone face and get over it. I dont get why some Belgians are so closed, negative and talk behind someones back.
For me, the two biggest were probably in the UK and Spain (then again, I only visited Germany for a couple days, Italy never, and mostly Wallonia, which is quite close to Northern France culturally, in Belgium).
– In the UK, how strangely casual people behaved. We always hear about the “stiff upper lip” and british composure, or sometimes of the raving hooligans in football matches. My experience going from France to the UK was that we French were actually much more uptight than the brits. Also, the fact that the people I’ve stayed with *never* cooked was quite shocking to me as a teen.
– In Spain, how loud people are. I’m a loud person, and quite a few people in my family are too. However, when I see the spanish side of my family or other spanish people… ooooh boy, they are ***loud***. It’s a wonder that there isn’t a tinnitus epidemic in Spain.
Closed stores on a Sunday. Here we rarely close supermarkets, and if we do, it’s just the big ones and you can still go to a smaller one to buy whatever groceries you want. In Austria? Impossible. I almost had to go hungry because I didn’t realize how absolute the Sunday closure is. Restaurants, fastfoods, supermarkets – everything was closed. I’d maybe understand it in a small town, but this was in Vienna. Eventually I found a convenience store that was open, but it was pretty wild to me.
What goes under ”lunch” in Norway. Sweden and Norway are culturally similar in many ways, but our idea of lunch is very different.
Inside the U.K. the “neighbouring country” can still be *within the U.K.* So there’s that.
What shocked me as an NZer coming to the U.K. was how much Wales and Scotland harbour dislike for England (as a political concept). Not even going to start on N Ireland. I’d assumed it was only the British Empire’s colonisation of the rest of world outside of Europe that made us colonials skittish about the English. Turns out the whole world has been done over at some point by the English and that some of its worst colonisation was of its domestic populations.
Norway. Microwave food is the norm and microwave pizza specifically is the national food and considered delicious. I didn’t think it was possible to have worse food culture than Sweden before I visited Norway.
That people actually don’t give a fuck if I have kids, why not and what my husband thinks about it.
I left my homeland d because I felt oppressed. I found myself new home in more liberal country.
How polite (immigrant) youth is in France (Reims). My mom and i were tired from walking the city and they occupied the only bench i could see. So we wanted to walk a bit further but they (maroccan fellas) got up and asked us if we wanted to sit down.
In Belgium you can’t even ask without getting spat on by the youth or even the chance of getting into a fight for a spot to sit down.
Depends on which way you are going to visit. Left to Sweden; almost no difference. Right to Russia; I *think* they entered the new millenium at the same time as the rest of us, but im not 100% sure…
Not exactly culture shock but how it’s suddenly an hour ahead when I step into Spain. It throws me off!