USA Citizens in Europe, What Minor Change Drives You Crazy?

former usa citizens now living in european countries what minor cultural change was the hardest for you to adjust to move to the uk in 2014 the british are emotionally different not as gregarious and open as americans being here a while now i've learned that once you make a british friend they are your friend forever but for the first year or so it was quite lonely i felt like no one liked me which wasn't the case at all they just don't show it and they're awkward and bone dry all the time i now love this and have great affection for my adopted countrymen it's funny you say that as i moved to the us from the uk two years ago i find americans to be nice on the surface and really friendly however i find it all superficial but if you manage to get through that layer they are a friend for life when i studied in switzerland the supermarkets closed around six every day except when they were closed on sundays since i was often still working on my projects at school and making my way home by the times the shops closed saturday was my only shopping day if i forgot or was busy during that time period i would starve until monday and that was that no way was i paying 21 francs over 25 at the time for a slice of pizza a coca-cola and some fries at a restaurant that's basically just switzerland and germany though rest of europe shops in the evening and on sundays in the uk my local tesco extra large grocery store is open 24 stroke 7. waiters and service people in general not being proactive or dropping by just to check on you even though i know it's what i'm supposed to do i still feel rude having to flag someone down to order or ask for the check my first date living in europe did not go well what made it worse was the two hours i waited for the dang check i've never been a us citizen but i lived there for some time when i came back to europe my homeland of poland i couldn't get used to that smiling to random people on the street or just casually starting small talks with people is not the thing you do here i got many weird stares dutch birthday parties having to kiss everyone in the room upon arrival and departure and spending the event sitting in a circle eating oddly seasoned nuts oh believe me a lot of dutch ppl including me hate that as well my family never does the kissing but where i live everyone does including the neighbors going grocery shopping every day if you're in a city and have no car you gotta lug whatever you buy with you it's also just normal to swing by the supermarket every day i think also everything and i mean everything is closed on sundays so the doors don't open the same in the us the doors almost always open away from you on the inside and you pull from the outside this is a fire safety regulation in the uk at least it is never consistent and i always open the wrong way also it's a lie that britain uses metric they do something worse than metric or imperial they mix them it's so annoying school uniforms are a pain and it's also weird how judgy people are based on people's accents in america you can't really tell how much money someone makes off of their accent american living in the uk are you all right or right as a greeting still after nearly a decade of hearing it i get confused thinking i must look awful no just another way to say how are you maybe one day i'll adjust last year i spent nine months in ukraine the women there are always dressed to the freaking nines even just going grocery shopping one girl there explained to me that since clothes are so expensive there one pair of jeans can be two months salary easily the women only buy really nice clothes that will last them they don't buy simple stuff that they can throw on and be casual so they're always dressed up even in day-to-day activities even their casual jeans and t-shirts are still things that i see girls here wear on nights out the women there are always dressed to the freaking nines i visited kiev years ago 2011 i think and noticed this too it was great this was a long time ago and i'm not sure if it's still like this but i lived in sicily for two years getting used to trying to get anything accomplished during siesta gas stations even along the highway not being open on sundays the crazy driving through narrow streets everything will be done to mani but it's never actually done by tomorrow half finished houses dodging vasa bandits lots of things to get used to but i'd do it again in a heartbeat just got back from sicily last week siestas and closed gas stations aren't really a thing anymore didn't run into any vasa bandits crazy narrow street driving is still crazy also depending on when you lived there palermo used to be nice absolute trash heap now everyone eats next to nothing by american standards people don't gorge themselves so sometimes it was quite daunting to go round someone's house on the weekend and all they have until supper is tea and a tiny cucumber sandwich or order a coffee and get a tiny espresso don't get me wrong i love these things but i was raised with a scarcity mindset so i had to unlearn those habits comedy and a tiny cucumber sandwich went to visit my grandparents in england and this was all they had as well my dad had to sneak us an extra couple of biscuits but got caught out by his mom who lectured him like he was still seven years old currently in uk for the last four years walking everywhere and a lot of people don't have driver's licensees which is weird for me coming from south carolina and now living in a large city definitely the humor and the way people joke like no one will actually say they're kidding snd i always feel like i have to guess the sarcasm is strong so sometimes i'm just not sure especially being in scotland also all the tax being included in the price you actually pay what the ticketed prices no more adding extra for each item you put in your shopping basket wow comma like no one will actually say they're kidding well of course not that kills a joke i have lived in malta for over three months now things i miss from the us ice free water and refills at restaurants american junk food like cheez-its the vast variety of restaurants available in the u.s and pharmacies just have drugs and not tons of other crap that cvs and walgreens have i went to a restaurant a few days ago that gave out free bottled water instead of tap water it was weird for me it was the waste disposal and separation system in the u.s all i really had to do was separate the trash from the recycling and put two bins out on a curb each week but when i moved to germany i had to separate everything into plastics paper cartons cans cardboard non-recyclable waste organic waste glass etc then i had to make like three stops throughout the city to get rid of all of it i'd have to stop by the nearest set of neighborhood recycling bins word stuff and sell out on the street to dispose of most of my recyclables then i had to go to the small neighborhood supermarket to get rid of any batteries and plastic bottles and finally i had to go to the actual waste management center to dispose of things like electronics and such i literally had to look up a guide published by the us army garrison and stuttgart every time i took out the trash just so i didn't accidentally throw something in the wrong bin i lived in germany for a significant portion of my life by far the biggest cultural changes surrounded stores how everything aside from restaurants were closed after 8 p.m and not open on sundays i couldn't go frick around at grocery stores at 3am with friends or do really anything in the wee hours of the morning that involved going out unless there was a festival going on or something i came back to the states years ago but i honestly kind of miss it there where i live we have the night shops they are a blessing when you need something after 8 p.m polish people just do not seem to need to hydrate with water it's the weirdest thing i don't know if they absorb water through the air or what and i'm not diabetic nor especially large but i feel like i'm the only one buying a huge bottle of water every time i pass the convenience store you can't have a birthday party a couple days before your birthday in germany you can't wish someone a happy birthday a day or two before their birthday even if you won't see each other for a long time it's considered very bad luck currently living in the czech republic customer service here is not the same at all with workers becoming visibly upset with you if you inconvenience them this is especially true if you pay with big bills like 1000 or 2000 czk for anything under 500 czk god i wish that was me i found myself becoming irritable with customers at work today and had to correct myself if i'm crappy to the customers they get crappy back and they leave bad reviews which leads to my hours getting cut customer service is the 37th circle of heck not a european country but living in japan one thing that drives me totally up the wall is that people don't open a bag of chips from the top they open it along the side and use chopsticks to grab the chips i remember i saw a co-worker eating hot cheetos with chopsticks so she wouldn't get her keyboard dirty i looked at her like she's some supreme alien species came to teach us stupid earthlings infinite wisdom not a u.s citizen but i lived in the usa for a good while and then had to move back to europe what annoys the heck out of me is having to plan where to park always and anywhere i have to think about what time to get home because the streets may be full and there is nowhere to park within two three blocks garages are not a thing i have to leave early for work to have a chance to park somewhere when i need to grab something from a store i have to check if that store has a parking lot or if not if there's a parking lot somewhere close if i go to the supermarket in the city center with a long shopping list chances are i have to pay for parking or worse i'm towed because i spent over an hour in that store and if i couldn't grab something because my parking time is running out and then realize i need item after 10 p.m or on a sunday i'm just out of luck because everything is closed tbf i live in philly and i'll leave family parties because it's saturday and i won't find parking no free water in many countries in restaurants france is a noticeable exception and no free public toilets even in some stores paying a few cents or up to two euros to use a bathroom is wild and smokers smokers everywhere smoking in front of kids in train stations old men smoking cigars and pipes on the street very smelly and annoying at times i've never had a problem getting free water in the uk never been into a restaurant and asked for tap water and been told no i moved to germany half a dozen years ago leipzig specifically anyway one thing is that being nice to strangers is highly frowned upon here people in the stores act like their pee off that you want to buy crap from them a smile and a wave will get you looked at like ted bundy and saying something like hey cool t-shirt to a woman is akin to asking her to freak like hey lady calm down i'm married i just like that band too anyway i don't let that change me if people want to think that i'm a serial killer and bad at flirting that's their problem for the most part i prefer it here though i definitely feel it's a better place to raise kids not being able to pet people's dogs people in the states were usually so friendly about it i'm not saying all europeans but the ones i've come in contact with look like they are going to knife me if i try to ask to pet their dog i've been told that it is the same in china you can touch their kids but stay away from the dog never looking sloppy even if you are just running some errands or picking the kids up etc i lived in portugal for a year and once a friend refused to get out of his car when he was dropping me off somewhere because he was underdressed but the dude was wearing shorts a tank top and flip-flops i was so baffled i chuckled you would fit in well in san diego where i am from anything more than flip-flops is overdressed there this for sure i had to up my clothing game so much when i moved to the uk everyone here is always dressed nicely my base casual used to be jeans t-shirt sweatshirt ratty tennis shoes now it's dark jeans nice top sweater or cardigan leather shoes whenever i go back to the us to visit i get asked why i'm so dressed up all the time while i like the accents there are some minor language differences that i still can't really accept internalize i will always orient myself rather than orientate myself if you ask me what's the craic my first thought will still be that you're talking about drugs revising before an exam sounds to me like you're changing things rather than reviewing them i never remember to change zeds i mean zeds to s's and i still can't bring myself to pronounce the t's in philly or valet i assume you're an island based on crick we definitely don't pronounce valley with the t i now live back in the us after living in france and switzerland for two years but the hardest cultural change for me to follow was using public transport rather than my own car it saved me so much money over the course of my time there silence i'm from the usny for all of my adult life and it's loud on a bus people are talking in the grocery store people are talking standing in a line waiting people are talking here in estonia it's silent 75 people on a bus and you can hear a pin drop a single line open at the grocery store after work and 30 people waiting yup you got it silent at a shopping mall mid-december and it's full of people but all you can here are footsteps i'm not sure i'll ever get fully used to it in some ways it's nice but in other ways it's very isolating as a native german ninety percent of the things people are claiming about germany in this thread is making me wonder if i actually live in germany moved to prague from atlanta honestly feeling so free was the hardest safety i feel safer alone drunk on a friday night at 3am on a dark street than i did in the us on my couch h legal safer and cheaper weed other drugs buy them in a bar police don't care it's a small fine if you're court but they don't even do that healthcare 98 bucks a month 100 coverage mental health and previous conditions included not needing a car car insurance car payment petrol because europe actually has functioning public transport haven't seen a gun in two years despite not speaking the language people interact with each other more here and you're much more likely to make friends with a stranger in public and not worry about being cut into pieces people take their voting and civil duties much more seriously honestly the hardest thing has been remembering to bring my own bag when i go shopping everything else has been wonderfully pleasant i think because they lost their freedom so long under ussr rule they cling to them and fight for every little thing maternity paternity leave six weeks vacation mandatory holidays for businesses so workers can have family time tax rate for me is about 13 compared to 34 back home come visit prague i'll smoke you out and show you around i am check and i feel like you are talking about completely different country than the one where i spent my whole life haha very specific but i play in a baseball league here in austria and it blows my mind a bit how they deal with competition and specifically baseball for them if is a very casual hobby and winning is not at all important both in this and in other games sports i find it borders almost on disrespect as they often frick around and love casually cheating for me it's a challenge to hold my competitive side in check while any american league in almost anything is always at least casually competitive that seems to track with what i understand about europeans and sports in school they don't take it nearly as seriously as american students do police where i live don't carry guns and are for the most part way more friendly than their american counterparts i actually talked to one of them about not being nervous around them and he said it was because they didn't carry guns it's taken me a while to adjust to this actually because when i lived in the us and was near cops it would make me nervous as heck even though i didn't do anything bad it's never been the sidearm that's kept me from talking with police officers here in the u.s it's often the attitude there are plenty that are friendly and personable but there are also plenty that have the respect my authority attitude celsius instead of fahrenheit just doesn't work in my head 24 hours clock no problem metric yeah all right but celsius just can't feel what 14 degrees is supposed to be welcome to the rest of the world where we feel the exact same thing about all of us people d cash is the preferred method of payment here and a lot of the time you cannot pay with card you learn pretty quick to carry cash on you at all times it's funny the opposite is true in sweden i've never seen a kroner note everyone uses cards or mobile payment for everything except public restrooms which is the only reason i've ever seen the coins ask my wife customer service here in the uk is poor compared to the us opening times of shops a lot of things closed on sundays on a more personal level it was a complete change of environment no friends or family nearby no job to begin with and no easy way of getting around town or knowing how to get somewhere don't live in europe anymore but the lack of ice if i'm paying 2-4 euros for water that's not even bottled i want it to be ice cold get out of here with that cold water that'll turn lukewarm in the summer heat before my food comes out nonsense my friend lived in england before moving to new jersey we met in high school he said the biggest change for him was the patience of people the tree state area new york new jersey and connecticut have really impatient citizens it's the famous everyone has somewhere to go places to be attitude in full swing that's also why we don't really stop and wave as much as other regions of the us i live in france and for some reason a lot of the public restrooms don't have toilet seats or toilet paper i've even been to one that was a hole in the ground living abroad almost three years now i also take into consideration i live in a smaller city even though it's the third largest city in the country i came from a huge metropolitan city in the states so some of the adjustments was also living in a smaller city in addition to cultural changes paying for things i didn't usually pay for like dining out paying for to-go boxes and water not a drop of tap water in a cup in sight paying for public restrooms practically everywhere basically very small expenses you are used to not paying in the states next is the demeanor of people in general people are less friendly and polite in public when shopping at the grocery store people will reach around you and grab what they want is you are in the way instead of saying excuse me or something like that another thing i would say is i like fulfilling my consumer needs and in somewhat convenient places almost all food services bars shops etc are in the central downtown area only thing you find is grocery stores or smaller markets things close much earlier and a lot of times are closed altogether on the weekends especially sunday lastly i would say the food not the quality per se i know most european cultures really pride themselves on their cuisine and i've enjoyed a lot of it it could very well be this country but a lot of foods are too dang sweet i know what you're thinking how can an american say that because it's the dang truth just one example i had a baguette sandwich with this spread that basically tastes like ketchup mixed with sugar besides the taste flavor you do end up missing food food diversity you could get in the states having health insurance and being encouraged to go to the doctor when i am sick when i was in the u.s it was natural to only go when you were on the verge of death and your workplace made you get them a copy of the report if you didn't they could and would fire you here in germany my worker sassy you okay do you need to go to the doctor don't worry we will be fine spent some time in glasgow a couple months and the one thing that struck me the most was all the litter some of the streets were really gross tbh because there would be huge piles of trash on the corner also after a friday night there you would literally be walking on a layer of cigarette butts another thing is that you can't buy alcohol after 10 p.m made for some big disappointments on certain nights you could buy alcohol at bars and restaurants but not at a store anyways all the restaurants closed at like nine which was also annoying that scottish alcohol laws they are a lot stricter than the rest of the country you can buy alcohol in any supermarket corner shop newsagent etc in the rest if the uk us citizen living in belgium it is so hard to deal with myspace being constantly invaded they just don't have the same sense of a privacy bubble a grocery line should come with a trigger warning every old lady is up my butt they're looking at an american butt eating at 8 p.m or later was the norm in the basque country where i lived it threw me for a loop for the longest time and i would always be starving when i first moved because i still ate lunch at noon i've spent a couple months in france now and the small cups for water is something i can't get used to and i feel a little bit self-conscious because i drink so much more water that french people but the alternative is being dehydrated when i'm not at home which isn't really a viable option are french people just always dehydrated or is there some kind of genetic difference i really can't tell oh well uncrafted eosil vu planet it's weird for all the talk of socialism equals bad that exists in the united states things aren't even that different it's just that a billion things are slightly different for the better which leads to a much better life overall free health care is pretty great crime and pollution barely exist everyone is middle class or wealthier and in much much much better health than the whales in the states outstanding public transportation exists everywhere making the need for personal transportation aside from maybe a bike completely obsolete bigotry and prejudice have no real place here to the point where i no longer even think in black or white but german french british etc i used to worry that i would get sick and it would bankrupt my entire family now i worry that people think i'm intellectually inferior because i only speak three languages and don't know that much about art still a usa citizen but i will answer in a hoe german kids allowed to work their crap out on the playgrounds parents still watching to make sure no physical harm or fights but growing up in the usa where sharing is caring and after i adjusted to it i liked it plus my five kids would learn to band together to take on any lone wolf bullies again no physical violence but they figured out how to overcome adversity and in the uk aluminium versus aluminum hard as frick and i refuse to say the first no matter how kind you are german kids are kinder just a reminder to all the americans out there europe is not a country so there might be a lot of variation between say the uk and ukraine as a frenchman i've found that a lot of what i've read in this thread absolutely doesn't apply to where i live i pay with my card everywhere my eggs are in the fridge waiters come to ask if i want the check i can pet strangers dogs but so definitely don't take the thread as truths about the whole of europe and people that onto the thread please indicate which country you're talking about to avoid misinformation being spread it if you are new to the channel you can subscribe i publish new videos every day until then check another video [Music] bye for now

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Id: SpzT5455GpQ

Length: 26min 8sec (1568 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 24 2020