Kanwal Anuvind

Bagging your own groceries in Europe.

I come from a country where we never bag our own groceries at the supermarket. While we are paying at the cash register, a store attendant waits to bag our groceries.

Someone like the gentleman in this photo.
Image Credit: Kanwal Anuvind

When I moved to France, I was taken aback by the fact that not only do I have to bag my own groceries, but also do it quickly before the attendant at the cash register finishes billing my purchase. It’s like a race against the time which I never win.

The current scoreline is 97–0

Clare Celea

Not the biggest but the most recent – I learned that Americans don’t tend to have electric kettles in their homes.

Every home in the U.K. has a kettle. (It may even be true to say that every home in Europe has a kettle, though I can’t absolutely confirm that.) When you move, the kettle is the last thing to be packed and the first thing to be plugged in at your new house.

The fact that some Americans don’t have kettles is the clearest possible indicator of the differences in our cultures.

Safira Alethia Loebis

Culture shock?

Image Credit: Safira Alethia Loebis

DOES THIS BADASS COUNT????

I was surprised at the lack of toilet roll here, but this BABY, this is a miracle I tell you. Say no more to the repetitive checks of your shit on dry toilet paper to see if your ass is sanitized enough for anal sex or whatever else you have in mind. Water will fire at 60km/h at your asshole, and your hand won’t be anywhere near it!

I cannot imagine how I will live once I go back to England.

*Other shocks include how people go rioting when you make a simple nice act to someone of the opposite gender, or parents (many) with 15+ children.

Shehryar X. Bhatti

I had heard that London is very expensive. When I landed there, after couple of hours, I went in a local chicken shop (as they call it, it’s basically a fried chicken shop) to get something to eat. I gave the order and asked ‘how much’? The guy on the counter said “Three forty nine” and I thought “Oh My God, London really is expensive man… A chicken burger for three hundred and forty-nine pounds.” I said sorry, I did not bring the money and went out of the shop to stay hungry rather than spending 350 pounds on a chicken burger.

Image Credit: Internet

In Pakistan, we do not use hundred most of the times when we are telling the price. For example, if the price is 150, I would say one fifty rather than one hundred and fifty.

Later I discussed this with a friend and you can imagine what would have happened.

The burger was 3 pounds and 49p.

Louise Sunders

I visited Turkey 5 years ago. I was pretty shocked, as a 10-year-old girl, to have large numbers of people come stroke my hair randomly in the street.

I have naturally blonde hair. It’s not uncommon in the UK and no one had ever wanted to stroke it before.

I’d be sat outside, eating in a restaurant, and Turkish citizens would walk past and just run their fingers through my hair or touch it.

I realised that most of the native Turkish people had black or dark brown hair, and the restaurant server told me it was shocking for them to see someone with blonde hair. People shouted “Cinderella” at me in the streets because of my hair.

At first I was quite shocked and alarmed, but after a couple of days I was starting to grow accustomed to being called Cinderella: it fulfilled my 10-year-old’s dream of being a Disney princess!

Via Quora