As someone who moved from the chill Mediterranean coast to the bustling streets of New York, I couldn’t believe the non-stop nature of the city. Back home, afternoons are for siestas and evenings for family dinners that stretch on for hours. In New York, it's as if the city is fueled by espresso shots and ambition. The rhythm of life here is dictated by the ticking of the clock - punctuality is key, and time is money personified. It's a contrast that, at times, makes me nostalgic for the leisurely pace of my homeland, but also fills me with awe at the sheer energy that pulses through the avenues. Here, brunch is a power meal rather than a leisurely affair, and everyone seems to be walking with purpose. The constant buzz is infectious; it keeps you on your toes, striving for that New York minute where dreams are made. There's a beauty in the madness, the diversity, and the possibility that hangs in the air, somewhat like the steam rising from the manhole covers. It's not just a cultural shift; it's a whole different beat of life.

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Anonymouse

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compliments on a very well written post. It was actually a joy to read your prose.

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Worse work-life balance in Canada compared to the UK. Where I live now, Alberta, you legally are not entitled to ANY annual leave in your first year of employment, it's determined at your employer's discretion. This is *crazy* to me.

In the UK from the very beginning of your job, if you work full time (37.5 hours) you're legally entitled to 28 days off per year.

I find tipping weird too. Like I'm giving you extra money for... doing your job?

On a more positive note, the roads and houses are notably bigger in Canada compared to the UK and it's a bit weird how in my area most of the roads have numbers instead of names. So 1st Street, 56th Avenue etc. Still can't wrap my head around that.

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WickedSwicket

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Isn't compulsory annual leaves the norm in most countries?

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I’m from Florida and I immigrated to Canada (Toronto) six years ago and eventually became a citizen.



Here are some differences I’ve noticed.

Shoes off when you go inside someone’s house.

People hardly ever complain about gas prices despite being higher.

The word buddy. For example, “when you get to the place, tell buddy I’ll be there 15 minutes after you.”

Far less political extremism or politics being brought up.

Bad neighbourhoods usually just mean poverty and d**g addicts. They don’t feel dangerous like the ones in America.

Far less excessive nationalism. Canada also has the ability to criticize itself.

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Verena

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Canada has a multi-party system, too, with seats in parliament according to the % of votes. This system, also in place in Europe, makes duscissing politics relatively relaxed. One, many opinions are represented and two, it's not just "us against them".

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Hygiene differences. In one place it was perceived lack of hygiene, in another place it was perceived superstition about hygiene. I mean, my mother in law literally says jinns will hide under your fingernails if they grow too long.

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Karen Ballou

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Jinns are evil spirits.

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A big cultural rift for me was the "pick up your trash" culture in the US (or lack thereof). We'd go to the movies with friends and after the movie, I would pick up my empty popcorn carton, skittles wrapper, soda cup and head for the bin that was on the way to the exit. My American friends were shocked:
"you know that people get paid to do that, right?"
I'd answer
"yeah but I mean the bin is right there, it's on the way"
And they would go on
"yeah but they get *paid* to do that"

It's like I was robbing the movie theater employees of their money if I threw my own trash out...

Not sure if it's only shocking from a Swiss person's point of view or if anyone from other countries agree...

Edit: to be fair to them, we were 17 at the time... I guess we're all a*shats in our own way at that age heheh. I doubt they'd still hold this point of view today, 15 years later (sure as hell hope not...).

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Mia Black

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Oh I hate this attitude that somebody may clean up after you. Even if, it's not nice to throw stuff on the ground or not just take trash with you. Unfortunately younger people and many immigrants don't seem to have a problem with leaving the floor covered in sunflower seed waste or chips and the older white people always just throw their cigarette butts on the ground where it pollutes everything...

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Jumping continents from Asia to America, the first cultural shake-up for me was the scale of consumerism—it's just astonishing. Where I'm from, shopping is a necessity, not a hobby. Here, it feels like there's a holiday every month pushing you to buy, buy, buy! And speaking of which, the marketing here is relentless, from billboards to online ads, it's a bombardment of “sale” signs. But that's not all; the convenience of services is something else. You think of something you need, and voila, it's two clicks away or at a store down the block. It's convenient yet daunting, how easy it is to get sucked into a 'spend more' mentality. This adjustment to consumer culture ties back to the work ethic—you work hard, you earn, you spend. It's a cycle that's both impressive in its efficiency and energy but also a bit intimidating when you're used to a more low-key approach to living. And yes, I've been caught off guard more than once by the insistence on an immediate reply to emails or messages, regardless of the day or hour—there's an undeniable urgency woven into everyday life here.

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rullyman

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You can't just say you're from Asia in this kind of scenario. Shopping is sport in many parts of Asia- Korea, Japan, parts of China. Bangkok had a huge number of luxury malls.

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Realizing people in Japan still live in the 1950s mentality about what a woman can or should do. (Not just housewife but like a man will discover how to harvest geothermal energy, a woman's status from her husband etc).

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gerard julien

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and in USA Twenty-two states ban abortion or restrict the procedure.

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USA to Portugal. I was struck by a couple of cultural differences: 


 1. Risk aversion - By American standards, I take mostly reasonable and calculated risks. By Portuguese standards, I'm an agent of chaos threatening to unravel the very fabric of reality.


 2. Politics - this isn't unique to Portugal, but coming from the US, I didn't realize just how one dimensionally we talk about politics. Many folks I knew in Portugal were socially quite progressive, but culturally very traditional. It's far more nuanced there.

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Verena

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Common multi-party system in Europe, with seats in parliament according to the % of votes. This system makes discussing politics relatively relaxed. One, many opinions are represented and two, it's not just "us against them".

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When I was a kid I briefly live in the us, I'm Canadian, and when I started school boy what a shock that was. Its like walking into a prison, metal detectors, beefy a*s security, like as a 13 year old its it was nuts to me. At school in Canada I could freely go to the washroom and that was fine, there I was always questioned why I wasnt in class and given the side eye. I had never felt so unsafe in my life, going to an American school back then was wild cant imagine it now.

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Jean Jacket

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Yeah well, look around this place. There was a shooting at my HS when I was a sophomore [15-16 years old], and then years later, a shooting at my local community college. Keep your kids out of American public schools if you can!

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My family moved from Canada to UAE when I was 15 and the main things I noticed was:

- I  couldn’t check my horoscope or access websites with explicit content. A lot of new age/wicca websites were blocked. I was really into Greek mythology and couldn’t research it like I did back home. 

- needing a male chaperone when I leave the house. My male chaperone was my brother who was two years younger than me 😭 in Canada I was more independant and didn’t need to take my lil bro around with me.

-the weekends being Friday and Saturday was different

-Movies and tv shows had kissing scenes and sex scenes removed so sometimes the plot wouldn’t make much sense 

My family moved back to Canada after two years and it felt like I had to relearn Western culture. I grew up Muslim so it was interesting being in A Muslim country. But it was a huge culture shock lol .

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Sally Horrocks

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I worked in Saudi in the eighties. When out in public we'd wear an abaya? (long black covering) so we didn't fall foul of any religious laws. On my first leave home I felt really exposed walking down the street without one! Censorship - they censored the Waltons!

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When I moved from Europe to the States, the sheer variety of accents and dialects amazed me! I thought I had a good handle on English, but I found myself asking people to repeat themselves quite a bit. It was like learning new versions of the same language, all over again.

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WickedSwicket

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I had an Australian visiting the office in London once & we thought he was asking for a pin instead of a pen.

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I lived in South Korea as a child and I remember some things were quite different, but ultimately I was too young to remember the finer details. My long summer trip to Japan as an adult, though, was another story.

The biggest difference I noticed was that politeness had a similar yet very different purpose than that of politeness in the USA. Each of us students were paired off with a Japanese English student who was essentially hired to act as personal interpreters, guides, and cultural educators on top of gaining some college credits. They were off on Sundays but the rest of the days, they spent almost all waking hours by our sides. My student-partner was named Haruka ("Haru").

I told her that I felt right at home with people being polite and hospitable, as I was raised around that in the US, but she warned me to be wary of it. I specifically remember her putting it like this: "People here are supposed to be nice and usually mean it, but sometimes it's not nice at all." That is true for the US too but when I thought about it, people in the US could choose to just be douchebags sometimes, whereas in Japan it felt like everyone was expected to be nice so the alternative wasn't really there. So it was harder to read between the lines at times.

One day, me and Haru walked past a few girls. One of them smiled at me and gave me a compliment, and when we fully passed by the girl said something in Japanese to her friends and laughed. Haru immediately told me to wait there, and left to confront her (in Japanese) before returning to me and apologizing for what happened. I asked what happened and she just said "that girl was being cruel". Haruka declined to elaborate, but I remembered the warning she gave before. Having understood that whatever the girl did flew right over my head, I realized that I was out of my element, especially since my Japanese was kindergarten-level at best.

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Nicole Weymann

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My imagination is running wild with polite insults of the "You could wear anything" kind. Like "...so why did you choose this" or "...there's no use adorning a dumpster anyway".

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Lived in England and you notice alot less division based on different ethnic backgrounds. I didn't see as much of the "that part of town is the hood" like here in the states. The less fortunate didn't mean less morally corrupt.

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Donkey boi

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There are definitely areas that contain a majority of ethnic groups. Where I live, which isn't a large town, we have ONE family that isn't white. The big-ish town where I work, the residential areas around us seems to be divided by ethnic groups. Nigerians and Ghanaians to the NW, Jamaicans & West Indies to the W, Chinese to the S, Eastern Europeans to the SE, Indian & Sinhalese to the E & NE. There are white British dotted here and there, but mainly surrounding the clusters, like some kind of border marking. But not many "Bad areas". *I don't actually know which way is North, so I call 'North' the way our clinic faces.

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When I lived in South Korea, the culture around healthcare was completely different than in the states and is honestly among the things that 'radicalized' me politically. Here in the US you hear so much about people going without healthcare, sometimes for serious conditions, due to the cost. Over there accessible and affordable healthcare is so ubiquitous it isn't even a second thought. I remember early on in my stay there I was out playing soccer at a local field with some friends and locals and my friend sprained an ankle and get told to go to the hospital for it. For a sprain! We were confused initially, but were told 'why not? you are hurt so why not go see a doctor?' So we did, and it was like...maybe ten bucks equivalent. Hell, later on a friend had to get some minor surgery and all told at the end he paid like thirty bucks equivalent including for the prescription at the pharmacy afterwards. It absolutely blew my mind. It was just so easy, and cheap. And since Seoul is so dense you could find a doctor for just about anything within a few blocks of wherever you happened to be.

Among the many things I miss about living over there, that is a big one. How I wish we could have that here in the states.

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Nicole Weymann

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I hate the fact that the lack of health care in the US was advertised as "freedom of choice", and according to comments it occasionally still is. A choice that I can only make if I have the money is not freedom, it's serfdom or even slavery. Freedom you have to buy is freedom for the rich only.

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When I moved to New Zealand:

1. I didn’t know “tea” means the evening meal and “dinner” means the midday meal.

2. Taking a break at 10am and 3pm during the work day

3. Pies are gas (petrol) station food and people don’t really make homemade pies.

4. Taxes. They just deduct it out of your paycheck and that’s it. No BS with deductions and returns.

5. Even the private doctor was cheap. I had to pay full price to see the doctor and get antibiotics and it cost me 35 USD.

6. At the time I was there (2008) people texted way more and called way less.

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JoNo

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Here in Australia, having tea as the evening meal and dinner at lunch time has declined over the years. To the point that lunch and dinner are used the most. Older people would use the other, a throwback to years ago.

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Lived in Mauritania for about three months. Not Mauratis. Mauritania. Africa, all the way to the left, third country down.

Free range animals. Donkeys Dogs. Goats. Donkeys. they're just wandering everywhere. Being an animal person in the US can get you some strange looks, but petting the local donkeys and scratching their butts to the point that they'd take verbal commands had someone asking me to teach them English so they could talk to the donkey. (I THINK they were half kidding....)

The place spoke 5 language (wolof suniki pulaar hasania arabic) so you could go like 3 blocks over and some people would either need a translator or just not bothering dealing with anyone from over there.

Trash. there's no pickup. Throw it wherever it doesn't matter. Combine this with the first point, and there are donkeys walking around with basically a**l beads of plastic poop plastic poopball plastic pooball (they did NOT want help getting those out).

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Jess Smith

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Mauritania was both the last country to abolish slavery (1981), criminalized it in 2007 (!!!), and has the largest proportion of its population be enslaved (according to Human Rights Watch, in 2018 2.4 percent, see https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/mauritania). (Yes you could probably make an argument for North Korea. But Mauritania is definitely up there.)

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I “jaywalked” constantly in Canada, not realising it was a no-no. The word jaywalk wasn’t even in my vocabulary. It wasn’t until my boyfriend practically dragged me back to the footpath demanding to know what the hell I was thinking that I stopped. He also finds it very scary to drive in Ireland because people jaywalk all the time, especially in the city centre.    

When you ask someone how they are in Canada, they will very earnestly respond exactly how they’re feeling and ask you in return. It always feels like too much information. Half the time in Ireland, we don’t even really answer the question at all. It’s treated more like “hello”.

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Ripley

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We had a Canadian housemate years ago. He would answer "how are you?" in loooooong and minute detail. It got to the point that we'd say "hi Dave, how are . . . hi Dave!" and leave it at that.

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Adapting to the work-life balance in the US has been quite an eye-opener for me too. In my home country, I was accustomed to a more communal life—long chats with neighbors were the norm, not an exception. But here, it seems like having a packed schedule is a badge of honor. It's a shift from community-focused to achievement-focused living. Even hobbies are often discussed in terms of personal development rather than leisure. It's a different rhythm of life aimed more at what you accomplish than who you're with. And the coffee! Back home, coffee time is a ritual, a moment to relax, but here it's fuel for the hustle. It's all a fascinating reflection of the American spirit, which I'm learning to navigate (with a large cup of joe in hand, of course).

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sofacushionfort

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Should have moved to the rural southern US

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I spent some time living in Finland, the longest time I'd spent outside the UK actually, what struck me was how quiet it was. There's fewer people about, there's less bustle. People don't talk as much for as long, and not as loudly. And that's before I went to a more rural area, where I finally experienced true silence. In the UK even in rural areas you're never that far from habitation, so there's almost always the background noise from animals, people, or more usually cars. After coming back to the UK it's hard not to realise how loud cars are and how the noise pollution always affects you.

Edit: the weather also got to me. Not because it was extreme, but because it was so unchanging. Weather in the UK is always a gamble, sitting at the middle of 4 air currents leads to it being very changeable, but in Finland I could see the weather coming days in advance, and that was with the horizon hidden by hills, and not the ocean I used to.

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On the flipside, people from Alberta found it really shocking when I mentioned that sales tax in the UK is 20% AND it's included on the shelf price.

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G A

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Yeah we try to make the ripoff less noticeable.

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Moving to Belgium from the US, the idea of business hours (publicly posted) being vague suggestions was hard to get used to. They’d list Weds 9-12 for example and then just didn’t open.

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Nimue47

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I am Belgian an have never seen this here. Would be bad for business after all.

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That I cannot wear perfume in the office or some people will complain, while extremely aggressive body odor is fine.


Moved from South America to North America, and nobody prepared me for the BOs 😳.

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CSC

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Where are you that you have to contend with body odor? I do not come across that often at all. As for the perfume, it does bother people because we do not all enjoy the same scent.

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It was so jarring to see people wearing going out clothes and not having to go anywhere? like just sitting on the couch, watching telly in jeans. even worse if you're lying in bed in jeans...

one of the first friends I made when I moved here (Australia) would get up and get ready by putting on a bra, a face of make-up, jeans and a top, even socks and shoes... and then stay at home all day.

baffling.

and then I mentioned it to others thinking she was maybe a little conceited or weird and nope, they thought it was normal and they do it too 🤷🏻‍♀️

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Ripley

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That's not "normal" in Australia. It's probably entirely dependent on the kinds of people you associate with, their socioeconomic status, their age . . . You might wear jeans and stay at home, if they're comfy jeans, but not necessarily the rest. Source - sitting here in tracky daks and a hoodie.

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When i visited Turkey i was laying sick in a family members apartment. Suddenly the walls were shaking and i could hear very loud music coming from outside. A wedding was taking place. Such a thing would never be allowed due to rules and regulations in the Netherlands. But in Turkey, it is very normal.

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Verena

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I live in the Netherlands, both city (Amsterdam/The Hague) and rural (Zeeuws-Vlaanderen), and most Dutch love noise. There might be rules and regulations, but noise it is. Music, vehicles, it does not matter

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Time off from work is treated very differently in Korea vs the US. In the US it's normal to take a vacation of up to a week or more assuming you have the time off available. In Korea if you leave your job for more than three days then you need to look for a new job.

A soldier friend of mine told me this when he married a Korean. He had a bunch of leave time on the books. However his new wife wasn't going to get time off to visit his family in the US.

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Nicole Weymann

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And here's us Europeans getting 20-30 days of vacation per year and (depending on job/employer) being chastised if not taking them, because it might land the employer in trouble. Many people take three consecutive weeks off, especially in summer.

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15 years ago, I came to Germany for the first time and was really shocked by the Germans loudly blowing their nose in public.

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Jay Scales

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So what do you do in India if you have a runny nose? Drip??

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Nudity. Portugal there was nudity at the beaches and in the street.

Also kids drinking wine and smoking in the streets.

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In the street? As a deeply Catholic country I find this difficult to believe....

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Didn’t move there, but visited Canada once when I was a kid. Seeing road signs in English and French was wild for me.

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Easily impressed..

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When I was studying abroad in Spain I was blown away by how prevalent smoking was. There definitely didn't seem to be the same stigma attached to it that there is in the USA.

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pep Ito

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It is not so prevalent

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When I studied in Spain in college, I was shocked at the amount of men that would make clicking sounds at women. And I guess that’s their way of cat calling? Not everywhere, but particularly the grocery store it seem to happen a lot and I’m not saying all Spaniards are chauvinistic but wow I was surprised.

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pep Ito

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When were you in Spain, in the middle of the 20th century?

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From Canada to the US. Road construction was completed in weeks not months. New buildings would be built in months not years. You are basically allowed to park anywhere it doesn’t say you can’t- which is not many places even in most cities. Americans are much friendlier people than Canadians. Americans don’t expect companies to rip them off and actively do something about it when it happens. Government corruption isn’t accepted as a way of life and knowing the right people isn’t the only way to cut through red tape.

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LonelyLittleLeafSheep

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Sorry, but Americans absolutely KNOW that companies are ripping us off, and the government is fully corrupt.

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