Went living in a small village at 1000m altitude. Despite it’s colder here, I no longer cough for months around winter.
My relationship, bought a new house sold our old one and now it seems its slowly falling apart
When I moved from middle Connecticut to San Diego all the good Italian food was gone, yes there was sushi but no good Chinese takeout and holy shit forget about pizza. Cali pizza is nothing like CT pizza and I hated it. Don’t even get me started on the mutant pile of stuff PA calls pizza.
South to Midwest USA - the thunderstorms are less frequent, but way more violent. Also, cheese curds.
So much!
From The South and moved to the PNW.
Lack of thunder and lightning is crazy. Like I went from hearing it all the time to once or twice a year.
Being able to see snow on the mountains while it’s over 60°F in the valley.
How there isn’t any warm water occurring in nature.
You can’t find Cuban bread in every grocery store.
Man, I have so many things that shocked me. And many still do, lol.
One of the many things you have to do is find the many hot springs of the Pacific Northwest.
Some are warm water, some are downright boiling fucking hot.
Just how antisocial people can be, they often feel dead inside to me. Rarely smiling, very little low effort social interaction. It eats away at my soul.
The inaccessibility of anything in the DIY and construction side of life if you don’t own a business in the industry. I was used to doing woodwork without the need for a table saw, now I can’t get a simple piece of wood cut accurately without being a building contractor or having my own kitted out workshop. I loved working with aluminium and used to buy from suppliers, now it’s inaccessible to me.
I’m half way on this, I was just talking to my buddy about this. The last three years I worked pretty much by myself and I think it took a toll on me. Though when I’m in Japan it’s a strange paradox, I feel so comfortable. Maybe because the interactions are minimal and that’s all I can handle after seeing 1-3 people a day.
I’ve spent most of my adult life alone, and those small social interactions are what pulls me through. Here you get looked at like there’s something wrong with you if you greet someone when walking past them in the street.
Oh yeah I sort of get that. I was having a good evening going home to see my girlfriend, went to grab a few beers after work at the gas station and smiled at someone. The guy got pissed and said “what are you looking at removed?” I was like where did that come from. And I’m not scrawny or anything, especially compared to that shrimp.
God damn, at least where I live outward hostility is as frowned upon as any other social interactions.
I moved 100 miles, from one city to another in the same US state. Now I can’t find good chinese food to save my life… Panda Express is unfortunately the best I can find.
Realizing there’s no good Chinese food in your area is a soul crushing experience
Moved from the south to the Midwest and my mouth still orders “unsweet tea”. Some waitstaff have no idea what I mean.
If you don’t specify in the south you get diabetea.
Order tea and a large glass of ice and pour (any type) of tea over the ice. Usually comes out room temp instead of iced however it’s a great drink option at many restaurants that otherwise only have pop or juice to drink.
What is unsweet tea?
The opposite of sweet tea.
So like, regular tea?
In the US many restaurants serve iced tea. In the south they make iced tea with way too much sugar in it, so if you just order iced tea they’ll ask “sweet or unsweet”.
…Or they just serve you sweet tea
When I moved from the Northwoods of Wisconsin to Los Angeles (Burbank), a lot of changes were to be expected… The one I didn’t expect was the total lack of thunder n lightning despite rain storms that would flood the streets. I think I was out here at least 6 years before I heard any thunder and that was a one-time event. Been here for almost 29 yrs now, and I can probably count the number on one hand.
How convenient places are near me. Where I was, I had to drive 45 miles out and back to get anywhere. Now for a while, everything is 5 - 10 minutes. Chump change for miles and yeah if I really do want to broaden my exploration, can go a bit further, but not when I need something as before.
Moved from Midwest to West to South. In the South, they use “How are ya?” as a greeting. I was not aware. So for the first few weeks/months, I was answering them honestly and just loving how friendly everyone was!
Took me a while to understand you’re just supposed to say “Good-n-you?”
Felt like a fuckin idiot.
How’s it going?
It’s fucking stupid, though I do the same thing.
Well, hang in there…
I walk a lot more now that the nearest store is across the street and not 3 miles away.
The culture of right of way between pedestrians and cars. Where I grew up, you could walk out to the double yellow and stand there and cars wouldn’t give a shit. They’d just keep driving and expect you to stay out of the way.
Now where I live, if you just glance at a car when you’re walking they’ll stop where they are to let you cross.
It all gets very confusing for a pedestrian when you also get out of town drivers that don’t adhere to that same culture.
That annoys me when cars clearly have the right of way or stop before I’m even close to crossing the road. They could be already past by the time I get there, but they stop anyway. If you keep driving and I keep walking nobody will disturb the other.
Yeah, I’m a little torn between both sides. It can be more efficient when cars take the right of way, but pedestrian safety is absolutely more important than efficiency.
Yeah it’s surprising how opposite it can be.
The other day I was walking my dog and I have to be careful to face away from the street because people keep stopping for us to cross when she’s just sniffing at something.
Then we actually did cross the street at an all way stop intersection, and cars came to a stop in all directions! However we got halfway across and a new car came around the bend and almost hit us. Despite the stop sign. Despite all other cars already stopped. Despite me and the dog in the crosswalk
Eye contact / greetings between strangers
*in the USA
I’m originally from the south where everyone wears plastic smiles and waves in passing and all that.
Then I went to the northeast where it’s more eyes on the horizon. A smile and a wave is met with a raised eyebrow or a sneer, and friends commonly show their comfort with each other using insults.
Then out to the midwest where zero eye contact gets you stared at, but heavy eye contact is taken as a challenge. It has to be just the right amount, and I’m still trying to figure it out after years.
Here in NM, out on my walks around the neighborhood every day, I say either “good morning” or “hello” to everyone I pass, which varies from one to perhaps ten people per walk, 99% respond in same. It’s not fake, it’s just common courtesy to acknowledge other people. I see about half of them every day, and I know of two regulars who won’t respond, so I don’t say anything to them.
There was one guy who enthusiastically said “good morning!” every time for a couple of years, we even stopped and chatted briefly a couple of times. I didn’t see him for an entire summer, then when I saw him again he wouldn’t say hello. Then he started saying hello again, on his own. I don’t push. Some people have a lot going on.
I don’t know about “heavy eye contact is a challenge”. At about 15 feet apart, walking toward each other look to make brief eye contact and say “good morning”. By the time you’ve said the words, they’re nearly past you, and they either respond or don’t. That’s all there is to it.
If I had friends who responded to a smile and a wave with a sneer, I think we wouldn’t be friends for long.
My experience is in CO specifically and may depend on a lot more than my location. Just generalizing to try to meet the spirit of the question / story flow.
A good friend of mine who went on a similar nomadic journey settled in NM and said similar great things about it. I wish I could remember which city… one of the biggest ones?
you are getting sneers and glares from NorthEast USA because we hate fake pleasantries/smiles and southern nazis.
Yeah people in the NE aren’t rude, they just don’t care to pretend when it comes to that kind of bullshit
Many people don’t make eye contact any longer. Things have changed.
South, northeast and midwest of the USA
Yes. I debated whether I should specify or if it’d sound dumb / be obvious.
Now I see I should have, since I made Rothe sad
The amount of US defaultism on lemmy saddens me. I thought I had mostly left that behind on reddit those years ago.
Stores are open on Sundays
Surprises me every timeJust a shot in the dark, you originally from Bergen County, New Jersey?
Germany, where Sonntag ist Ruhetag
That always drove me crazy when I went to Germany. “Oops, forgot toothpaste”… wtf, nothing’s open. Guess my teeth will just rot.
Germany’s not even religious, what’s with the Blue Laws?
Germany’s not even religious, what’s with the Blue Laws?
It’s actually interesting thing. In some countries the “stores closed on Sunday” is a religious thing, like in Poland. Stores used to be open but it was changed recently because the right wing government pushed for it and most people think it’s so that people go to church more.
In Germany it was the other way around: all the stores were only opened Mon-Fri and closed early because everyone just assumed that people working in stores should work the same hours as everyone else. This led to terrible experience for the customers (everyone scrambling to do their shopping on Friday evening, right after work) so they slowly started extending the opening hours and finally allowed stores to open on Saturdays.
In Spain stores are closed on Sunday but again, not because of religious reasons but as “worker’s rights” thing. One shopping mall near me tried to extend shopping hours on some days during summer and all the workers complained and threatened a strike. No one wants to work on Sunday here, they prefer to spend time with friends and family.
Totally understand and to be honest I wish we had that here (Dystopian States of America). People deserve the dignity of spending time relaxing and with their families. It was just a culture shock for me the first time, and now I know to plan better when I’m in Europe. But. yeah the idea that things should be closed or prohibited so that “you’ll go to church more” is obviously idiotic. Where I live, Alcohol sales were banned on Sunday even though everything else was open. They changed the rule recently, but only if a bar/restaurant/retailer specifically gets a “Sunday sales” license (apart from the other one for the rest of the week) and they can’t sell until after noon; ostensibly because of course everybody should be in church before then. Stupid-ass Bible Belt eyeroll
When I lived in Poland everything was still open on Sunday and when I moved to Spain everything was suddenly closed and I had 0 issues adapting. I’m sure it’s an issue when traveling but once you make that mental switch it’s super easy to plan around it. I remember having discussion on reddit later and people form Poland coming up with the craziest reason why they need the stores to be open on Sunday (like “I’m disabled so I drop food all the time and what I’m supposed to do when I drop my last food on the floor and it’s Sunday?”… IDK, buy more food on Saturday?)
Germany is religious AF still. Officially not really, but its a deeply Christian country. Most holidays are christian ones (the ones that are not, are not religious). The “christian” party is still the biggest party (although that is changing, and their values are more “let’s suck off the rich” than christian). In some cities (like cologne) no building bigger than the cathedral is allowed. There are more examples :)
I think people confuse Christian past with actually being Christian. In Poland about 50% of people attend mass every Sunday. In Germany that’s 7%.
It’s still tradition in Poland to have a priest visit your home once a year to do some magic, every child gets baptized in church, 75,6% of kids attend religion classes at school because yes, religion is still part of curriculum in public schools. Abortion is illegal, there’s no civil unions let alone same-sex marriage, no no-fault divorce, no euthanasia or even legally recognized DNRs.
That’s a Christian country. Germany just has some Christian traditions.
True, I guess I counted Christian traditions as being Christian
Which is hilarious, because I’ve been to Cologne many times and know it’s the gay capital of the country :)
It gets stricter the further south you go, where people are more religious. In bavaria shops close earlier and can’t sell alcohol after a certain time either. Overall the country is quite religious though, and especially historically has been extremely so. And something like a sunday where almost no one has to work isn’t without benefits, so it won’t just go away. Even shops being open on saturday past early afternoon was something that was only allowed in the early 2000s iirc.
Nah. He woulda mentioned having to pump his own gas too.
True, although I would hope you would expect that leaving the state
