I don’t live terribly far from where I grew up. I have seen so many snakes in my neighborhood. Growing up I knew what a snake was but never really saw any. I had to mow my lawn slower the other day because I saw two snakes in the grass.
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.
I want to move to the PNW so much.
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?)
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.
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
Nah. He woulda mentioned having to pump his own gas too.
When I moved from the west coast of Canada to the east coast, I was surprised how different the clouds and the sunrise looked. They are like, a lot more fluffy clouds, and the sunsets are more vivid across the entire sky.
It’s more like what didn’t change that I did expect. The rural midwest is still very hot, very right-wing (and far alt-right), and full of mosquitoes, much like the southern US. In fact, it’s predicted the south will see more inches of snow and days of snow than the midwest this year.
I moved from coast to coast as a kid and ordered a pizza with ‘ everything on it!’ and it came with whole slices of tomatoes on it and that blew my fucking mind
‘wow, tomatoes are a real thing!’ :p
Let me tell you I can still look up pizza joints in my home town and the only vegetables they have for pizza are mushrooms, onions and peppers. The west coast lives different when it comes to food isn’t that what this post is about?
East coast: “Pineapple on pizza is an abomination!”
West coast: “Do you want corn with your avocado topping?”
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Losing my job. I moved closer to work. (That wasnt the goal. It was just coincidental)
Went living in a small village at 1000m altitude. Despite it’s colder here, I no longer cough for months around winter.
Stopped drinking almost entirely, because moving also meant finding new friends (who prefer other activities than drinking).
Vancouver/Edmonton to Australia (Sydney then southwest Victoria).
It gets properly cold here - it’s not hot an sunny everyday like they advertise to us overseas. Aussies also don’t use insulation in their houses so having to deal with single digit temperatures inside the house makes me die a little everyday.
Dont use insulation??
There are minimum standards…now. That builders and developers were dragged kicking and screaming to (“just throw another reverse cycle aircon on mate, she’ll be right”).
I’ve never lived in an insulated house. I’ve never lived more south than the subtropics and the coldest a house had been inside is 6 degrees C with a floor surface probably lower than that. The people down south towards have probably suffered more than me in some homes.
I’ve lived in Warrnambool and Ballarat. I can confirm first hand that air temperatures inside the house have reached 4C, and I could see my breath 😭
Yeesh. You win.
What was house constructed from? Outside temp?
I don’t know. It wasn’t a very old house, I think it was built in 2005, and I lived in it from 2022-2025. I just know it was frigid and consistently colder inside than it was outside in winters 🥲
Surely not everyday. Just every day, right?
Single digits in Celsius though, right?
Does it even still get to more than -12c/9f in the skiing towns over there?
Colder than Edmonton :?
Outdoors, I can deal with the -40C in low humidity no problem. In Australia (south/southwest), it feels so much colder. Maybe it’s because you can’t escape the cold unless you want to empty your wallet on heating bills (really expensive here). You put on your layers before you even get out of bed. :(
Sounds like youre in a poorly insulated dwelling. By comparison, I’m in a 14 year old apartment in Melbourne and hardly needed the heater this winter. Its got a heat pump air con / heater so heating / cooling not expensive
Might be. I’ve lived in a house in Warrnambool and a house in Ballarat, so no neighbours above, below or beside to help keep my unit consistent like I did in Edmonton.
I’m also not a builder or any tradie, so I’m not sure what the houses are really made of. I just know the noticeable differences between how I felt in houses and apartments in Canada vs houses in south/southwest Victoria.
I did live in an apartment in Preston for a short stint, and didn’t use heating or cooling at all. It was lovely, sans the meth heads upstairs.
If youre renting in regional areas, they probably have no interest in making it energy efficient as they probably think that’s “woke”. Speak to your agent about insulation at the very least.
The way it changed my mental perception of how far apart buildings are. I moved from North Carolina to Massachusetts, and distinctly remember that the first time I went back to visit the city I grew up in, I had a reaction along the lines of “wtf, did like a bomb go off here or something?” upon seeing it, because I’d become used to buildings being taller and closer together and suddenly by contrast the parking lots with scattered short buildings and wide roads reminded me of those pictures you see of cities after a war or disaster, where there’ll be a few buildings relatively intact looking surrounded by flattened grey.
Every time I go back there now, I get a really eerie feeling because even though for the most part, the buildings haven’t changed at all, the place feels as if they have, like everything has been squashed vertically and stretched horizontally.
Opposite to you, going back home feels cramped and I miss being able to buy beer at the grocery store. Food’s always great though.
South to Midwest USA - the thunderstorms are less frequent, but way more violent. Also, cheese curds.
moving from SA to Europe, I did not expect that I could feel hotter in Europe. I was naively expecting 4 months of snow coverage
Welcome to the continent that is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the world lol
Wait what?
You should move to the Nordics, maybe Lappland? :D
My relationship, bought a new house sold our old one and now it seems its slowly falling apart
Since physical places wasn’t specified, how much nicer the threadiverse (Lemmy) is compared to Reddit, way less toxic from my experience.
