Top 10 Cultural Differences

What we have noticed in our first week abroad:

10.   Just like in Wisconsin, a water fountain is a bubbler - in Poland a remote control is a pilot.

  9.   Washing Machines are household staples - dryers are not.

  8.   Although delicious, the items in the produce department are the home to an astounding amount of small flies. The vegetables have typically been limp and wilted and the parsnips (my favorite vegetable) are not wax coated. Also, every grocery store that we've been to sells large sunflower caps next to the rhubarb stalks. I'm very intrigued by them but don't know what to do with one?

  7.   Eggs - are purchased on the store shelves, not the refrigerator case. They come in packages of 6 or 10, not by the dozen or one-and-a-half-dozen. And they are real gems with the goldenest of yolks that I've seen since I was a kid and we raised a coop of our own eggs. And how my sister loved to clean that coop.

  6.   Our car is a Fluence by the French automaker Renault and is similar to a Nissan Sentra. As common here, it runs on diesel and is a manual transmission. But is a very tight fit in parking spaces.

  5.   Beer (pivo) comes no smaller than a "silo" can (1/2 L). Milk (mleko) comes no larger than a 1L jug (1/4 gallon).

  4.   The cubicle walls in the office are planks of glass. Lunch breaks are a must to refresh the mind and lunch is to be never be eaten at the desk.

  3.   Crosswalks actually allow pedestrians to cross the street. If it is a crosswalk that is not signal controlled, cars will always stop (I'd still look both ways, just in case). And car headlights must always be turned on or you will be ticketed.

  2.   Holy moly margarine! Of all of the places in the world where I thought margarine would surely be a sin, there is a mountain of it! This butter loving girl has a heck of a time deciphering the wrapper to make sure I'm buying butter not margarine. Be sure to bring your own bag to the market or pay for each plastic one that you will need. 

And lastly, the number 1 difference that we discovered.... Dum, da, dum...

  1.   Aluminum cans are NOT recycled! Along the streets of Dusseldorf Germany we could not find a bin for our empty cans of Sanpellegrino. There were bins on the sidewalks for everything else. Finally, tired of juggling empty cans and a two-year-old, I guiltily snuck them into the garbage can. Then again, low and behold at our apartment complex, there was a bin for everything but aluminum. Troy asked a nice lady walking by and what do you know, cans are just trash. The guilt that had me so, so very bogged down became a weight off of my shoulder. OK, a little dramatic, but still, who would have thought.