oh yeah, tips are only given when you are served by your waitress. you don't tip when at fast food places or when you serve yourself.
oh gods yes. it would be so rude to leave it on.

tinyE's aunt, wow.

In Italian it's more or less the same, we use the equivalent of "She" and technically one could also use "You" (second person plural) but it's gotten a rather archaic connotation and has fallen in disuse for a long time now. French uses "You" as well if I'm not mistaken.
I'd say the oddity here is the English language, for getting rid of "thou" and using "you" as both singular and plural.

My colleague was just saying today how she has no idea what our Scottish caretaker is saying most of the time, she just smiles and nods - broad Glaswegian accents are an entire world of this!
A-ha! I thought they looked like Traffic Wardens! - yeah, we have something similar but we limit them to the parking violations thing...

Oh here is an odd one, it is not appropriate for women/girls to wear white pants or shoes (tennis shoes don't count) after labor day (end of August). It's an older tradition that is slowly going the way of the dodo, but a tradition none the less.

And is summer vacation for kids in school more of a US thing or is it pretty common? Here it used to be so that kids could help on the farm. Some want to take this away and make school year round.

Daylight Savings! I know some countries do this, but it causes a lot of problems, especially in the US where everyone doesn't follow it, even within a state (indian reservations!). Here is an explination: (actually this guy's videos are pretty fun)

Groundhog Day!!! In February we let a large rodent determine when Winter will end. Again, CGP Grey gives a nicevideo on the weirdness.

Hey, TinyE, this Intel I7-4790 was quite expensive. 350 bucks if you really want to now. I hope you appreciate it, my sweet nephew. And don`t use it for watching porn !!!

I don`t think any of them are US specific, in Romania summer vacation is about 2,5 - 3 months long.
We also have daylight savings, first in the last Sunday of March and once again in the last Sunday of October.

In Canada:

- all products you find on store shelves etc. are labelled in both English and French by law.

- cow's milk is sold in both cardboard cartons (which is common elsewhere also) but also in plastic bags. Apparently people in other countries find this extremely odd, but it's been like this forever and no it doesn't cause problems with the milk.

- A "double double" is a coffee with double cream and double sugar.

- A "loonie" is the slang term for our $1 coin, and "twonie" (pronounced to rhyme with loonie) is our $2 coin.

- Canadian Tire is actually a large department store that sells just about everything, not just tires. Their motto is "there's a lot more to Canadian Tire than tires."

- Many Canadians barbeque in the winter even if it is snowing.

- The Canadian English dialect is seen by Americans to be like British English and by Britons to be like American English. The truth is that the British spelling of words is more common with some words, while the American spelling is more common with others, and many words are spelled with either of the two considered acceptable. Over time double-spellings are becoming more and more common.

- We really do say "eh" a lot. This is not just a Canadian stereotype, it is totally true. If a foreigner is around a Canadian long enough they will start to say "eh" also without being conscious that they're doing it. We do not however say "aboot" (unless someone is from the east coast) as is often claimed by our neighbours to the south. :)

- We pretty much universally say "goodbye", "talk to you later", "later", "catch you later", "take care", "ciao" or some other word or phrase to end a phone call, often in a multi-part exchange that might even seem redundant to some (and probably is). We don't just hang up the phone when one person has decided they don't need to say anything and don't want to hear any more, leaving the other person hanging wondering why the phone call terminated - like some other countries seem to do. This is because we are polite. :)

- We love poutine, which is a French fast food dish consisting of french fries covered in cheese curd (usually mozarella) and gravy. This sounds disgusting to some people until they try it upon which they will dream of poutine at night. :)

I've always wanted to try authentic poutine. Sounds tasty. There's several different recipe videos on youtube, but I don't know which ones are the 'correct' versions of it.

It's pretty basic, just cook up some french fries and put them in a bowl, sprinkle a fair bit of mozzarella curds on it, then pour gravy on top which will melt the cheese. Many people put ketchup, salt and pepper on that as condiments, then slob out. The gravy is usually beef gravy, but pork, chicken or some other gravy could be used also, whatever you have or prefer. That is more or less the authentic poutine. People vary it by using different cheeses, or putting additional toppings on it such as bacon, ham, pea meal bacon, mushrooms, pizza toppings, or all manner of other creative options. If you can't find mozzarella curds you can just grate up mozzarella instead or break it up with your hands manually.

I first thought you meant that on their summer vacations, US kids tend to go to school, for "vacation". I thought that was awful, like I would come to the workplace on vacations and weekends, and still claim it is my free time.

Then again, I know US folks tend to send their kids to summer camps because otherwise there is no one to look after the kids at home, as parents are working all the time? That is probably less common outside US, albeit I do remember some kind of summer camps in Finland too, even was in one in my childhood (and hated every minute of it).

As for your real question, I would expect that in at least most of the western world kids have a pretty long vacation from their schools at some point, usually summertime. Here in Finland it is around 2.5 months, from the beginning of June to the middle of August or so. University students have a bit longer, usually the universities open in the beginning of September.

When I was in the university, I worked all summers though so I actually felt I never had true vacation, always either studying or working, sometimes both. That's why I love being in workforce now, because a vacation really means a vacation, and no homework or studying normally to do on weekends or evenings either. Free time really means free time now.


That reminds me: my understanding is that in the US the annual vacations for normal workers are quite short compared to most of Europe. For instance in Finland, a four week summer vacation + one week winter vacation is common, and also there seem to be more non-working days here also around Christmas and so. My understanding is that US folks are happy if they can muster even one week of vacation per year.

So my question to US folks: (how) do you ever travel abroad? Like going to some distant country, maybe Europe or Asia? How can you, if you have max one week of vacation? For instance, I'd hate to go to e.g. Thailand for less than two weeks (usually I am there for 3-5 weeks, if I go there), even feeling that it is not worth it to pay for the expensive flight tickets for that short trip, like one week.

Or do you travel abroad only if and when you become so rich you don't have to work anymore and have lots of free time, or you've retired from work (pensioner)?

I personally feel though the vacations could be shorter in Finland. I'd be probably fine with e.g. 2 week summer vacation + 1 week winter vacation. In the public sector, the vacation can be quite insane especially if you have worked for a long time. For instance my brother, who worked for the Bank of Finland, told me that his annual vacations are over 7 weeks if I remember right. That's just insane, on the private sector it is the aforementioned 4 + 1 weeks, and I feel even that is quite much.

That's also applied in Indonesia, shoes and giving or receiving an item with right hand. if your right hand is full and have to use your left hand ask apology first, it's showed your politeness gesture.


didn't have that. but i think i agreed with snake revenge though, cos i run into it. i didn't killed it on purpose, it happen a while back when i was a kid. that's why i often seen snakes around my house since then :\

Ah, yes. A little oversight on my part. Thanks for pointing it out. Edited the original post.

We used to have those before. :) I haven't seen them for several years now. I guess cartons are more practical. Plastic bags get easily damaged.

I call shenanigans on the "aboot" thing. ;) That is your number one tell that you are Canadian. People in in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan (Upper Peninsula) say "eh", so the only way I can tell a Canadian is by "aboot". However, all my Canadian friends are from the East, sooooo..... :)

Poutine is on my list of things try before I die. Also, it's my go to when people are talking about how unhealthy the US is. "Oh yeah, Canada has poutine!" And cheese curds are AMAZING. I love the squeaky.

We also don't just hang up on people. How rude is that? How do you just hang-up on someone? People who do this, please explain! I say this very nicely, i'm just really baffled.

ah yes, US adult vacation time. I want to move to Europe if only for the fact you all get a month of vacation STARTING. I feel the average/starting vacation you get here is about 2 weeks paid vacation. As you work longer and longer in the company, you get more time. However, you normally have to work for at least four or five years before bumping up to three weeks.

And when you get your two weeks you are almost never allowed to take the two weeks off together, at least at the places I have worked, unless you have some extenuating circumstances or have made this plan WAY in advance. So, b/c you only have one week, rarely would you think to travel to Asia or something. That's why we have the "stay-cation" where you just sit at home and relax. :) Also, traveling the US is another way people spend holidays. We have such a large and diverse country, that just driving a few states over can be an experience. For instance, when I was growing up we'd drive from Ohio to Colorado every summer (boring flat ohio, to mountains :) ).

On my one week vacations I have managed to travel abroad. I spent one week in the Yucatan in Mexico and one week in London. It is possible, but everything seems rushed and I was more exhausted coming home than when I left. I always tried to pack in way more than possible b/c I only have one week.

And yes, a lot of people really start traveling when they have retired. And the richer half tend to take/get more vacation time I think.