[QUOTE=Aspidistra]
Going from Australia to Scotland…
Orange cheese
[/quote]
Is it all just the white sort in Australia?
Thank goodness these have all but disappeared, it’s mostly just cartons now. We also used to sometimes get milk in a bag - very messy.
Abominations.
[QUOTE=matt_mcl]
Yes! That drove me bananas. And the idea of having a little hot-water heater right in your shower, so you had to heat the water up before you could take your shower? Scary.
[/QUOTE]
Oh.
Uh…
Was *that *what I was supposed to do? :o
I just thought the showers took forever to warm up! :smack:
(I guess I’ll go join the SDMB Fucking Moron Club now…)
[QUOTE=Aspidistra]
Orange cheese
[/quote]
I guess this is the reverse of what we’re used to in North America. Here, cheddar (and colby) has always been orange, except if you buy Extra Old cheddar, which is white for some reason. (Kraft’s is, anyway.) Most other cheeses are white, though. Amusingly, “white cheddar” is a semi-popular flavour for popcorn and mac & cheese. I still don’t know what the difference is, other than the absence of colouring.
Like what 2L bottles of pop (soda, whatever) come in? I’d find that kind of odd myself.
I heard about this years back. It frightens me.
[QUOTE=Autolycus]
In Japan, they often put a sunny-side egg on top of pizza. Tastes good but looks very freaky.
[/QUOTE]
Not just Japan - I had a pizza with egg like that in France. Probably the best pizza i’ve ever had, though that probably had more to do with the restaurant than the egg itself. But i’ve never seen egg even offered as an ingredient over here.
[QUOTE=Mindfield]
I heard about this years back. It frightens me.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve tried it. Surprisingly nice. Basically a deep-fried calzone. But only once, I think.
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
I’ve tried it. Surprisingly nice. Basically a deep-fried calzone. But only once, I think.
[/QUOTE]
Over here, a deep-fried calzone is called panzarotti. But there, only the outside gets deep fried, which is perfectly understandable. An open-face pizza dunked in a vat of hot oil, though? There’s just something about that which strikes me as just wrong.
Yeah, I think even I would draw the line at that.
Yeah! Salami is what we call Pepperoni over here.
I absolutely love Pepperoni Pizza, so I was pretty upset. I mean, Germany is right next to Italy, right? Of all things, how goddamned hard could it be? Hadn’t I in turn, learned words like SuperPlus Bleifrei and Hefe Weissen? Luckily I had a friendly “host family” to explain some of the differences between Europe and the US. I tried to explain some of the American traditions - i.e. how at the first sign of good weather in the US lots of people take time out for Spring Cleaning, which caused my friends a good belly laugh because I was using the word for “spring”. Silly Americans.
[QUOTE=Struan]
Is it all just the white sort in Australia?
[/quote]
Australian cheddar tends to be just a touch yellower than the white end of the spectrum over your way. But it is all pretty much the same colour
I was never brave enough to try the pizza…
On the subject of food … I spent rather a long time after I got back here jonesing for a Scotch Pie with brown sauce. Then I went back for a visit and had one - and suddenly it repulsed me! Apparently after spending a long time out of sub-zero temperatures I lost my taste for deep-fried fat with extra fat. Sure was nice when I was a student living in a badly-heated flat though…
Much thinner than soft-drink bottles over here. Thin enough so that after they were opened you had to be careful about picking them up, least the milk squirt up through the top over everything
[QUOTE=alphaboi867]
Oh, then there’s the ketchup packets 
.
[/QUOTE]
I have no idea what’s with the ketchup packets you mentioned, but that reminded me that I was very surprised in Italy that there is a modest charge for the little packets of ketchup and other condiments at fast food type places. In the US, they’re free* – either they are out on the counter to take, or the cashier will ask if you want some.
*I’m sure the fast food places know exactly how much they cost and mark up the food items accordingly to compensate.
Oh, and boxed milk in Europe – sealed boxes of milk kept at room temperature until they’re opened. I know these are available in the US (like for camping and such), but it’s really not very common at all. I never knew I had a “thing” about milk, but it turns out I had to work hard to get over my aversion to the concept of room temperature milk – even after I put the box in the fridge, the fact that I knew it had recently been room temp was off-putting.
[QUOTE=Autolycus]
In Japan, they sell beer in vending machines. As much as I’d love to see that in America, I doubt it would go over well.
[/QUOTE]
In Japan, it seems that *anything *drinkable is sold in vending machines. Even hot tea with milk and sugar. In a can from a vending machine. Really.
My most memorable:
In Japanese restaurants, you have to walk through the urinal to get to the stalls - in unisex toilets. I so did not like walking past a man peeing!
Urinals in private homes (Japan)
No footpaths/sidewalks in vast tracts of the US.
Tipping and tax not included in the tag price - arrrgh (US)
Friends being scared for my safety when using public transport in California
No nappies, just hole in pants (many Asian countries - but not Japan)
People who push and don’t queue (many countries)
Spittoons in hospitals (China)
No spitting signs in Temples (China etc)
Doggy bags as normal part of restaurant behaviour (US)
Aisles of processed food in supermarkets making it hard to pick out anything of nutritional value (US)
Paying tolls for using roads (US, Japan and Australia)
Unregistered “taxis” (expected them in developing countries, but surprised to see them in Longon!)
You want mundane differences?
In England, when disconnecting an electrical item from the wall, we would say we ‘unplug’ it. In Ireland they say ‘plug out’. Yet for the reverse, both countries say ‘plug in’.
Broad generalisation but generally true: in the UK, the Indian restaurants are great but most Chinese food isn’t all that good, except as cheap takeaway rubbish. In the US, it’s the other way around.
In England, post gets delivered on every day except Sunday. In Sweden, there’s no delivery on Saturday or Sunday.
In Italy, if you want to buy a bus ticket you (usually) have to go to the nearest tobacconist. English people find this a bit weird, because we can’t see any link between selling tobacco and bus tickets. But Italians visiting England think it’s weird that if we want to take a (pre-digital era) camera film somewhere to have it developed, we go to a chemist (pharmacy). They go to… a photographic store. They can’t see any link between a chemist and photographic services.
US: town planners understand that where there are shops and theatres and suchlike, people will need places to park their cars. Here in the UK, there are countless shops and malls that are rendered impossible to reach by car, because of all the no parking / no stopping zones and similar restrictions, all enforced with draconian zeal. There are also businesses that simply have to give up because there is nowhere for potential customers to park, for miles and miles around.
Mixer taps. Almost ubiquitous in Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia. Almost unheard of in the UK, at least until a few years ago. Now the idea that they make good sense is slowly gaining acceptance.
In Indonesia, a ‘shower’ is almost always just one tap, for cold water. Europeans expect a hot tap as well. This sounds daft to Indonesians. They understand you might want to take a shower to cool down, but that’s all.
Place where you go to buy bottles of beer to drink at home. UK: off licence or ‘offie’. US: liquor store. Australia: bottle shop. Sweden: all owned by the state.
Chewing gum. Banned in Singapore. It’s an illegal substance.
And there’s plenty more where those came from. But it’s late and I’m tired.
[QUOTE=ianzin]
…Place where you go to buy bottles of beer to drink at home. UK: off licence or ‘offie’. US: liquor store. Australia: bottle shop. Sweden: all owned by the state…
[/QUOTE]
(bolding mine)
That’s also true of parts of the US (namely Pennsylvania). I’ve had to explain customers from both overseas and out of state that “No, we do we not sell beer, you need to go across the street, but they won’t sell you anything smaller than a case/keg” , “If you want wine or liquor keep going north for five minutes”, or “It doesn’t matter anyway, it’s after five and everyplace is closed”.
[QUOTE=ianzin]
In Sweden, there’s no delivery on Saturday or Sunday.
[/quote]
Same in Canada. I always find it a little unusual to hear my American wife say that something we mailed to her family in the US would likely be delivered on Saturday.
[QUOTE=ianzin]
In Italy, if you want to buy a bus ticket you (usually) have to go to the nearest tobacconist.
[/QUOTE]
As you had to for salt, too (am I right in thinking that they finally got rid of this state monopoly?)
[QUOTE=RickJay]
I’ve actually found that in parts of the US, Americans simply don’t understand you if you ask where the “bathroom” or “washroom” is. This seems particularly prevalent in the Southwest.
[/QUOTE]
They don’t understand me, period. I didn’t think I had THAT thick an accent. My husband says I enunciate too clearly. 
Buying booze, well, anywhere in the U.S. Booze is not sold anywhere except liquor stores in Western Canada (used to be only sold in government stores; we’ve loosened up since then).
The French find it funny (and convenient) that you can buy smokes at the pharmacy in the U.S. I guess it is kind of ironic when you think about it.
Also, on a road trip my French friend mentioned he felt very “American” because he treated himself to a Coke to drink in the car. Come to think of it I used to have an older Bimmer that didn’t have cupholders. So drinks in cars might not be done much in Europe.
An older one, dealing withy CDNs going into the north west USA.
Serviettes are the things you ask a waitress for and wipe your mouth with.
Napkins are women’s sanitary supplies
Regards
FML
[QUOTE=delphica]
I have no idea what’s with the ketchup packets you mentioned, but that reminded me that I was very surprised in Italy that there is a modest charge for the little packets of ketchup and other condiments at fast food type places. In the US, they’re free* – either they are out on the counter to take, or the cashier will ask if you want some.
*I’m sure the fast food places know exactly how much they cost and mark up the food items accordingly to compensate.
Oh, and boxed milk in Europe – sealed boxes of milk kept at room temperature until they’re opened. I know these are available in the US (like for camping and such), but it’s really not very common at all. I never knew I had a “thing” about milk, but it turns out I had to work hard to get over my aversion to the concept of room temperature milk – even after I put the box in the fridge, the fact that I knew it had recently been room temp was off-putting.
[/QUOTE]
Tomato Sauce (which is what they call Ketchup here) comes in packets that crack in half and get squeezed that way, rather than the normal tear the top off kind you’d see in the US.
And they charge per packet here in most shops, too.
Boxed milk (long life milk) is common in Australia, but I’ve never had any. I think it’s mostly people who live Way Out There who use’em, but I have no idea.
Cheers,
G