When I moved from the west coast of Canada to the east coast, I was surprised how different the clouds and the sunrise looked. There are like, a lot more fluffy clouds, and the sunsets are more vivid across the entire sky.

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

Stores are open on Sundays
Surprises me every time

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

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.

'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?

Stopped drinking almost entirely, because moving also meant finding new friends (who prefer other activities than drinking).

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.

Just a shot in the dark, you originally from Bergen County, New Jersey?

You should move to the Nordics, maybe Lappland? :D

Wait what?

When we moved into a new house some years ago, there were only rabbits and no squirrels. The squirrels have since moved in.

That I need the same amount of time to the big city.

Distance to the city:
18 km -> 10 km
Time to the city by train:
19 min -> 12 min
Time to train station:
3 min -> 10 min

I didn't expect the trees to scream at me

Since physical places wasn’t specified, how much nicer the threadiverse (Lemmy) is compared to Reddit, way less toxic from my experience.

Surely not everyday. Just every day, right?

Nah. He woulda mentioned having to pump his own gas too.

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.

Summer cicadas?

East coast: "Pineapple on pizza is an abomination!"

West coast: "Corn and avocado pizza, a fine choice!"

Water bills. Moved from Williamsbrg, VA less than 10 miles down to the next city down, Newport News, and water went from like $30/mo to $100/mo (water+sewer+trash in aparment in both cases). Googling and it's apparently normal. Yeesh.

Yup.

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.

https://climate.copernicus.eu/why-are-europe-and-arctic-heating-faster-rest-world

Germany, where Sonntag ist Ruhetag

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.

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.

South, northeast and midwest of the USA

Which country has such fabulous rabbit and squirrel populated houses?

The amount of US defaultism on lemmy saddens me. I thought I had mostly left that behind on reddit those years ago.

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 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 :)

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.

Which is hilarious, because I’ve been to Cologne many times and know it’s the gay capital of the country :)

True, although I would hope you would expect that leaving the state

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.

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.

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?)

Colder than Edmonton :?

I walk a lot more now that the nearest store is across the street and not 3 miles away.

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

you are getting sneers and glares from NorthEast USA because we hate fake pleasantries/smiles and southern nazis.

Single digits in Celsius though, right?

Does it even still get to more than -12c/9f in the skiing towns over there?

Many people don't make eye contact any longer. Things have changed.

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

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.