28 May 2016

5 random differences between my host and home country


Salut!
Before I get to writing another diary entry I just had a quick post idea: today you can read about five random differences between Belgium and the Czech Republic that passed through my head. It of course doesn't have to be true about all Czechs and all Belgians, but this is what I experienced in my surroundings. They aren't in any order, I just put them in the article like that. So let's get on it!


Cinema tickets
When I went to the cinema for the first time in Belgium, I was very surprised wen my host mom asked me to go there 45 minutes in advance. I discovered that in Belgium you can't actually buy tickets for a certain place which is an absolute must in the Czech republic. That's why I always need to go to the cinema earlier (once I was 40 minutes in advance and I caught the previous movie, ahah :D).

Credit cards
Maybe I just never noticed it before, but I feel like in Belgium much ore teenagers have credit cards. In my town it's almost everyone, but that's because of the huge shopping centre two minutes from my house. I think it's realy useful to have a credit card, but it's hard to always know how much money you have. You also tend to not value it so much I think.

Snacks
It would be better to write "no snacks" because Belgians don't do snacks that much. They'll probably eat at 4 pm, but between breakfast and lunch they just keep starving. I also noticed they eat more ther times a day, but their snacks are smaller. I tend to eat all the time, but just in small quantities which doesn't quite work at school because there are no breaks.

Plastic
I have no ida how this works in other countries, but this is the Belgian systhem: when you throw away something from plastic and it isn't a plastic bottle, you just put it in the normal dust bin and that's it. In Czech Republic however, you throw everything from plastic in the yellow container. Seem legit, right? (I also just remembered that container for plastic is yellow in the Czech Republic and blue in Belgium and paper is the other way round which seems very confusing to me).

Clothing
Of course there's no big differences i.e. kimonos or school uniforms, but people there and here dress up differently for the weather conditions. Belgians basically wear the sam ethings all the year long whatever the temperature and weather is (jeans, sneakers/converse, leather/jean jacket, sweatshirt and a t-shirt) while Czechs adapt their clothing to the weather (skirts in summer, jeans in winter). I even saw several Belgian people in 3/4 strousers and converse and denim jacket when it was snowing... Seriousely?

Have you ever noticed some differences in everdyday lives of foreigners?
Maeky

2 comments:

  1. Thanks, this post is nice, because it's kind of stuff one doesn't notice unless staying somewhere for a longer time.

    Handling of sorted waste indeed differs among countries slightly for sure - you might probably know that e.g. Germans have containers for packaging rather than for plastic; as an example, you put there plastic bottles and bags as well as aluminium cans, but e.g. not a plastic toy (that should go into unsorted waste). In the Czech Republic, one should consider whether the plastic is recyclable (usually marked with one of the corresponding marks), or not. Most people don't really care to check it, though. Fortunately, most plastic is recyclable these days, so it doesn't matter much.

    Regarding your note about no breaks at school - how does it work then? I mean - people usually cannot stay focused for longer than 90 minutes at most and need at least a short break afterwards (not even mentioning other reasons for breaks ;-) ). Or did you mean just that there are no breaks longer than e.g. 5 minutes?

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    1. Basically you have two lessons (8:35 - 9:25 and 9:25 - 10:15) and then there is a 20 minutes break. After that there is two another lessons (10:35 - 11:25 and 11:25 - 12:15) and then the lunch break, for one hour. In the aftrenoon there can be up to four lessons without breaks. If you need to change classrooms, you do, but otherwise the teachers usually don't d breaks. Everything needs to be done before or after the classes. And yes, it can be really annoying at times.

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