Losing my job. I moved closer to work. (That wasnt the goal. It was just coincidental)
Went living in a small village at 1000m altitude. Despite it’s colder here, I no longer cough for months around winter.
My relationship, bought a new house sold our old one and now it seems its slowly falling apart
When I moved from middle Connecticut to San Diego all the good Italian food was gone, yes there was sushi but no good Chinese takeout and holy shit forget about pizza. Cali pizza is nothing like CT pizza and I hated it. Don’t even get me started on the mutant pile of stuff PA calls pizza.
There are a few good pizza places in San Diego, but not many. Bronx Pizza on Washington Street in Hillcrest is with trying if you haven’t yet.
South to Midwest USA - the thunderstorms are less frequent, but way more violent. Also, cheese curds.
In the words of the great poet: wherever you go, there you are.
There are some things that can change. Some thigns can be measurably worse or better just based on various aspects of the place. However, if you’re running from something, and that something is mostly or all you, nothing will have sustained improvement until you fix the ‘you’ part of that equation.
I moved around the US and later moved to Japan. I learnt this lesson the hard way. While moving to a place that fixed some things I hated about my life, the problems that were caused to me by me weren’t helped until I worked on that part; it’s still a work in progress.
Stores are open on Sundays
Surprises me every timeJust a shot in the dark, you originally from Bergen County, New Jersey?
Germany, where Sonntag ist Ruhetag
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’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.
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?)
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 :)
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.
True, I guess I counted Christian traditions as being Christian
Which is hilarious, because I’ve been to Cologne many times and know it’s the gay capital of the country :)
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.
Nah. He woulda mentioned having to pump his own gas too.
True, although I would hope you would expect that leaving the state
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.
Dont use insulation??
There are minimum standards…now. That builders and developers were dragged kicking and screaming to (“just throw another reverse cycle aircon on mate, she’ll be right”).
I’ve never lived in an insulated house. I’ve never lived more south than the subtropics and the coldest a house had been inside is 6 degrees C with a floor surface probably lower than that. The people down south have probably suffered more than me in some homes.
I’ve lived in Warrnambool and Ballarat. I can confirm first hand that air temperatures inside the house have reached 4C, and I could see my breath 😭
Yeesh. You win.
What was house constructed from? Outside temp?
I don’t know. It wasn’t a very old house, I think it was built in 2005, and I lived in it from 2022-2025. I just know it was frigid and consistently colder inside than it was outside in winters 🥲
Single digits in Celsius though, right?
Does it even still get to more than -12c/9f in the skiing towns over there?
Yes, Celcius. I haven’t gone to any of the ski fields here, so I actually don’t know. Haven’t been paying attention.
Colder than Edmonton :?
Outdoors, I can deal with the -40C in low humidity no problem. In Australia (south/southwest), it feels so much colder. Maybe it’s because you can’t escape the cold unless you want to empty your wallet on heating bills (really expensive here). You put on your layers before you even get out of bed. :(
Sounds like youre in a poorly insulated dwelling. By comparison, I’m in a 14 year old apartment in Melbourne and hardly needed the heater this winter. Its got a heat pump air con / heater so heating / cooling not expensive
Might be. I’ve lived in a house in Warrnambool and a house in Ballarat, so no neighbours above, below or beside to help keep my unit consistent like I did in Edmonton.
I’m also not a builder or any tradie, so I’m not sure what the houses are really made of. I just know the noticeable differences between how I felt in houses and apartments in Canada vs houses in south/southwest Victoria.
I did live in an apartment in Preston for a short stint, and didn’t use heating or cooling at all. It was lovely, sans the meth heads upstairs.
If youre renting in regional areas, they probably have no interest in making it energy efficient as they probably think that’s “woke”. Speak to your agent about insulation at the very least.
Surely not everyday. Just every day, right?
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
Wait what?
You should move to the Nordics, maybe Lappland? :D
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.
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.
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.
Stopped drinking almost entirely, because moving also meant finding new friends (who prefer other activities than drinking).
Since physical places wasn’t specified, how much nicer the threadiverse (Lemmy) is compared to Reddit, way less toxic from my experience.
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.
you are getting sneers and glares from NorthEast USA because we hate fake pleasantries/smiles and southern nazis.
Yeah people in the NE aren’t rude, they just don’t care to pretend when it comes to that kind of bullshit
Many people don’t make eye contact any longer. Things have changed.
Here in NM, out on my walks around the neighborhood every day, I say either “good morning” or “hello” to everyone I pass, which varies from one to perhaps ten people per walk, 99% respond in same. It’s not fake, it’s just common courtesy to acknowledge other people. I see about half of them every day, and I know of two regulars who won’t respond, so I don’t say anything to them.
There was one guy who enthusiastically said “good morning!” every time for a couple of years, we even stopped and chatted briefly a couple of times. I didn’t see him for an entire summer, then when I saw him again he wouldn’t say hello. Then he started saying hello again, on his own. I don’t push. Some people have a lot going on.
I don’t know about “heavy eye contact is a challenge”. At about 15 feet apart, walking toward each other look to make brief eye contact and say “good morning”. By the time you’ve said the words, they’re nearly past you, and they either respond or don’t. That’s all there is to it.
If I had friends who responded to a smile and a wave with a sneer, I think we wouldn’t be friends for long.
My experience is in CO specifically and may depend on a lot more than my location. Just generalizing to try to meet the spirit of the question / story flow.
A good friend of mine who went on a similar nomadic journey settled in NM and said similar great things about it. I wish I could remember which city… one of the biggest ones?
South, northeast and midwest of the USA
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
The amount of US defaultism on lemmy saddens me. I thought I had mostly left that behind on reddit those years ago.
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.
That annoys me when cars clearly have the right of way or stop before I’m even close to crossing the road. They could be already past by the time I get there, but they stop anyway. If you keep driving and I keep walking nobody will disturb the other.
Yeah, I’m a little torn between both sides. It can be more efficient when cars take the right of way, but pedestrian safety is absolutely more important than efficiency.
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
